With the calendar turning to July, it seems appropriate that today's #stampoftheday honors school teachers (and other educators), who hopefully are getting a well-deserved break after an especially tumultuous spring …
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 …
"The Mississippi Delta was shining like a National guitar," sings Paul Simon at the start of "Graceland," his marvelous 1986 song. "I am following the river, down the highway, through …
In 1993, when it grappled with fundamental questions the state's educational finance system, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court used language from the state's more than 200-year old constitution as the …
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 …
"Valor is a gift," Carl Sandburg once said. "Those having it never know for sure whether they have it until the test comes." The four chaplains on the SS Dorchester displayed …