Did Frances Elizabeth Willard, the long-time president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), ever go to a Seder? If she went, did she follow tradition and drink four glasses of …
Be well. Stay safe. Fight for justice.
Work for peace.
In April of 2020, not long after the COVID-19 pandemic began, I had an inexplicable urge to dig into my late father’s stamp collection, which had been sitting unexamined on my shelves since about 2012. I created a challenge for myself: each day find a stamp that was somehow connected to that day, write a short blurb about it, and post it on Facebook with a picture of the stamp. I thought I’d do that for a few weeks. But the pandemic continued and what started as short blurbs became a year of daily essays that not only discussed historic events, famous people, and obscure Americana but also recounted personal and family stories and examined how these decades-old stamps shed light on a host contemporary challenges. Thanks to my daughter Rebecca, every one of those 365 essays – from the early succinct ones to the later rambling ones – are collected on this website, where you can view them by date, by broad category, or by whether they were my “personal favorites.” I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.
Historical Figures & Events
Delving into the people and events that shaped history
Culture & Society
Exploring Americana artifacts and other obscure areas of US history
Contemporary Issues
Discussing the pandemic, 2020 politics, and other recent happenings
Personal & Family Lore
Recounting stories from my childhood, “adulthood,” and family’s history
Featured Essays
Author favorites
Today's #stampoftheday features Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who took office in the midst of an unprecedented crisis and provided much needed leadership through the Great Depression and most of World War …
With the calendar turning to July, it seems appropriate that today's #stampoftheday honors school teachers (and other educators), who hopefully are getting a well-deserved break after an especially tumultuous spring …
What do I "want" to say about New Jersey? And what "should" I say about the "Garden State." I ask, in part, because on December 18, 1787 New Jersey became the …
I am sitting watching the third night of the virtual Democratic National Convention thinking that today's #stampoftheday, which marks a critical early 19th century naval battle fought by the USS …
A medical expert employed by the U.S. government who more than a century ago used data and experiments to help address a major public health crisis is the focus of …