Did you know that George Washington has its own Zip Code - 98824? That's for the town of George, in the state of Washington.

From the Arkansas Gazette: At El Dorado, one of Hazel Finch's neighbors came knocking (she isn't saying which neighbor) and asked to trade a postage stamp. Hazel Finch had never heard of such a request.

"I asked him if this was some sort of a joke."

"I'm sending in my tax return. The only stamp that I have in the house says "LOVE."

The Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee gets thousands of suggestions for stamp designs each year. Among the rejected ideas were the ten most wanted criminals; "Whooda Tom," the world's champion hog caller; and a request signed by all the students in an elementary school asking that a stamp be issued picturing a cat that came in to study with them each day.

The Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee gets thousands of suggestions for stamp designs each A postmaster in an area of the country that had been hard hit by snowstorms asked his supervisors why he couldn't close his office if his carriers were not able to deliver the mail and the customers couldn't come into the post office to pick up their mail.

The official reply was that if the post office is not opened as required, the postmaster would be charged with abandoning the office.

A new use for postage stamps has been described by Constance Schrader in her new book, "No More Wrinkles." She advises readers to buy a sheet of commemorative stamps to stamp out wrinkles. Her advice is to wet the back of a stamp and paste it over a wrinkle on your face. Hold the skin smooth with one hand while applying the stamp with the other so that you don't paste in the wrinkle. Long wrinkles may require several stamps.

According to the book, covering the skin irritates the skin underneath the stamp causing the body to respond with a rush of blood and fluids to the surface area. This blood rush should wipe out the wrinkle temporarily.

The author suggests that after using about 60 of the 100 stamps on the sheet, wrinkle-making habits will become modified and your face will look smoother. Some skin care experts prefer surgical tape. Schrader likes stamps because they are easier to remove from the skin.

The newspapers are full of articles about the homeless. For whatever reason, they all have one thing in common; none have a permanent address.

But each person can receive mail every day through the General Delivery system of the Postal Service. Any type of mail addressed to an individual, care of General Delivery, city and state, will beheld for that person at that post office.

General Delivery serves about 500,000 people a day in large and small offices throughout the country. Mail can include checks from government agencies, home-town newspapers and letters from relatives. This is the only area in the entire postal system where sorting is done by name rather than by address.

When the Post office originated 200 years ago, everyone had to go to their local post office and get their mail via General Delivery. Very few of the 470 million pieces of daily mail delivered are kept in that category today. For the homeless, however, it is a tie to reality that someone knows they exist.

Residents of New York City recently received mail on a Sunday, an event that recalls the days of the 5-cent cigar and I0-cent beer.

A local post office had a huge back log of mail. The supervisor received permission to have 40 letter carriers make their normal weekday rounds. According to the Wall Street Journal, the people did not believe their eyes.

One elderly person refused to let the mail carrier into the building saying it must be a burglar dressed up as a mailman. Others complained that their bills were received one day early.

The carriers received another day off to make up for the Sunday that they covered their routes.

There are ways to turn a hobby into a business. Judith Kaplan from Ocala, Florida, collects stamps, post cards and other items connected with the women's suffrage movement.

While visiting museum gift shops to look for material for her collection she realized that they didn't have stamps and other items tied in to the museum's exhibits.

That started her new career. She established herself as a distributor of commemorative postage stamps to museum gift shops. In addition to the packets of stamps, she also stocks space patches, rubber dinosaurs, and flags.

Money Magazine reported that her first order totaled $100, and was from the Vanderbilt Planetarium in Centerport, N.Y. for packages of 25 stamps picturing rocket launches and astronomical events. Her firm's sales in 1983 were 1.5 million dollars.

The Postal Service bought new long-life vehicles that will eventually replace all their present cars and vans. These cars can go twice as far on a gallon of fuel, carry one-third more cargo and have an expected life of about 24 years. Some 99,000 will be phased into service at a cost of $11,600 each.

We used to believe the old saying of "finders keepers, losers weepers" was true. The proverb was ruled invalid by Maryland Judge Richard Gilbert, who ordered a $150,000 stamp collection returned to its original owner.

"Finder" Robert Canter discovered the stamps in a dresser that he bought at a used furniture store. He was ordered to return the stamps to the "loser," a well-known stamp collector.

Based on testimony given, Len Kapiloff bought the stamp collection for $150,000 in 1976 and lost the stamps somewhere between then and 1981. Kapiloff learned of the existence of the stamp collection in 1983 when he saw an ad placed in a stamp newspaper offering the items for sale.

In his decision, Judge Gilbert wrote that the old saying was "toothless" since the courts had rejected it since the 1600's. The finder of lost property could hold it "against all but the original owner."

It has not been determined how the stamps got into the dresser. Canter is reported to have said that he will appeal the ruling. This is a cause of "Finder Weeper, Loser Keeper."

It doesn't have to cost anything to get involved in stamp collecting. Just start looking at the postmarks on your daily mail. Many towns have strange names that show up in the cancellations. Here is a good example and the story behind it.

The Elgin Herald recently ran a story on the origin of Henpeck, Illinois. It reported two versions of how the name was picked. One probably is true and the other a legend. You decide which is which.

Both versions agree that there was a tavern at a junction on the Old State Road between Chicago and Galena. One version states that at least 200 wagons would stop daily at the saloon so that drivers and horses could get refreshed. (There was a water trough for the horses, they weren't allowed in the tavern). The constant bickering of a man named Seymour and his wife, owners of the tavern, became the source of the name of the community.

The other story says that chickens would peck holes in the bags of grain left in the wagons while their owners were inside the tavern. Either way, the name "stuck."

Postal Life reported that a customer wanted to make a bulk mailing and found that his letters picked up so much humidity that they weighed more than one ounce each.

The postal patron ran into the local plaza restaurant and asked to borrow the oven. He dried out his letters, and went back to the post office. Sure enough, they all weighed just under the one ounce limit and he saved a lot of money.

If you placed all the bulk business mail (BMM) delivered in 1986 end to end, it would stretch from the earth to the moon and back 15 times. BMM makes up nearly 40 percent of the total mail volume and generates some $5 billion in income for the Postal Service. That translates to 55 billion pieces of mail every year, weighing a total of 6.5 million pounds.

As soon as you hear the familiar theme song on television, "Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale…," you will be set for a rerun of Gilligan's Island.

The island takes its name from the first mate of the shipwrecked party. Others in the cast are the Skipper, the movie star, the girl next door, the professor and the millionaire with his wife.

Stamp collectors have started a rumor that mail has been found from "the millionaire" to his stockbroker, and from the actress to her agent. Envelopes have turned up addressed to "Acme Boat Repair, Honolulu:' from a professor Ray Hinckley, but the actor who played the professor denies sending mail from the island.

Gilligan's Island is actually located in the center of an artificial lake in Hollywood, Calif. When location shots for the series were needed, Coconut Island in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii was used. The island made news recently when the mayor of Honolulu suggested that Ferdinand Marcos, the ex-ruler of the Philippines, buy "Gilligan's Island" for $8.75 million.

A stamp collector fan of the popular series has produced a sheetlet of four stamp-like labels featuring an island scene with two palm trees. Each stamp in the sheet was printed in a different color. "Gilligan's Island" and the S1 million denomination are printed on each stamp.

The lowest post office in the world is located in Death Valley, 280 feet below sea level. It is also the hottest area served by the Postal Service.