Kuriosities

I am in postal, letter history heaven! I have been spending so much time reading people’s letters, that I did not give too much thought to the history of letters, stamps etc. But what a fanciful goldmine this site is! US National Postal Museum  

For instance, have you ever heard about the postal dog Owney??? A little dog who showed up at a post office in Albany one day and fell asleep on the mailbags. He fell in love with the mail, and rode the railway with the mailbags, back and forth, for almost a decade. He would come home to the Albany post office with his collar heavy with tags that people would put on it at each stop of his travels. He came to a mysterious end, when he was shot… but the whole story of why he was shot is not known… Can you get any more romantic an image than a railway hopping terrier? A more poetic doggie life? I want an Owney to come visit me. Oh, the tags that I would make his sweet puppy self!