"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 …
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
Before email and smart phones, I would always send my mother a postcard whenever I travelled abroad. I'm reminded of that habit by today's #stampoftheday, which was issued on October …
Every once in a while, I find myself reflecting on what I wrote in a #stampoftheday post and wondering if I went down the wrong path or, at least, missed …
In 1949, my father received a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Cooper Union. Seventy years later, we found his lab reports and tests in the boxes of papers, photos, …
Like many people, I cried more than once today. I cried so much, that I can't remember everything that caused me to tear up. I cried when I watched the videos of …
Every once in a while, the #stampoftheday marks something odd. Today is one of those days, as the #stampoftheday is a 3-cent stamp, issued on November 20, 1948, that commemorated …