In age of text messaging, email, and internet web sites; it has been derided as "snail mail." Mail delivered by vehicles and human carriers in the slowest of manners, often misdirected by a single mistake in an address code or by the ignorance of substitute carrier. Mail increasingly defined as "junk" because so much came unbidden and unwanted. Mail that filled landfills. Mail that to be received in a more timely manner required more postage.
Sharing a little historical perspective, CNN columnist Bob Greene writes:
If and when it happens -- and it's beginning to seem inevitable -- the texture of the nation's life will be altered, probably forever. Saturdays without mail will feel like ... well, who knows? Maybe they'll feel like Sundays.
We may fool ourselves into thinking that it's e-mail alone that has addicted us to the expectation of hearing from each other all the time. But it's not the obsession that's new; it's just the means of delivery. When the post office was the quickest way to get the latest word from friends and from businesses, Americans seemed just as eager and impatient about it as they are now. According to the Postal Service, at the beginning of the 20th century, letter carriers in U.S. cities made multiple delivery runs each day. In New York, there were nine deliveries a day; in Baltimore, Maryland, there were seven; in Kansas City, Missouri, there were six. People weren't checking their computer screens compulsively, but they were checking their mailboxes.
From the very beginning, the government's mandate to the post office was to deliver the mail "as frequently as the public convenience ... shall require." The key word was "convenience," and the public found it convenient to have letters delivered all the time. It wasn't until 1950 that, "in the interest of economy," residential delivery around the country was permanently reduced to once daily.
But Saturday delivery has remained sacrosanct. Once -- in 1957 -- there was an attempt to do away with it. The postmaster general at the time, a fellow by the name of Arthur E. Summerfield, decided, in the name of budgetary prudence, to end Saturday mail deliveries nationwide.
It lasted for exactly one Saturday. On April 13, 1957, the mail did not come to America's homes. There was such public anger and outrage over this that President Dwight D. Eisenhower promptly signed a bill to provide more funding to the post office, and by the next Saturday, the country's mailboxes were being filled again."
The current Postmaster General, Bob Potter, is officially asking Congress to let Saturday mail go away. The USPS will lose $7 billion this year and the elimination of Saturday mail will save $3 billion of that. Budgetary prudence once again raises its ugly head.
Will you miss Saturday mail delivery? Unless your my age or older, probably not. Many of our citizens south of age 50 have never received a piece of personal snail mail unless it came from the US Government. Our credit card statements now even arrive on line. Christmas cards are posted on the web. If you want a form from the government, it is lot faster to go to a .gov address. Even post offices have few of those forms.
Romanticists lament the loss of lingering over a catalogue or Sports Illustrated on a Saturday afternoon; the taking of pen to paper following the unexpected arrival of a wedding invitation or a birthday card. Or the timely arrival of the proverbial check that has been in the mail.
Well, SI i on-line, wedding invitations are done via websites, and even seven day a week banks will not credit that check until Monday.
I guess we really won't miss Saturday mail delivery.
Sharing a little historical perspective, CNN columnist Bob Greene writes:
If and when it happens -- and it's beginning to seem inevitable -- the texture of the nation's life will be altered, probably forever. Saturdays without mail will feel like ... well, who knows? Maybe they'll feel like Sundays.
We may fool ourselves into thinking that it's e-mail alone that has addicted us to the expectation of hearing from each other all the time. But it's not the obsession that's new; it's just the means of delivery. When the post office was the quickest way to get the latest word from friends and from businesses, Americans seemed just as eager and impatient about it as they are now. According to the Postal Service, at the beginning of the 20th century, letter carriers in U.S. cities made multiple delivery runs each day. In New York, there were nine deliveries a day; in Baltimore, Maryland, there were seven; in Kansas City, Missouri, there were six. People weren't checking their computer screens compulsively, but they were checking their mailboxes.
From the very beginning, the government's mandate to the post office was to deliver the mail "as frequently as the public convenience ... shall require." The key word was "convenience," and the public found it convenient to have letters delivered all the time. It wasn't until 1950 that, "in the interest of economy," residential delivery around the country was permanently reduced to once daily.
But Saturday delivery has remained sacrosanct. Once -- in 1957 -- there was an attempt to do away with it. The postmaster general at the time, a fellow by the name of Arthur E. Summerfield, decided, in the name of budgetary prudence, to end Saturday mail deliveries nationwide.
It lasted for exactly one Saturday. On April 13, 1957, the mail did not come to America's homes. There was such public anger and outrage over this that President Dwight D. Eisenhower promptly signed a bill to provide more funding to the post office, and by the next Saturday, the country's mailboxes were being filled again."
The current Postmaster General, Bob Potter, is officially asking Congress to let Saturday mail go away. The USPS will lose $7 billion this year and the elimination of Saturday mail will save $3 billion of that. Budgetary prudence once again raises its ugly head.
Will you miss Saturday mail delivery? Unless your my age or older, probably not. Many of our citizens south of age 50 have never received a piece of personal snail mail unless it came from the US Government. Our credit card statements now even arrive on line. Christmas cards are posted on the web. If you want a form from the government, it is lot faster to go to a .gov address. Even post offices have few of those forms.
Romanticists lament the loss of lingering over a catalogue or Sports Illustrated on a Saturday afternoon; the taking of pen to paper following the unexpected arrival of a wedding invitation or a birthday card. Or the timely arrival of the proverbial check that has been in the mail.
Well, SI i on-line, wedding invitations are done via websites, and even seven day a week banks will not credit that check until Monday.
I guess we really won't miss Saturday mail delivery.
(C) 2013 by Stephen L Dunn
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment