"We bring you 'Voices from America,'" said announcer William Harlan Hale at the start of a 15-minute shortwave radio broadcast that was transmitted into Germany on February 1, 1942. "Today, and …
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
"The Mississippi Delta was shining like a National guitar," sings Paul Simon at the start of "Graceland," his marvelous 1986 song. "I am following the river, down the highway, through …
Stifled in his job in Boston (and probably chafing at the city's restrictive culture), a young man moves to New York, where he thinks he can find a job (and …
Unable to find a stamp that was issued today or one that honored someone who was born or died today, I went rummaging in the detritus of my late father's …
Why do we hold onto and cherish artifacts from the past, particularly artifacts connected to our ancestors? That's the question raised by today's #stampoftheday, a 3-cent stamp, issued on September …
"Have you gotten to the part where Beth dies?" my wife innocently asked her younger sister, who, many years ago, was eagerly reading "Little Women." Her sister, of course, hadn't …