In my 50s, I started playing goalie in the wonderfully named "Over-the-Hill Soccer League," Over the years, I relearned some important lessons not only about sports but also about life. …
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
I live close to Concord, Massachusetts which means that whenever I'm feeling too adequate, I can recalibrate by taking a modest bike ride past the homes of Ralph Waldo Emerson, …
Two timely policy questions—"make or buy?" and "can public-sector employees innovate?" - are conveyed by the two seemingly prosaic stamps that make up today's #stampoftheday offerings. The stamps are a 6-cent …
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 …
Several possible options today for #stampoftheday but I'm going to go with two related to the 1939 New York World's Fair, which opened on April 30, 1939 on over 1,200 …
Baseball, which is near and dear to my heart, takes the field as today's #stampoftheday, a 3-cent stamp issued on June 12, 1939, issued in conjunction with the opening of …