1978 French Open Tennis First Day Cover

 The French Open, 2nd of professional tennis's Grand Slam tournaments, is currently being held in Paris.  The sport holds less interest for me as the years go by.   Maybe it's because I no longer play or maybe it's the lack of players I find intriguing.  45 years ago, when this First Day Cover was issued I followed tennis closely.  

The legendary Swede Björn Borg, in his prime, took the men's singles title.  It was his third in five years and the first of four consecutive French championships.

Stade Roland Garros was named after the famed World War I aviator 

Merci d'être passé.  Au revoir pour le moment.

Smooth As Silk

Topps has issued a variety of cards featuring some kind of image on "silk".  This is one I pulled from a blaster in 2013.  

2013 Topps Rookie Patch Sandy Koufax

As with postcards, covers offer a great variety of subject matter.  A subset are the silk cachet envelopes.  There are a good many baseball subjects available.   This one is, of course, of actor and writer Alan Alda.

I was a M*A*S*H fan.  I'm sure I saw every episode when it first aired.  Toward the end of the series I felt the actors became a bit too sanctimonious and it left a sour taste for me.  M*A*S*H may have had more to say than "Hogan's Heroes" but it was still a sitcom.  

I came to a new appreciation of Alda through his memoirs and his great work on PBS as a fantastic liason between the scientific community and the general public.

How many people do an Alan Alda impression?

Happy Independence Day!

Here are a couple of pieces for you on this 4th of July, 2020.  I'm staying in.  If you go out, please be safe.

This postcard is circa 1940

This is a First Day Cover.  The back is blank.

The history of Tyne and Wear is too complicated to go into but here's a picture.

Happy Hanukkah!

Today is the first day of Hanukkah.  I don't own a menorah or more properly, a hanukkyah.  I do have this nice first day cover from 1996.  Happy Chanukkah to all my Jewish friends and to anyone else who would like to join in.

Happy 4th of July!

Today always makes me think of this great song by Chicago:

And this one from an earlier era:

Gemini was a tough go. It was smaller than the front seat of a Volkswagen bug. It made Apollo seem like a super-duper, plush touring bus. -- Frank Borman.

In my part of the Midwest there's been talk the last few days about being able to see the International Space Station as it flies overhead at night.

On this day, 54 years ago another spacecraft, Gemini IV was orbiting the earth carrying astronauts James McDivitt and Ed White. During the 98 hour flight, White became the first American to walk in space.

Happy Birthday, Jim Thorpe

Certainly one of the greatest all-around athletes of the 20th century, Jim Thorpe was born on this day in 1887 (some say 1888).

These are part of my growing First Day Cover collection.

And a couple of cards.