So here I was the other day cleaning my basement out...

Every so often, in order to move around in my basement, I have to take out the shovel and shovel out the "stuff" that we no longer need nor use. Now usually that consists of old boxes, too small or worn out clothes, old newspapers and so forth. This time, however, I decided to get a little adventurous and go on an archaeological dig into the shelves under the stairs and clear out stuff I hadn't seen for a good decade. I had no idea what I was going to find but what the heck... I thought that maybe I could find something of value to sell on eBay.

So here I was in my archaeologist blue jeans and t-shirt along with a beer for sustenance hoping to get lucky... well, not THAT lucky!

Choosing to work my way from top to bottom, I climbed up to the upper most shelf and pulled down an old binder of some sorts wrapped up in a padded envelope. Dusting off the envelope, I proceeded to tear it open and pull out what I thought was going to be an old high school binder when to my surprise what I actually discovered was my old stamp album I didn't even know I had anymore.

Back when I was just a lad of about eight years old, I, like many other boys and girls collected stamps. Nowadays, stamp collecting is not as popular as it once was and therefore, it doesn't even occur to boys and girls how fascinating this hobby could be.

I remember my weekend trips down to the local stamp collector and spending some of my hard earned money for that special stamp. I collected mostly Canadian, British, Indian, Australian and American stamps as these were the countries that most of our friends and relatives came from. I did, however, collect from many other countries as well.

Around the age of 16 when I was heavily into girls sports, my interest for stamp collecting waned but my desire to preserve my collection did not. As a result, I now still have a piece of my childhood with me to pass on to my children or future grandchildren one day. This stamp collection of mine will always be a good part of my memories and will continue to do so.

While flipping through the pages, I came across one of my favorite Canadian stamps and immediately thought of Josie and her interest in artists and paintings and I am sure that if you ask her as to who painted the picture on the stamp she would immediately tell you that it was Tom Thompson from the Group of Seven. I also came across an appropriate "LGS" Malaysian stamp while looking around on the net and wouldn't you know it... it is of a flying squirrel! So Lone Grey Squirrel, "this one's for you!"

So now that I have made this “discovery of historical proportions,” I have decided to not sell it on eBay but instead place it back into the envelope from whence it came, place it back on the uppermost shelf and save it for a rainy day when my future grandchildren come over for a visit. Come to think of it, maybe they won't even know what stamps are by then! Who knows!

Only time will tell.