You don’t have to be an Artist to enjoy or even feel the effects that art and the role it plays in our everyday lives and memories, serves on us. I’m not a stamp collector but when I went to the Post Office the other day and saw some stamps there called the: "Cowboys Of The Silver Screen" it immediately sent me back to my childhood days of living with my grandparents.

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They weren’t stamp collectors either but they did have some books and calendars throughout the house (and stored in the attic) as well as the ol’ Black & White TV that took several minutes to warm up when you turned it on.

But it was the colored prints from either advertising and in some cases toy packaging that set the time line in my memory that forever linked me to that certain and special time in my life. As I looked at these stamps I saw and could even remember the smell of those strange but special days of living with my grandparents. I distinctly remember at least three of these cowboys and who among us today could ever forget hearing about Roy Rogers?

My grandmother was always preaching about the "Hard Times" and would seldom allow anyone to hear or see her enjoy anything so trivial as a Movie Star or Stars but when I would ask her about Roy Rogers she would always remind me that he was married to "Dale Evans". She also liked Gene Autry "The Singing Cowboy" and while my grandfather watched even less TV than my grandmother did, he also liked Roy Rogers and Gene Autry.

We have all lost loved ones in our lives over the years. Close and distant friends and relatives. Often they are only acquaintances of others we may know better than the deceased. All are tough to deal with losing but some, like my Uncle, who has recently passed away, can generate an even deeper mourning. Sometimes it because we are closer to them but often it is because…

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… of the size of the role they played in our lives.

In the case of my Uncle, it isn’t because we were close…I did love him, but we hadn’t really seen much of each other over the last 15 years or so. No, this loss is especially rough because of his role and influence on my childhood, youth and early adult life.

They say: "You can never go back" and I guess to a large extent, that is true. Physically. But Spiritually and Mentally it is entirely possible. Such was the case just this past Saturday when I attended the wedding of my youngest daughter’s best friend, Jeanne Kifus Shaffer.

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Other than the fact that it was just a wedding from my old neighborhood and being held at my old family church, St Thomas Church in Footedale, PA I expected it to be just another wedding to attend.

Never mind that it was the same church that I grew up in and that my grandparent’s raised me and their children in, and that most of my cousins grew up in this same church as well. Or, that it was also the same church that Peggy and I were married in and spent half of our children’s lives attending.

Or…