Holiday P.O.

This is the scene I found when I drove by the post office just now. I believe the reason the people were taking so long to deposit their mail was that each of the four boxes was stuffed to the gills. Note that on Dec. 24 and Dec. 31 the last time for pick up will be 3:00, not 5:00.

A US Postal Service Solution

What to do about the US Postal Service?  I know that people are quick to complain about the USPS, but I, for one, LIKE those people.  Sure, the mail sometimes gets mixed up when we have a sub or new person on our route.  Lines can be long at the PO.  But where else can you send something to someone 3,000 miles away for 44 cents?  Maybe we don't like the USPS because we get too much junk and not enough "real" mail anymore.

I hear that the PO needs about 8 billion dollars to stay afloat (and keep 600,000 people off the unemployment lines).  That's about 18 billion first-class letters (I think. I'm doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations here).  I don't plan to start paying my bills with checks and stamps anymore, and neither do most people, which is one of the problems that has led to declining revenues.

However, here's my thought.  Back in February I blogged about a book I'd just read called 365 Thank Yous: The Year a Simple Act of Gratitude Changed My Life by John Kralik. Kralik's life took a turn for the better over the course of the year in many ways, not only when he felt gratitude for what others had done for him, but when he took the time to put that gratitude in writing as well as put a stamp on the envelope and mailed it.  His relationships with people not only transformed, he became a happier person, and his job as a lawyer became profitable once again.

We could all use some healing in this country and this world these days, couldn't we?  I would like the PO to keep running (I have a hard time with the private companies of UPS and FedEx, but that's another post) and keep those 600,000 employees off of food stamps.  I would like more people to get real mail in their boxes again. The US has a population of about 312,000,000.  If every one of these people (this is a stretch) would send one thank you note a week for a year (and everyone in Congress would send one a day...) - the $8 billion gap would nearly be eliminated.  But what would the other consequences of such an act be?

Forever Stamps

When I went to the PO the other day, I decided to pick up stamps, and I love to choose commemorative varieties.  This time I chose Kansas and Gregory Peck stamps.  After I got home and looked at them more closely, I didn't see the 44-cent denomination on them, but the "forever" designation.  I'm guessing that all first class stamps are going this way so that when the prices change, you won't have to go buy 2 cent stamps, and then commemorative stamps will have a longer printing life.

Royal and US Post

Claire ordered some stamps by mail in London and the Royal Mail shipped them here. Of course, Claire had confirmed with them the difference between her billing and shipping address. So I took the envelope to the Claremont PO and the nice guy said he would try to forward it to Claire (without charging me). He intimated that stuff like this had happened before.

Anyway, he spent about 5 minutes peeling off the address label (for what reason I have yet to determine) and telling me that as a child he used to open up all his Christmas presents early and then reseal them, so he was a real pro at this kind of activity. He even told me that one year he had gotten a car that you had to assemble, and by the time Christmas morning had rolled around, he had opened up that package enough times that he had actually already assembled the little car and it was ready to go when he officially opened his present! I got a good chuckle out of that.