I just got a dues notice for one of the groups I belong to, and I was shocked to see that they are DOUBLING their membership dues for 2010. 

I just can't handle that.  If I was still working, I might be able to afford it, although I would still grumble.

We need to remember that not everyone is knocking down $100K a year, and many of us are on social security or long-term disability.  Our disposable income is very easy to dispose of, and I can't afford a doubling of dues.

I know that postage costs have skyrocketed, but there are other options. 

The Universal Ship Cancellation Society has the right idea.  They have a membership option where you can belong via web only.  You get the USCS LOG by email, and it is in PDF format.  Membership is less than half what it would be if they had to mail it to you.  I applaud them for so doing.

Another option might be what the original editor of the Pacific Island Bulletin did in the early '80s. Members provided him with legal size SASE's and since the bulletin was probably 4-6 pages at most, he would mail it to you inside the envelope you provided, therefore no need for him to charge $20 a year to "belong."

My forays over the Four States have shown me many beautiful post offices, a lot of them dating from the WPA era. They are splenderous and hold many delights for one who appreciates the architecture of the time. Things were built to last, and indeed they have.

My grandfather, Ardro, helped build the Memorial Hall in Carthage, Missouri and it is a splendid example of the kinds of public service projects that highlighted the Works Progress Administration.  Many of the older post offices in the immediate area were also built in the WPA era, and that kind of beauty cannot (or would not) be built today. Most post offices I see today consist of refurbished businesses built for another purpose,  sheet metal buildings, old storefronts or trailer houses converted for business. It is a real treat to see a solid old walk-up post office such as the ones in Carthage, Webb City or Neosho.  Carthage marble was used in the construction of most of them-it was close and relatively cheap, and best of all, it stands up to time. I love the polished marble on the inside and the real wooden fixtures. Tables to sit at even, and finish your correspondence! Can you imagine that today? It'd never happen. 

Post offices in Kansas and Oklahoma I have been to have murals inside depicting local themes, and they are wonderful.

I have mentioned in my post to the Mailer's Postmark Permit group that my wife (and I, by extension and association) is an Ambassador for Maker's Mark, the esteemed Kentucky bourbon.  We offered to nominate MPP group members as Ambassadors so they could receive special mailings from Maker's Mark.  By authority of Bill Samuels, Jr. Ambassador at Large, she today received a mailing containing hand-picked select information about her private batch of Maker's Mark- which is now in the barrel stage.  We had a whole mailbox full of mail today, necessitating the carriage of it all in a sack (pouch) I had in the car. (Our box is about a block away from our door)

Thus, without much thought at the time, I delivered the aforesaid mail to my wife, addressed to her as the Ambassador she is... and later realized, as courier #1 of Spring River Local Post, I had just delivered the mail via "diplomatic pouch!"  A shame I didn't have any safe-hand markings to attest to its special carriage.

Nevertheless, our offer to you still stands. We would be happy to nominate you as a Maker's Mark "Ambassador", with all the benefits thereto; specifically 1) Mailer's Postmark Permits from Loretto, KY  2) Chance to get in on your own private batch, and 3) all kinds of neat mailings and stationery and certificates with red seals attached!  A lot of fun, indeed.

Bonnie and Clyde gain new attention 75 years after their death in a gun battle with the law? 

Well, not sure how to make a cover idea out of this, but I'll work on it. Maybe covers that are actually carried onto the property where they spent some time back in '33?  and then hand postmarked at Southtown station, which is about 2 blocks away?

Local news reports that the owner of a local apartment found out his property on Oak Ridge Drive (64804) has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. It had been nominated in February by the Missouri Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.  Back in 1933, Bonnie and Clyde spent several weeks living in Joplin, which in a way, ultimately led to their downfall. They robbed a few joints here and there, and also found time for some horsing around; two young lovers hugging and kissing, taking pics and enjoying a good cigar here and there.

They lived in a garage apartment in South Joplin, the kind that has a garage downstairs where they could park their rig for a quick getaway.  The cops tracked them down after some robberies and they had to escape in a hail of gunfire in which two local officers were killed.

In all the items that got left behind, a roll of undeveloped photographic film was found and was developed by local newspaper, The Joplin Globe. The Globe's single-minded interest in crime goes way back; locals are known to jokingly call them the "Southwest Missouri Police Gazette," since it often seems their primary content and focus is about crime stories; who did what, etc., printing basically whatever the agency news release states as far as the official government version of the offense, it will end up in print.  This goes way beyond blotters, you can probably call this an inordinate interest in crime. It results in accused defendants having their case tried in the press and overall, the attention on crime stories distorts reality and creates an image that crime is out of control, -- which is exactly what those in power want you to think; it results in the passing of more and more oppressive laws in an-eager-to-stop-crime-post-911 era. (All the removals of personal liberties, etc. rendered in the name of our own protection, mind you.)

Anyway, the pics that many of us have seen of Bonnie and Clyde, with her smoking a cigar and holding a Thompson 45 sub-machine gun, with her foot up on a fender, etc. --  they were on that roll of film, found right here in Joplin.  Up until then, no one in authority had really seen a full-face frontal picture of Bonnie and Clyde and banks didn't have video cams back then.  When the pics went out on the AP news photo "wire", which was a fairly new thing back then, law enforcement everywhere soon had a perfect pic of the pair, and it wasn't long until they met their downfall in a sheet of lead, betrayed by one of their own.

I'm not one to romanticize criminals, but the folk lure of Bonnie and Clyde still lingers around here. Just like with today's mortgage and financial bailout mess, people were not real happy with banks back in the early 1930s. Not a lot of tears got shed by the circumstance of Bonnie and Clyde having robbed the banks.  What comes around goes around, they say.

Anyway, this is a blog entry a bit off the path, of just stamps and covers, but hopefully one you find interesting.

The other evening, after regular business hours for the USPS, I was dropping off some mail inside the main post office when a young lady in her twenties came in, bearing the frazzled look of a young mother on her way home from work, had a handful of bills, and whose day was nowhere near finished. She was looking all around, and finally approached the portly gentleman at the mail chute....(me), asking "Don't they have any stamp machines?

"No, Ma'am." I answered. "This is the post office. You must be remembering back to when you were a young child and you maybe came in here with your mom, and she bought stamps from the machine. No, if you want stamps, you'll have to go to a grocery store service desk or to your bank ATM."  With a puzzled look on her face, she went on her way, as if the line of thinking that a post office should sell stamps did not really seem like that absurd of a thought to her.

Truthfully, I'm not sure I really understand it either.  Was there really that much vandalism? Or did they just not want to mess with it- the customer service aspect? I remember when you could insert certain combinations of change, get a regular stamp, and the remainder still due to you, would cause the machine to spit you out a coil of one cent stamps, and it almost seemed as if I had won the jackpot in Vegas.  I looked down to see the stamps coiling up around my feet, and they kept rolling out when I would put in more coins and repeat the process.  Such a simple delight that our youngsters today will not get to enjoy...  when again would happiness be purchased so cheaply?