"I'd like a sheet of the stamps with the Port of Houston on it. The new series with the aerial photos," I told the clerk at the U.S. Post Office on Franklin Street.
Confused, she handed me a thick binder filled with plastic sleeves of stamp options. "These are the ones we have."
Almost Mondrian-esque in its simplicity, the photo features primary-colored liquid tank barges intersected by deep blue water and a pair of tug boats.
I flipped through the wrinkled pages, worrying as I neared the back of the binder, and then I found it: The Earthscapes Forever stamps series, which was released on Monday to celebrate America's diverse landscapes as viewed from above.
And there, alongside satellite shots of melting glaciers and florescent geothermal springs, vibrant cranberry harvests and cherry orchards, is an aerial photograph of a barge fleeting on the Houston Ship Channel. Almost Mondrian-esque in its simplicity, the photo features primary-colored liquid tank barges intersected by deep blue water and a pair of tug boats.
Aerial photographer Jim Wark told KUHF that he captured the shot while on a coastal survey assignment, and USPS representative Dionne Montague identified the featured tug boats as the "Apollo" and the "Taurus," both of which call the Port of Houston home base.
It gives us a hint of hometown pride, even if our name isn't attached to it.
