"In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost," is one of many lines that Dante Alighieri …
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 sure that there many of the people who defended the Capital were former Boy Scouts. I'm also sure that many of those attacked the building also were former Boy Scouts. I …
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 …
Baseball, which is near and dear to my heart, takes the field as today's #stampoftheday, a 3-cent stamp issued on June 12, 1939, issued in conjunction with the opening of …
The third wave of the great 1918-1919 influenza pandemic peaked early in March of 1919. Although the third wave wasn't as deadly as the apocalyptic second wave in mid 1918, …
"From a distance the world looks blue and green And the snow-capped mountains white." I don't know if the iconic picture of "Earthrise" taken from Apollo 8 on December 24, 1968 inspired …