The current administration in Washington has rolled out what I consider to be draconian changes to the post office.
When I was a child, a phone call was 10 cents but a stamp was three cents, so writing a letter was the preferred, the thrifty way to communicate. This was a time before ball point or felt tipped pens. Way before. At school we used straight pens with removable tips that we dipped into ink wells on our desks. At home, my parents used fountain pens.
Letter writing was part of the curriculum at our school featuring the pragmatic use of the skill which we laboriously practiced every day: Cursive writing a la the Palmer Method.
We learned to craft beautifully worded formal invitations for the numerous occasions which required them, everything from birthday parties to weddings. We learned how to write an equally lovely acceptance note. Just as important were “bread and butter “letters, or short notes thanking someone for extending their hospitality. Of course, for elementary school children, these were more like science fiction than reality since we never received formal invitations to anything.
We learned how to properly address an envelope from the postman who handled the mail both to and from our school. He was impressive in his uniform and his series of posters explaining how to address men, women and children under many circumstances. “Mr., Mrs., Miss, Master,” etc. The return address was particularly important and had to be crafted exactly … just in case. There we were in our blue skirts and white blouses, heads down, carefully, awkwardly writing in our best cursive on envelopes donated by the post office. And although our individual results were not perfect, because we paid attention, we were treated to a field trip to the local post office. Probably one of the most exiting events in my third grade life. We met the postmaster and were treated to an epic display of thousands of commemorative stamps, each a work of art that highlighted a person, place or event of interest over many years. I was smitten and became a stamp collector lusting after the art of the commemorative and the interesting postmark.
The ordinary three cent stamp had a profile of George Washington and was the stamp that was affixed to most of the mail that came to our house. But every once in a while, one of those commemorative stamps would arrive, complete with its postmark. To this young collector, it was a rare and wonderful treasure. If I had to depend on the stamps that came to our house, my collection would have remained quite small, but clever child that I was, I knew that our very cosmopolitan neighborhood had residents that received mail from Denmark, Greece, Italy, Malta and Poland. I became the annoying child begging stamps from everyone.
You learn a lot from collecting stamps. I still can remember my shock at finding out that the names we called other nations were not the same as what they called themselves … some like those from Greece didn’t even use the same alphabet…I wondered how they practiced writing.
I don’t know about you, but the post office is so much a part of American life, of what is expected, relied upon, trusted. It has been and continues to be a nexus, a central place where we can knit together our apartness. Sure, we all have horror stories about mail that arrives in a state that looks like it was part of the meal for Godzilla or mail that never arrived at all. How often do we acknowledge the ordinariness of all of the other mail and packages that we send and receive daily? Thousand upon hundreds of thousands of pieces of mail every day. Delivery six days a week and sometimes seven. As a pipeline for all kinds of mail, the USPS is chartered to deliver to all addresses no matter how remote and dose so with a creative use of all kinds of transport from cars, trucks, boats and airplanes. Did you know that private companies such as United Parcel, Fedex, etc. often give their mail to the USPS to deliver to the last mile because that delivery would be too expensive otherwise.
The post office is an important institution. The post office has been facing some adjustments over the past few decades. Also chartered to be self-sufficient, the post office has found itself in the red. Many voices have ideas about what needs to be done to correct the shortfalls that bedevil the ledger books of the USPS. While I rhapsodize about my memories of the post office, cultural changes have installed pressure with which the post office has yet to adapt. Email, social media, etc. have greatly diminished the volume of first-class mail and the bizarre requirement to prefund 75 years of health benefits are two of the more visible and remediable issues. Current leadership has also been questionable, since it involved a person who had financial ties to other mail and package delivery companies.
But mass firings are not the way, nor is removing its relative independence and placing it under the aegis of the Commerce Department, a ploy to privatization. I do not want our post office … and I emphasize our post office to be privatized by some corporation, divorced from the people, engaged in a way to produce a profitable bottom line. Who will deliver the mail over those last expensive miles? A bottom line corporation? Sure.
The post office is organized to produce a service as do other agencies and programs in the federal government. We don’t ask the Army, the Navy or the Air Force to produce a profit? Does the department of agriculture have to bring in more money than it spends? Spending wisely, yes, but the post office is also men and women and machines and the guy or gal who delivers my mail. It is a-political.
Cursive writing, a la The Palmer Method, has become a secret code to younger generations. The keyboard is now the preferred way of crafting communication. Written communiques are often short burst of text over the phone along with something called emojis.
Have you been at your local post office lately? Mine is always busy. We still need to send packages, greeting cards, invitations, personal letters, boxes of homemade cookies to children at college, etc.at a competitive price.
Let’s not allow the USPS to become another Red, White and Blue USA – American institution devolved into a soulless private enterprise made in the image of the current President for which the bottom line is always profit. And profit can be measured in many ways. For the post office, it touches the lives of all citizens – rich, poor, young and old, all occupations, ethnicities, the arts. It is one thing we all have in common.
Let’s all write a letter by pen or keyboard about these devious plans of postal pandemonium to enlist the support of elected representatives this week and mail it at our local branch of the USPS. Heck, write two and use commemorative stamps.
ellementor.com
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