The country of Israel’s first stamps are today’s the #stampoftheday. Israel declared its independence on Friday, May 14, 1948. However, Israel Post, the Israeli postal operator, waited until Sunday May …
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
Over the past year, I've added stamps portraying Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and Karl Marx to the many, many knickknacks on three small shelves in my basement office. The stamps …
Did Frances Elizabeth Willard, the long-time president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), ever go to a Seder? If she went, did she follow tradition and drink four glasses of …
Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. I open today's #stampoftheday post with these famous lines that start T.S. Eliot's "Four …
In 1969, my father took me to Shea Stadium to see the third (and final) playoff game between my beloved New York Mets and the Atlanta Braves. At some point …
About a year and a half ago, when I first started going through my late father's stamp collection, I was delighted to find a 3-cent stamp, issued in 1957, honoring …