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
"Our long national nightmare is over," said Gerald Ford, moments after he was sworn in as president after Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace. "Our Constitution works; our great Republic is …
For at least two reasons, it seems appropriate that my father's collection lacks the stamp I want to highlight as the #stampoftheday on Juneteenth, which marks the fact that the …
"I thought this was supposed to be a work of fiction," a member of my book group wrote just before we met to discuss Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America." …
It is fitting that the American Chemical Society (ACS) comes to the fore as my #stampoftheday "project" (obsession?) is coming to a close. For chemistry, in general, and the ACS, …
Before email and smart phones, I would always send my mother a postcard whenever I travelled abroad. I'm reminded of that habit by today's #stampoftheday, which was issued on October …