In December 1941, a few days after the United States declared war, Winston Churchill secretly boarded a British battleship, which made a dangerous 10-day journey to the United States. The journey …
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
What, exactly, are we remembering when we "Remember the Alamo." I used to know the answer to that seemingly simple question. We remembered a heroic stand by a vastly outnumbered group …
Before there were Google Maps, before there was MapQuest, there was something my daughters called "GrannieQuest." GrannieQuest was a remarkable, personalized navigation service. If you were driving somewhere, you would call …
For me, and many other people, today is the one-year anniversary of when I not only started working from home but also began to actively avoid as many face-to-face interactions …
These days, when the worst of America has been so prominent, I'm happy that today's #stampoftheday celebrates some of the best of America. Specifically, the 3-cent stamp, which was issued …
A bear so famous that he needed his own Zip Code to handle all his fan mail lurks behind the scenes of today' #stampoftheday, a 4-cent stamp honoring Forest Conservation …