Stamp of the Day

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 a …

"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 Biden …

Like many people, I cried more than once today. I cried so much, that I can't remember everything that caused me to tear up. I cried when I watched the videos of the women who sang "Amazing Grace" and "Hallelujah" at yesterday's memorial for those who've died from COVID. I choked up when I saw President-elect Biden …

Four years ago today my wife, several neighbors, and I drove to the Alewife MBTA station to take a Red Line train to the Women's March protest in downtown Boston. Although we tried to get an early start, the station's lobby already was full of people trying to buy Charlie Cards, go through turnstiles and get …

I've been thinking a lot about my father, who died 20 years ago this week. As has been obvious from these #stampoftheday posts, he was, for a time, an avid stamp collector. I think his collection started with Scott's International Postage Stamp Album, Junior Edition. Published in 1933, the book it is almost three …

"I thought this was supposed to be a work of fiction," a member of my book group wrote just before we met to discuss Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America." Published in 2004, the book imagines that Charles Lindbergh defeated Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election and, naturally, how that affected a Jewish family …

I haven't seen the eyes of Isabella Gibbons, which look out from the exterior wall of the new Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia. But reviewers say they are haunting, in part they are so lightly etched in the stone that they are only clearly visible at dawn and dusk. They also are …

I don't know what you would do, but I want to know more when I see a listing that says: "NEWS OF THE WORLD OF STAMPS; In Honor of the U.N.'s Weather Bureau - - Swedish Railways Worldwide Coverage SWEDISH RAILWAYS CASPARY SALES BEE MAN FIRST-DAY SALE STAMP DAY." That was one of three listings that …

Maybe it's something in the water or perhaps it's the famous fog but San Francisco, apparently, has a thing for name changes. One hundred and seventy four years ago today, the Alcalde (or mayor) of a hamlet called Yerba Buena changed its name to San Francisco, which already was what the adjacent bay was called. To …