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, …
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
Like many of my generation, I learned that Robert E. Lee was special. Yes, we were taught that Lee fought for the Confederacy, which wanted to preserve slavery. But that …
Why do we hold onto and cherish artifacts from the past, particularly artifacts connected to our ancestors? That's the question raised by today's #stampoftheday, a 3-cent stamp, issued on September …
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 …
Today, August 6, 2020 is the 75th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It's also the 55th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1965, which …
Four years ago today my wife, several neighbors, and I drove to the Alewife MBTA station to take a Red Line train to the Women's March protest in downtown Boston. Although …