I recently received a short note from the U.S. Post Office in my mailbox at home. As a general rule, I love messages from the post office. There’s nothing that makes my day like a muddy, shredded magazine in a post office bag that says “We Care” on it.
In fact, that’s my favorite note from them. It’s short for, “We leafed through your magazine, accidentally spilled coffee on it, dragged it to Peru to try to get a llama to lick off the coffee stain, forgot that we left it there, stepped on it multiple times and ran over it with the mail truck, but “We Care.”
However, this note was quite different. I can’t remember exactly, but it was something to the effect of, “The economy is bad, businesses aren’t mailing as much, and thus your mail service will be erratic for a while.” Temporarily. The emphasis was on the temporary nature of the erratic service.
It took some time for this to really sink in. It’s like when your dog dies and your parents tell you he’s gone to stay at a far-off kennel for a while. “He’ll be back, he just has to go away for a while.” But Mr. Poochiewerfkins isn’t coming back. The post office is not coming back. And, in spite of everything, that’s a real shame.
We all know that the U.S. Postal Service has been in decline in recent years, but we don’t think about all of the implications. Sure, it’s cheaper and easier to e-mail people, but it’s just not the same.
When you see an e-mail in your inbox, you probably dread the homework assignment, request to attend an event or at the very least, the obligation of composing a reply. Unless of course, you’re my roommate, in which case you check your e-mail every five minutes and route your texts, phone calls, and nutritional intakes through your e-mail. But that’s a topic for a different time.
Letters are different. Maybe many of my peers have never gotten a true letter in the mail, but it’s at once an exciting and human experience. Texting may have the advantage of instant contact, but letters are physical pieces of paper prepared for your personal perusal. They are objects that have traveled from their hands to yours. This is to say nothing of the fact that handwriting is infinitely more personal than typeface.
As an avid letter-writer, I can tell you that it’s an activity that deepens your experiences. You learn a lot more about yourself and others by writing a letter. It takes time and thought (more than you would suspect), but it’s a better use of these than picking your nose; however, I suppose these are not mutually exclusive.
Or maybe I’m just biased because I got to know my smokin’ hot, thoughtful girlfriend through letter writing.
Besides the certain ... shall we say, personal benefits of letter writing, the post office serves as an agent of the federal government. Post offices exist all over America. In small towns and big cities, they act as friendly reminders of the power and strength of the national government. Take a look at the imposing columns of the post office down on Lawrence Ave., and you can practically see FDR patting the populace on the back and telling them everything’s going to be alright, the government has it under control.
In times like these, we need the same kind of assurance. Even if there is less need for delivering the mail, does it make sense for the federal government to curtail postal services, thereby reducing the number of federal jobs? From my point of view, this seems highly illogical.
I’ve also heard it proposed that mail service be suspended on Saturday, and that the postal rates should go up. Again, I understand that there is less demand for delivering the mail, but decreasing service while raising your price hardly seems like a successful business model.
I realize that it’s highly unlikely that the post office will rebound anytime soon, if ever. I have no false notions of being able to save it, just as it would have been futile for people to try to preserve typewriters, long-distance train travel or telephone booths. I just want us to know what we’re leaving behind.
adorsey@luc.edu
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