A five-cent stamp issued in 1940, takes us on a magical and mysterious tour that not only includes the Beatles but also has vigilante tailors, dreams that solve intractable design …
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 obvious reasons, the 5-cent stamp honoring "Amateur Radio" that is today's #stampoftheday made me think of the "Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map," an amazing website curated by David Goren, …
As this #stampoftheday odyssey continues, I've learned that there are different types of days. Yesterday, I wrote about how it's sometimes challenging to find anything to write about. Other times, …
A multi-year effort to find a vaccine and treatment for a much-feared disease is the subject of today’s #stampoftheday, which was issued on June 15, 1957. The disease was polio, a …
Edgar Allan Poe, author of "The Masque the Red Death", makes a bizarrely timely appearance as today's #stampoftheday. Poe, who is known today for his chilling tales of horror and …
On a strange day when it's hard to know how to react to the news, it's heartening that the #stampoftheday project makes me pause and ponder Mahatma Gandhi, who was …