Political leadership, for good and for ill, is one of the messages I receive from today's #stampoftheday, a 10-cent stamp picturing Daniel Webster, who in the first half of the …
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
A medical expert employed by the U.S. government who more than a century ago used data and experiments to help address a major public health crisis is the focus of …
The radical idea that the federal government can and does use science and facts to address potentially fatal threats to people's health is the message sent by today's #stampoftheday, which …
Consider the following, which appeared in the December 14, 1952 edition of the Sunday New York Times: "Philatelists, an impatient species in the hobby world, are prone to consider attention …
As this #stampoftheday odyssey continues, I've learned that there are different types of days. Yesterday, I wrote about how it's sometimes challenging to find anything to write about. Other times, …
Although my parents always voted (almost always, I think, for Democrats), they weren't political. They didn't work on campaigns, go to rallies or become involved in the civil rights or …