Changing the Past

Do you ever wish you could change the past? Like take back a careless word spoken, or one rash decision that led to a bad outcome? I think we all know that feeling.

Do you ever wish you could change or take back the words or actions of others?? I think we all know this feeling, too.

I made a very fortunate purchase at an auction some time ago. Not a stamp auction, but a home auction, selling off everything inside a house. Near the end of many auctions, after the early boxes and the big-money items, there are usually boxes of leftovers that go really cheap. Sometimes they just start throwing boxes together for a dollar, just to finish the sale.

Actually it was my father, not me. He had noticed some stamps in a box – just piles of cancelled stuff, nothing apparently valuable, just thrown in a box with no organization. Under my earlier instructions, he made a low bid for it and got it. Once home, the treasures were revealed – many complete sheets of stamps, perfect for the collection. There were also many plate blocks but, sadly, they had been stored together in a stacked position and were stuck together.

Some were OK. On someone’s advice, I put the others in the freezer and was later able to salvage a few more without damage. The rest remain in the freezer. Indeed, I wish I could have had that former collector separate each sheet and plate block with plastic wrap, in plasticine, anything.

But I felt the above feeling, that wish that I could undo certain choices of others, more keenly with one strange notebook. Some young woman in small-town Nebraska had taken to collecting stamps and she had a good range of US and world from the 1950s. Unfortunately, she glued or pasted most of them on the pages of a spiral notebook. That’s what I really wish I could change.

I took out a random page and tried to soak them off. Absolutely no luck. I was disappointed but tried again a couple days later. Success – or partial success. Maybe she used a different type of glue or paste. Anyway, many of them fell off the page with a light shake. Most of the rest I could easily soak off, and I lost a few to thinning.

I am doing a page or two a day right now. So far, they have all been in the middle of the two above patterns – none fall off easily, most come off with soaking but have some glue / paste left on the back of the stamp. Maybe not even worth my effort, but I don’t like to quit things once I have started.

If I had a time machine, I would go back and talk to that young woman, praise her enthusiasm for collecting, but ask her to store them better.

She could never imagine that I would end up with her stamps. I wonder who will end up with mine??