You would think that after writing 337 #stampoftheday posts, that a stamp could no longer surprise me. While you’d usually be right. Today you are wrong. The stamp that surprised me is a 5-cent stamp, issued in May 1907, that portrays Pocahontas, who died on March 21, 1617. It was one of three issued in […]
Pocahontas Surpised Me Read More »
Is it enough for leaders to be competent, honest, and principled? Or is something more needed, even if that something comes at the expense of competence, honesty, and principles? That’s a central question for people like me who are interested in both “what” gets done and “how” it gets done. Usually, this question is framed
Grover Cleveland Wouldn’t Have Been a Good Baseball Manager Read More »
In 1968, when I was 11 and my brother was 16, he snuck out of the hotel room where my family was staying in Las Vegas to play blackjack in the casino. My family was touring the southwest and west in a U-Haul truck that had been converted into a camper van, which meant we
Even Though Gambling Was Legal in Las Vegas, My Brother Did it Illegally Read More »
“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 1980. Today, as I ponder the fact as of Monday I finally will be eligible to be vaccinated, the idea of getting to “the other
Breaking Through to the Other Side on the Long-Gone Niagara Railway Suspension Bridge Read More »
I can’t remember the last time I was in a museum. Not that I’m a frequent or regular museum goer but I do periodically go and almost always glad I went. But I’m really not sure what the last time was. Could it really have been the Ansel Adams show at the Museum of Fine
The National Gallery of Art and the Forgotten Art of Going to a Museum Read More »
“If only my uncle, the general, was here.” Those were the magic words that allowed my parents to get married in Baltimore on August 1, 1944. And they were the words my mother loved to repeat when she told the story, which she did so frequently that her grandkids could (and would) mouth the words
If Only My Uncle Had Gone to West Point Read More »
Six years ago today, I got on an airplane in Boston to head to Los Angeles. Later that day, the National Weather Service officially reported that the winter 2014-2015 was the snowiest year since we started keeping track of such things. We had, at that point received 108.6 inches, breaking a record set in 1994-1995
Gardening as An Act of Hope Read More »
If the #stampoftheday posts were like the Miller Analogies Test, I might have started today’s post by asking “George Washington Carver is to peanuts as Horace Mann is to what?” The answer would have been something like “education” though “schools” also would have been acceptable. That’s because Horace Mann, who is pictured on today’s #stampoftheday,
George Washington Carver is to peanuts as Horace Mann is to what? Read More »
How would you feel, if a web page on your “impact and legacy” read something like this: “Coffee-table history books depict [your name here] as a lightweight puppet of political party bosses. S/he is often viewed as little more than a ‘human iceberg’ who sleepwalked through [insert your job here]. We are told that while
Benjamin Harrison Got Bad Reviews and Many Stamps Read More »
For me, and many other people, today is the one-year anniversary of when I not only started working from home but also began to actively avoid as many face-to-face interactions as possible. Reflecting on this anniversary this evening, I’ve been thinking about what I’ve needed to get through the year. That, in turn, made me
Juliette Low Helped Me Across a Narrow Bridge Read More »