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 Arts …
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"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 …
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 …
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 as …
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 conjunction …
Although I thought this post was going to be about some notable songs that Woody Guthrie wrote 80 years ago in the Pacific Northwest, it turns out it's actually about some powerful words spoken today in Atlanta by Vice President Kamala Harris. So bear with this train of thought. Or put another way, sit down and …
To a man with a post office, every problem looks like a stamp. At least that seems to be the thinking behind today’s #stampoftheday, a 4-cent stamp issued in 1961l. Unlike most stamps, it doesn’t picture a person or a place. Instead prominently features seven of the most famous words in American history: “Give me liberty …
When President William McKinley was assassinated in 1901, he continued a bizarre pattern that began in 1840 and (much to Joe Biden's relief) apparently ended in 1980. Consider: William Henry Harrison, who was elected in 1840 died (probably from drinking bad water) in April 1841. Abraham Lincoln, who was elected to his first term in …
Who has appeared on the most US postage stamps? It's not a trick question. Rather, not surprisingly, the answer is George Washington, who was, famously, "first in war, first in peace," (and for the many years that Washington Senators baseball team existed, "last in the American League.") Washington not only appeared on many stamps, in a …