First a Philatelist... Later a God-Knows-What

Columnists Rick Nelson and Claude Peck talk about stamp collecting in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota Star Tribune.

Nelson says "philatelist" is a creepy word but then goes on to write, "My poor father. I used to beg him to drive me from our home in Dorkville to the big stamp collector expos at the old Leamington Hotel, and I'd spend hours at Dayton's stamp and coin department. It was a big day in my nerdacious little life when the post office would preview its annual Christmas stamp designs, and I was awfully proud of my first-day-of-issue portfolio."

Nelson adds, "The USPS, bless its democratic heart, has commemorated all kinds of gay Americans: Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Lorenz Hart, Andy Warhol, Thornton Wilder, Tennessee Williams, Grant Wood. I've always been crazy about the postal version of Robert Indiana's 'Love.' There's something nicely subversive about the thought of a gay artist's most iconic work stamped on the invitations to, say, Rush Limbaugh's third wedding."

Peck likes the new Eames stamps.

"Buying those stamps may be as close as I get to owning an original Eames chair."

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