Stamp of the Day

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

I'm a longtime member of the intramural softball team fielded by Tufts University's Art History Department. But, as anyone who knows me can attest, I do not have a strong …

Oklahoma, "where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain" (and where many strange and unsettling things also have happened), takes center stage as today's #stampoftheday, a 3-cent stamp, issued on …

Believe it or not, chicken is the focus of today's #stampoftheday, which is a posting I've been looking forward to since I first saw this stamp in my late father's …

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 …

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 …

My late brother Neil was very smart and talented. But I find it doubtful that he actually wrote a letter – in exemplary cursive handwriting, no less – to the …