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GRAVEL

22.  A clue something on the inside needs your attention is that it's disproportionately BIG. For me, this business with the 5000 stickers, which are slated to arrive later this afternoon, is WAY BIG, and that's absurd, on the face of it. It wasn't until yesterday that I remembered something I"d long since forgotten. Discovering the memory felt kind of like pulling a strip of Scotch tape off a package, and Boom! There's the memory. When I was a kid, I started collecting postage stamps. Not just postage stamps, but what were called "First Day of Issue" stamped envelopes. Essentially, you'd read the postage stamp hobbyist newsletters and magazines to find out the schedule for the release of commemorative U.S. Postage Stamps, each released a day or two early at exactly one post office in the United States. Then, kid that you were, you'd write a letter to that particular postmaster, along with a check to cover the costs and a self-addressed envelope, and on the appointed day (No cheating!), that postmaster would affix the new stamp on your envelope, postmark it "First Day of Issue," and drop it in the mail. So I had a first class collection of these things ... books full! That was enough for my mother, who confiscated the whole kit and caboodle and gave it away. She had this idea my mind was more important than any collection, and in her own way, she may be right. What she didn't understand, though, is that I might have grown through being a kid on my own, replacing a stamp collection with Balzac or something.