<\/p>\n
Henry Polatsek,<\/strong> <\/span>an elderly man in my neighborhood, gave me postage stamps. My first stamp was the 4-cent Wisconsin Worker\u2019s Compensation\u00a0(1961). Mr. Polatsek also periodically visited my elementary school and passed out stamps to all the kids. He once took me to a stamp show at the Manger Hotel. The show was just old guys and me.<\/p>\n I ran into Mr. Polatsek years later — when I was in my 20s — and asked him about his collection. He said it had been stolen. \u201cNow I only collect pictures of my grandchildren,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n My mother sent stamps to me when I went off to college. I told her to stop. She sent me W.C. Handy (1968) and Leif Erikson (1968). It was embarrassing — a hip college kid getting collectibles from his mom.<\/p>\n I gave<\/strong><\/span> up stamp collecting. Still, I like the idea of stamps, and I use them.<\/p>\n Alfred F. Stern.<\/span> He was a stamp dealer on Superior Road, Cleveland Heights. I went to his apartment. He had all the American stamps, plus Israeli, U.N. and new countries. I got the first stamps from Malaysia. I still have a U.N. souvenir sheet. I got it for my Confirmation.<\/p>\n The U.N. and Israeli stamp markets crashed. I should use my 4-cent stamps for postage. I had a tenant who plastered her rent envelopes with low-denomination stamps. She was old and apparently a former stamp collector. <\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Yiddishe Cup plays a free outdoor concert next week — 6:30-8:30 pm Thurs., June 9.\u00a0It’s in the parking lot in back of Firestone, 12420 Cedar Rd., Cleveland Heights. Bring a chair.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Henry Polatsek, an elderly man in my neighborhood, gave me postage stamps. My first stamp was the 4-cent Wisconsin Worker\u2019s Compensation\u00a0(1961). Mr. Polatsek also periodically visited my elementary school and passed out stamps to all the kids. He once took me to a stamp show at the Manger Hotel. The show was just old guys […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coming-of-age"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29717"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29823,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29717\/revisions\/29823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}