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Mom’s Yearbook
My mother, Jean Braun, graduated from Bennett High School in 1932, during the Depression, hence the small, paperback yearbook. She got the Principal’s autograph. She made the Honor Roll 20 times. She...
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666: Jared & Me
Before the New York Times or the Washington Post get a hold of this, I want to issue my denials. Yes, I am linked to Jared Kushner through our mutual involvement in 666 Fifth Avenue. Yes, I know...
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Monkeys, Cats, Fish
A selection of photos from Keith Winship’s photo album from the 1930s, taken in and around Western New York State. Probably Keith’s father, Clair, with a muskie. Boiling sap for maple syrup. Probably...
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My Most Favorite Incense Burner
I was in Syracuse, in my fraternity house at 115 College Place. I’d probably enjoyed a few beers, and was thus feeling unfettered by convention. On the kitchen wall, just to the right of the stove, was...
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The Big Snow
In December of 1937, Buffalo, N.Y., had a snow storm documented by Keith Winship and his Brownie camera. The storm, while not the largest ever in Buffalo, did merit a British Pathé newsreel appearance.
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Anthony Trollope
I am reading Masters of the Post: The Authorized History of the Royal Mail, a thumping big tome by Duncan Campbell-Smith, and I came across a passage that reminded me of a particular Waterloo of mine....
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Delivery
At times, I am amazed at the dedication and focus of postal workers. I had read that as the Titanic sank, Oscar Scott Woody, the liner’s Chief Postal Clerk, along with clerks John March, William Gwinn,...
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George Dickel
On my twenty-first birthday, in search of something special, I purchased a “powder horn bottle” of George Dickel Tennessee sour mash whiskey. It was love at first sip and, more than half a century...
View ArticleThe Can of Worms
I believe it was the summer of 1968. I was driving over to Rochester, N.Y., to visit a friend. Knowing my fear of the unknown, he agreed to meet me at the Thruway exit so I could follow him to his...
View ArticleAmerica Naked
For a while now I’ve been hearing a lot about making America great again, although I would happily settle for America being good again. And America First, that’s part of the plan, too. But this...
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Daisy Lamb
Daisy Lamb with daughter Sallie Sarah Ann Chaffee, who went by “Daisy,” was the wife of Col. William Lamb, CSA, commander of Fort Fisher, which guarded the approaches to Wilmington, North Carolina,...
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Mail Art & Faux Postage
“It was recognized even in the eighteen-sixties that collectors had to contend with not only forgeries of government-issued postage stamps but also stamps whose validity existed only in the imagination...
View ArticleThe Spanish Influenza, 1918
Two stories about the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic from my family: My mother’s mother, Cora Braun, was 30 years old in September of 1918 when the Spanish Flu appeared in Buffalo, New York. Her most vivid...
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6 1/2 Fish
In the late 1970s, I had an idea for a little book of quotes illustrated with rubber stamp images of fish. I had the fish stamps; I gathered the quotes. Then I got married, became a father, earned a...
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Postcards from Abbie
Postcards sent by my grandmother, Abbie Slocum Winship, to her brother, Homer Slocum, and his wife, in Niagara Falls, N.Y. On the back of this one, mailed in October of 1909, Abbie wrote, “Papa got...
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Strong Leaders
Since June 2020, the Trump-appointed Postmaster General has made strenuous efforts to undermine the USPS and slow deliveries. This will 1) make the USPS more vulnerable to privatization, 2) strike a...
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From the Beer Book
Mr. Clete and a cold one, art by Jo Buffalo In the 1960s and ’70s, I kept a notebook of beer articles, clippings, ephemera, but I hadn’t opened it in 30 or 40 years, until this week. I found things I...
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Places I’ve Been
Sorting through a gift of 700 postcards, I was delighted to find places I’d been. The Brock Monument in Canada. While my brother and cousins played in the park, my mother tied me to a tree, with about...
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Devoted to Philately
Having passed my childhood in Kenmore, N.Y., and loving everything about mail and the post office, I was surprised when this postcard turned up, advertising the Kenmore Stamp Company in “the world’s...
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Huey
Many years ago, a Somali sheep was kept by two teachers at the St. Lucy’s School for Girls, Kisumu, Kenya. His name was Huey. When it was Huey’s time to go, he was sold to a Catholic congregation “as...
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