I keep reading where some empty suits in government want to defund or otherwise eviscerate the post office. They must be living in some alternate universe other than the one I’m in, because I think we need the post office more than ever. For my money, it’s the best deal in town. I think we should quit giving foreign aid to some of those countries that hate us, give the money to the post office, and let it do its job, which is to handle around 660 million pieces of mail each day, or around 47 percent of the world’s total.
Where else can you send something coast to coast for 55 cents and expect it to get there? Try that in some other country. Send some cash south of the border and see what happens. Good luck with that. I’ve been using the post office for 70 years, and I can’t recall that they ever lost even one item that I mailed. I do remember going for two years without getting a letter, when not even the Publisher’s Clearing House would waste a stamp on me, but that was all my fault.
To be honest, I did get one letter during that time – from the Lamar County Draft Board in Purvis, ordering me to report to Jackson for an induction physical or face prosecution. The problem was that I had been overseas on a ship for two years since I was 17, and they didn’t even know it. I always suspected that they were after me because I had several relatives who claimed conscientious objector status for “religious” reasons during World War II, and somebody on the Board remembered it. Anyway, they didn’t send me a ticket to Jackson; I didn’t show up; and there’s probably a warrant out there somewhere for my arrest. My wife laughs at me: every month, during all my years in the Navy and Marine Corps, I paid my bills with post office money orders. I still do, and my money arrives on time. Checks are so “déclassé.”
Some of those post office deconstructionists, in their ivory towers, with their extended families, big bank accounts, and their 500 channels on satellite TV, don’t realize that there’re literally millions of old, poor, socially and geographically isolated people out there in Possum Trot America, living in internet deserts, for whom the daily visit of the mailman or mailwoman is their only contact with the outside world. If you don’t believe it, just follow the rural mail carrier’s vehicle and watch who comes to the mailbox. Even if all they receive that day is a friendly wave, at least somebody has acknowledged that they were alive. And if the bills and catalogs pile up in their mailbox, it’s probably the mail carrier who will knock on their door and see if they are okay. Don’t even ask me how I feel about eliminating Saturday mail delivery.
In many small towns, the post office is the center of activity, where you go to see and to be seen. Often, it’s the most impressive building in town, as it certainly is in my hometown of Lumberton. People have often wondered how that little city rated such a grand building, and the reason goes back to the 1930s and ‘40s when Lumberton was the center of a major mail order pecan tree seedling business. Orders were sent all over the nation, and the volume was such that a large post office was required to process and mail the trees.
I know the post office has problems, but most of them are not self-inflicted. Despite herculean efforts to modernize, increase productivity, and turn a profit, the post office has run billion-dollar deficits for years, and the difference is made up by the U.S. Treasury, that is, the American taxpayer. There are many reasons for this. The post office, which became known as the United States Postal Service in 1971, is actually an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government and is required to “pay its own way.”
In recent years, there has been a “perfect storm” of declining mail volume because of increased use of email and the World Wide Web for correspondence and business transactions; the inroads of private companies into the package delivery business; the high cost of fuel for the estimated 227,896 vehicles maintained by the USPS, one of the largest civilian vehicle fleets in the world, etc.
The primary problem, of course, is the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 which obligated the USPS to fund the present value of earned retirement obligations (essentially past promises which have not yet come true), within a 10-year time span. Private businesses have no such legal obligation to pay for retirement at promise-time rather than retirement-time.
The USPS has been unable to meet this requirement, which accounts for much of the huge deficits incurred each year. In fact, it has defaulted four times in recent years. There is current legislation in the Senate, however, passed by the House in February of this year, which would eliminate this requirement going forward and forgive all of the defaulted payments.
Looking back, Benjamin Franklin was appointed America’s first postmaster general in 1775 and coordinated the transition from a mail operation serving primarily the British Crown to one serving the 13 colonies of the United States. Some of his innovations included better roads to speed up mail service (It sometimes took six weeks for a letter to travel from Philadelphia to Boston; he reduced it to three); better local record keeping to increase efficiency; the introduction of a “dead letter office,” etc. In recognition of his contributions, his image has appeared on more postage stamps than anyone except George Washington.
In 1869, the same year that the first transcontinental railroad was completed, the U.S. Post Office issued the first stamp to depict an actual event, and the subject chosen was the Pony Express. Until then, only the faces of Washington, Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson had appeared on U.S. postage stamps. The Pony Express, which carried mail by horseback from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, only from 1860 until 1861, was a private venture and not part of the government postal service. It did, however, have an arrangement with the post office to transport letters, newspapers, etc., from east to west and back for $5.00 per half ounce, equal to about $140 in today’s money.
The Pony Express riders, who have become part of the lore of the Old West, often rode as much as 100 miles per day, changing horses at relay stations about every 20 miles. A famous advertisement for riders, who had to weigh under 125 pounds read: “Wanted: young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred.” The Pony Express was put out of business by the establishment of coast to coast telegraph lines.
Another noteworthy achievement of the postal system was the introduction of air mail (“Par Avion”). Shortly before World War I, Congress appropriated $100,000 to begin operation of an experimental air mail service, to be operated jointly by the Army and the post office. It wasn’t until 1918, however, that the first mail flight departed Belmont, Long Island, New York. On the first day, it reached Philadelphia, and on the second, it reached Washington where it was greeted by no less than President Woodrow Wilson. Soon the postal service spread the mail flights across the continental United States, and Henry Ford landed the first commercial license to fly the mail, from Chicago to Cleveland, even developing his famous Trimotor airplane primarily for this purpose.
The 1930s saw the development of Juan Trippe’s Pan American Airways, which remained in business until 1991, and Pan Am flew the first regularly scheduled transoceanic flights for passengers and mail onboard the famous Clipper flying boats. In the early 1960s, I remember that you could see the remains of their Pacific Ocean refueling and rest stops on Midway, Wake Island, and Guam, which had mostly been destroyed by the Japanese. An interesting note: I once served onboard the USS Trippe (FF-1075) which was named after Juan Trippe’s great-grandfather, a hero in the naval fight against the Barbary pirates in Tripoli and Algiers (1801-1805). His picture hung in the wardroom, and his eyes followed you, no matter where you sat. An optical illusion, but weird.
My only complaint about the post office is that they brought the Dear John letters. Every sporadic mail call seemed to bring at least one, especially in Vietnam. It’s funny about human nature: when someone got a love letter, everybody wanted to read it, but the recipient kept it for himself. On the other hand, when someone got a Dear John letter, they wanted others to read it, but nobody wanted to … must be some deep, psychological principle at work there, or, probably, just misery loves company. I know it’s counter-intuitive, but I always envied my shipmates who received Dear John letters; at least someone back in the world thought enough of them to write and formally dump them. It makes you think about that old Jerry Lee Lewis song: “She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye.” All I ever got was deafening silence. I didn’t even rate an official brush-off. When they called out the names of those who had received letters, I would hang back like I didn’t care, but I really did.
It got worse when I became a chaplain. At every mail call, I was the bad news recipient’s first stop. They wanted me to fix it; make them feel better; get them emergency leave, etc., and all I had was platitudes: “You will feel better as time passes,” “It’s for the best,” “blah, blah, blah.” I wanted to tell them the cold, hard truth: “Just suck it up, son; it’s your lucky day; if she will do this to you now, when the chips are down, she’d sure do it to you later,” but when you’re 10,000 miles from home, in the combat zone, the kid has a good chance of getting killed, and some no-load, draft-dodging, college exemption sweet-talked his girl, what else can you say? You had to be there. That whole miserable scene starts in Parris Island with marching chants about the mythical “Jody” stealing your girl back home. Unfortunately, it happens.
One good thing about the mail in Vietnam was that you didn’t have to put stamps on your letters. All you had to do was to write “Free” in the upper right-hand corner where the stamp normally went … just another benefit from your grateful government. All you needed was somebody to write to. Sometimes, I thought about writing to myself, but I knew I wouldn’t write back.
They would also ship your dead body home for free, too; not by mail, but charter flight, often Pan Am, straight from Tan Son Nhut Airfield in Saigon to Travis or Dover, depending on which side of the Mississippi River you were from: your last plane ride. I was once tempted to mail an AK-47 home, piece by piece, kind of like Johnny Cash where he steals car parts one by one in Detroit and builds himself a hybrid Cadillac. I chickened out though, not wanting to end up in Leavenworth; however, I might have gotten away with it in ‘68.
I always had to hear the same tired old joke later on in the early ‘70s when I was on the “gun line” on Yankee Station, off North Vietnam, and I was being transferred from one ship to another by high line along with a large amount of mail, especially when the weather was bad and the waves were high. Some wag would always say: “Send the chaplain over first. If the line breaks and he falls into the sea, at least we can rig a new line and they can get their mail.” I never felt disrespected, however, because I felt the same way.
Mississippi’s most famous woman writer is probably Eudora Welty, from Jackson, and her most anthologized short story is “Why I Live at the P. O.” Unlike Miss Welty’s protagonist in the story, I don’t have any desire to live at the post office, but in my experience, our local post office workers are friendly, unfailingly patient, and genuinely dedicated to doing the best job possible. They take seriously their unofficial motto: “Neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” Because of what they do and what they have done in my life, they have my unqualified thanks and support. Bravo!
Light a candle for me.
Benny Hornsby of Hattiesburg is a retired U.S. Navy captain. Send him a note at bennyhornsby.com.
