There are many "firsts" in my life - as in anybody's! - and I have often wished that I had kept a journal so that I would know when each of these "firsts" occurred...
and why.
Most times, I don't remember the first time I met someone - even a special someone - I don't remember the first time I read a book, or saw a TV show, and so on.
I do remember why I first started collecting stamps, however.
My father, a retired military man, was a pilot for a cargo airline, and flew all around the world.
And from each location, he would send me a letter.
I saved the letters, of course, but my mom suggested I start a collection of all the cool-looking stamps from the envelopes, and so I did.
Being an unsophisticated child, what I did was to carefully cut the stamp off the envelope, leaving a bit of the envelope at the top.
I then would place scotch tape over this bit, taping the stamp onto a notebook page.
Oh, I was quite proud of those pages! One day, after my dad had returned from one of his trips, he asked me to show him my stamp collection, and I did so.
The next day, he took me out to a stamp shop and bought me a stamp album, hinges, and a pair of flat-edged tweezer! He also explained that I was supposed to soak the stamps in water until it was possible to remove them from the paper, let them dry, then apply the little hinges and place them in my stamp book.
Well, I loved that kind of detailed work, and so I spent several days transferring my collection into a real album.
As I was growing up, my interests were many and varied.
I was, frankly, interested in practically everything of an adventurous nature - marine and space exploration, mountain climbing, aviation, and so on, and so I decided to branch out in my stamp collecting, from stamps my dad had sent me, to "topicals.
" And my collecting really took off when the pesky little stamp hinge books were replaced by the delightful stockbooks which enabled me to simply slip my stamps into those little cellophane strips with ease! So now, thirty years later, I have several albums, each one dedicated to a certain topic.
Space exploration, marine exploration, aviation, Antarctica, paintings on stamp, theatrical performanes on stamps, and so on.
I even dabbled with first day covers at one time, after I met a friend who was trying to make a business out of it, but I confess I never really cared for it.
They were just too big and took up too much room! My stamp collection certainly isn't worth anything.
I put a few hundred dollars into it over the years, but the joy it has given me, on a rainy Saturday one a month or so, when I'd relax in an armchair and go through those books, is priceless.
The joy actually is many-layered.
First it's the joy of looking at small, beautiful things - miniature masterpieces, as I call them.
Then, it's a kind of nostalgia - I can remember where and when I bought each stamp (I kept records), and that remembrance takes me back to that year ...
all of a sudden, as I'm sitting there, I'm young again with the world and my goals before me! And finally, of course, there's just the gentle of remembering my father, and the pleasures of collecting (not only stamps but also foreign currency!) to which he had introduced me.