I began my love affair with mail delivery right around the time I learned to read and write. Early mail memories include receiving birthday cards from my grandma and eagerly retrieving monthly Humpty Dumpty magazines from the mailbox.
By the time I was 9 years old, I was actively soliciting mail by responding to any magazine or newspaper ad that included the word “free.” Seed catalogs poured in from across the country. Mailings from the Lutheran Hour followed me until I grew up and changed my name. I sent for mysterious products like Pursette tampons (I had no clue as to purpose, but they came with a neat plastic case, perfect for carrying lunch money to school), and tubes of a rubbery, transparent, pink denture adhesive that served me as a weird but passable chewing gum.
As I grew older, incoming mail consisted of letters and post cards from school friends on vacation. There were letters from a neighbor who moved to Alabama, from my pen-pal in England, from a cousin serving in the Navy in the Philippines. Older still, I thrilled to almost-daily letters from my husband, who was first stationed on an Army base in Texas, and then at a missile site in South Korea.
The 1960s and early ’70s were, for me, the heyday of the U.S. Post Office.
I still look forward to getting the mail, though the “good stuff” has diminished greatly in recent years. I get occasional tempting offers from plantsmen, and festive holiday greetings. My friend Phebe, defiantly old-fashioned, mails multi-page updates every other week, and my sweet aunt sends funny letters about her life. But, increasingly, my mail consists of political dross (printed and mailed at taxpayer expense), charity pitches and bills. Many days it isn’t worth the walk to the mailbox.
Postmaster General John Potter announced in early March that the postal service is projected to lose up to $7 billion in 2010, and eliminating Saturday delivery should “save” about $3 billion per year.
Postal officials cite competition from e-mail and package delivery services as reasons for the postal service’s decline. I contend that the high cost of doing business with the postal service has much to do with the rise in their competitors’ fortunes. We’ve been watching the slow strangulation of a venerable institution since the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 granted unions the right to negotiate wages and benefits of postal workers.
