STAMP COLLECTING - THE FORGOTTEN HOBBY

      So tonight I decided to create ephemeras out of my stamp collection that has been sitting in my closet for the longest.  I haven't touched it or even looked at it in so long because I knew that it would be an inundating task.  So now that I am semi-retired/actively creating pretty art, I thought well maybe it's time to go through them and actually organize them.  The best possible way to do so is to set it up so it would be in alpha order according to countries and maybe each one separated according to themes, maybe animals, events, flowers, etc. 

       Whew! I started with Bangladesh.  It wasn't too hard, I didn't have too much.  Then Hungary was next.  I wondered why the stamps said Magyar.  I've never heard of it. The curious fox that I am, I looked it up and it led me straight to Hungary.  Yikes, I had so much.  There were stamps in there that had the Olympic theme.  Well, I heard of the olympics being in Hungary, but it dawned on me.  Stamp collecting was a dying hobby.  However, I wondered why? 

    Looking at these stamps, I now understand what I didn't before.  People collected stamps because it really does tell a lot about the history of the country.  What happened in that year, the important events like the Olympics, pretty much their claim to fame at the time.  I didn't understand it before today because no one I knew collected stamps.

     I remembered as a child I used to collect stamps. But of course since I was in the confines of the small country of the Philippines, the most exciting ones were the ones from America.  I also had a pen pal in Israel and as much as I looked forward to his letters, I equally looked forward to the stamps as well to add to my collection.  I don't know where the collection is! 

    The point is, stamp collecting should really be brought back, maybe suggested by teachers to their students?  Maybe they can do a pen pal type thing, get in touch with kids at another random school in Malta or something.  The possibilities are endless.  Just saying, maybe if this generation could mimic our generation, perhaps they would grow up in a better world and fantasizing about what is our there, the beauty of the world as we know it, instead of everyday life that they are subjected to in the confines of their homes, gaming and running the streets.  It would be nice to know that kids could grow up in a normal world like we did, excited over the simplest thing like stamp collecting.