I've been thinking a lot about my father, who died 20 years ago this week. As has been obvious from these #stampoftheday posts, he was, for a time, an avid stamp …
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
What, exactly, are we remembering when we "Remember the Alamo." I used to know the answer to that seemingly simple question. We remembered a heroic stand by a vastly outnumbered group …
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 …
"Break on through to the other side," the Doors' hit song from 1967, was an important part of the soundtrack of my last semester in college, in the spring of …
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 …
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 …