My Hometown

(actual size 2.5" x 4" )

There have been quite a few 'My Hometown' postals and LTC swaps. Here is a stamp I carved for a postal ring...gosh, did I host that one? I can't remember now... lol!

Anyway, the image on the stamp is one from my childhood. The roller skating rink featured, which was painted in mustard yellow, no longer stands. It was replaced by a strip mall, which was then torn down in favor of a more modern strip mall. Isn't that the way of progress?

I remember having a birthday party in that skating rink oh-so-long-ago. It was the most stupid design, though. You had to go up stairs, a couple of flights, I think, to get to the rink. Oh yeah, that meets safety code - haha! Anyway, it was an old-style rink with the real organ and the white soda-fountain-type chairs and tables - very vintage.

My mom remembers a carnival-type place being there prior to the skating rink; the fountain-looking thing in the plaza, she said, was the base for a carousel. I remember a 'German store' tucked in the corner of the plaza. Having German heritage, I well remember going in the German store, smelling the deli counter meats, hearing the ladies speaking German behind the counter and getting chocolate as a treat.

Well, it doesn't look like that anymore, that's for sure. In fact, instead of a German store, you will find an Asian market and you will definitely hear different languages in Federal Way, but probably not German. More likely Spanish and Russian! How things change, eh?