Since early Tuesday morning when I got an appointment get a vaccine at 6 pm tonight, I've known that today was going to be meaningful. , Getting the shot would be …
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
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 …
Today, when violent right-wing fascists have attacked the US Capital, I find it heartening to see that on January 6, 1941, at a time when the Nazis and other fascists …
When he was a kid in the 1960s, my late brother was very proud of the fact that he could recite, from memory, the following statement: ''Crest has been shown …
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. …
Sometimes a thin stamp contains layers of meaning. Today's #stampoftheday, a 3-cent stamp issued on December 9. 1948 that pictures Joel Chandler Harris, is one of those stamps. Before I started …