
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, September 1, 1995                   TAG: 9509010037
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

STAMPS

SAY WHAT you will about poky mail delivery, the U.S. Postal Service has a lot to offer. For example, it harbors a veritable art gallery.

Visit any post office and you'll find, among other delights:

Still lifes (flowers, fruits);

Portraits (Marilyn Monroe);

Caricatures (Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino, Clara Bow);

Historic photos (the black buffalo soldiers of the post-Civil War American West);

Colorful renditions of carousel horses.

Elvis no longer can be spotted, but they still have him behind the counter in booklet form for philatelists and late-comer fans.

The offerings are postage stamps, of course - many of them commemorating significant events such as World War II - and well worth the pennies required to buy at least one of each.

The latest in the collection is a beauty - a collage in brilliant hues celebrating the 75th anniversary of women's suffrage. Appreciation is not for women only.

Devotees of the fax machine and e-mail may renounce the postal service as a dinosaur whose bones should be left to rot. But if they don't occasionally get a letter (for those of you unfamiliar with the form, this is a piece of paper on which someone writes to you; it comes in an envelope; recipients occasionally write back), they'll miss a mini-feast for the eyes.

by CNB