“Our long national nightmare is over,” said Gerald Ford, moments after he was sworn in as president after Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace. “Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule.” Tomorrow, barring an extraordinary series of events, another “national nightmare” will end. Joe […]

My late brother Neil was very smart and talented. But I find it doubtful that he actually wrote a letter – in exemplary cursive handwriting, no less – to the United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) in late 1955, when he was 3½ years old. And while my sister Nancy, who was born a year and

“Loom” is an often overused word. But it’s the right word to describe how I remember the Pulaski Skyway, a three-plus mile elevated road that connects Jersey City and Newark and crosses the Hackensack Meadowlands. In my memory, we often drove underneath the looming skyway and through the Meadowlands, which, were full of signs of

I grew up with many vestiges of classic Americana. I was a Boy Scout for many years and even worked for two years as a counselor at Camp Glen Grey, a Boy Scout camp in Oakland, New Jersey). I played for two years in my high school marching band. When I was in junior high

For decades, I’ve wondered (some, but not a lot) about the name of the Charter Oaks Bridge in Hartford, Connecticut While that’s due in part to my penchant for historical odds and ends, it’s also due to the fact that I’ve been travelling over that bridge for decades. In the late 1970s, I assume I

Somewhat amazingly, today’s #stampoftheday honors an organization that reportedly has spent more than $1 million to boost David Perdue’s reelection campaign. The organization is the American Bankers’ Association (ABA), which represents entities that hold over 95 percent of the $13.5 trillion in assets held by US banks, and employ over 2 million people. In addition

My family moved to Summit, New Jersey in the summer of 1963. Six years later, Summit, celebrated the 100th anniversary of its incorporation as a separate township. Today’s #stampoftheday, which isn’t a stamp, marks that celebration with a special envelope that was cancelled by the post office in Summit on January 1, 1969. While the

Growing up, Shea Stadium was almost a religious shrine for me. Little did I know, that the really important – and still quite timey—shrine was less than two miles away. My feelings about Shea were so strong that I would get excited when we went past it as we drove from our home in New

I’ve been looking back at my initial #stampfotheday posts, which began in April when I decided, on a whim, to see what would happen if I wrote a daily post about a stamp in my late father’s stamp collection. (I’ve been doing so because my daughter Rebecca has offered to build a website to host

What do I “want” to say about New Jersey? And what “should” I say about the “Garden State.” I ask, in part, because on December 18, 1787 New Jersey became the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, which I mark with today’s #stampoftheday, a 5-cent stamp, issued in Jun 1964 to commemorate the 300th