Maybe it's something in the water or perhaps it's the famous fog but San Francisco, apparently, has a thing for name changes. One hundred and seventy four years ago today, the …
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
Although I'm 63 and not yet eligible for the COVID vaccine, I've been watching as people I know have started getting the vaccine. The roll-out, of course, hasn't been handled …
"Have you gotten to the part where Beth dies?" my wife innocently asked her younger sister, who, many years ago, was eagerly reading "Little Women." Her sister, of course, hadn't …
The #stampoftheday for Sunday, April 26, is the 10-cent 1940 stamp honoring Jane Addams was a social reformer who was the co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931. She …
Seminal political debates featuring two of the country's most skilled orators delivered provocative, reasoned and (occasionally) morally elevated arguments on issues that were tearing the country apart are the focus …
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 …