On April 18, 2020, I wrote a short, paragraph-long Facebook post that started: "though I've had them for years, it's only in the last year that I started to look …
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
Oddly enough, today's #stampoftheday, which features flora from four different parts of the US, captures a thought I had in the shower last night, not long after I posted yesterday's …
Today's #stampoftheday features Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who took office in the midst of an unprecedented crisis and provided much needed leadership through the Great Depression and most of World War …
Since early Tuesday morning when I got an appointment get a vaccine at 6 pm tonight, I've known that today was going to be meaningful. , Getting the shot would be …
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 …
I grew up singing many of Stephen Foster's well-known songs, particularly "Oh Susanna," "Camptown Races," and "Old Folks at Home" (aka "Swanee River"). But I don't remember ever thinking about …