While today's #stampoftheday honors a decision made in 1898, it also connects directly the inflammatory tweets about fair housing made by Donald Trump earlier this week. The stamp itself, is a …
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
To a man with a post office, every problem looks like a stamp. At least that seems to be the thinking behind today’s #stampoftheday, a 4-cent stamp issued in 1961l. Unlike …
Seeing a fair number of American flags, several Trump/Pence signs (but no Susan Collins signs) and an occasional Black Live Matter placard as we meandered home from mid-coast Maine today, …
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 …
Officially, I voted for the first time, in 1976. Unofficially, I had been voting for years. My mother used to bring me with her when she voted in the gymnasium at …
It is oddly appropriate that I am writing today's #stampoftheday while sitting on my back patio, having just returned from a wonderful and bucolic week on a lightly settled pond …