Thoughts on the USPS

Rummaging in my attic, I found an old box filled with stamps, stamp hinges and tongs a few weeks ago, just about the time that the nation became embroiled in a conversation about 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, 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. I don’t know if there were other “methods,” but it was widely known as the way to form cursive writing. Think of those beautifully crafted capital and lower-case versions of all 26 letters displayed above the blackboard.

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.

In that old box in the attic, I found a lot of three cent and Greek stamps. The man who owned the banana store gave me those Greek stamps, so many that I stashed them with the very ordinary George Washington three cent stamps.

 Those old stamps reminded me of the kindness of my neighbors, the postman who taught us to address envelopes and all of the people who sent and received the letters on which those stamps were affixed.

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’s there like air! 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. Hey, I received a letter from my brother a year and a half after he mailed it…of course he mailed it from a Navy ship…but still. How often do we acknowledge the ordinariness of all of the other mail and packages that we send and receive daily? Hundreds of thousands of pieces of mail are delivered every day, with delivery six, sometimes seven days a week.

 I love the post office. If there are problems, let’s fix them. I do not want our post office to be privatized by some corporation, divorced from the people, engaged in a way to produce a profitable bottom line. 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? The post office is organized to produce a service. 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. Congress is rightly engaging in an investigation. Many voices have many ideas about what needs to be done to correct the shortfalls that bedevil the ledger books of the USPS.

The virus has engendered many adjustments to our daily lives. From making sourdough to wearing masks, to forgoing gatherings in groups. While we are zooming meetings on our computers, some of my friends and I have taken to writing letters as a way of connecting. You know, it all comes back. Last week I bought two sheets of commemorative stamps. And it is nice to get a letter. Someday, and hopefully it will be sooner than later, there will be gatherings again … and maybe I could resurrect my knowledge of how to write a proper invite or a proper acceptance to one.

Let’s not allow the USPS to become another tool in a political game. Let’s all write someone a letter this week and mail it at our local branch of the USPS.