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.

Now, these stamps are modern day paintings of the old stars but it is obvious that when Stamp artist, Robert Rodriguez of Los Angeles, CA, who created the artwork under the direction of art director Carl Herrman of North Las Vegas, NV it was to replicate that "Old Timey" look that was so dominant back in the day.

The days when anything worth doing was worth doing right or as if it would last forever. These paintings were of the same style that often appeared in everything from cheap monthly magazines to our children’s books in school. A school that was not only permitted to speak about God but encouraged us to do so as well.

Oh, and let’s not forget the overwhelming point that was nearly always made to impress upon the viewers of movies and television in those days…that the "White-Hat" was the color of choice for the "Good Guy"!

Yeah, I know that we all enjoy more realism today and that movies today are more accurate of everyday life. But when I was an innocent 5 year old living with my grandparents and didn’t understand the world I was in, I didn’t want to understand their world. Not the one I found myself in anyways. I wanted to dream about "Good Times" and of big things about big people from big places and the Cowboys depicted in these stamps did all of that and more when I was growing up.

Now my grandparents meant the best for me but they were too real for me. I loved them and would not want to change a thing about being raised by them, it’s what made me who I am today, but they were still too focused on the depression (even though it was long gone), my parents mysterious breakup (and whose fault it was), Wars and what not, for me to smile about. So, I guess I focused on the brighter things I could find while there, like Cowboy movie stars, The Sunday Funnies and all the Art I could look at it.

Through all of that, God found a way to keep a boys dreams alive and well through the little things in life like hand painted movie star art, calendars and even the Black & White TV shows where you could always tell who the good guys were.