In seventh grade (long ago and far away) for Career Day, I chose to visit the post office and got a behind-the-scenes look at how it worked. Each residence in our village had its own clearly labeled pigeonhole in massive wooden racks, like the ones used in hotels for keys and messages. I was impressed.
Then and now, I’m a big fan of the post office.
But today’s post office is short-staffed, at least in Claremont. Though the folks at the postal service work as hard as they can, problems happen.
For instance, last week our letter carrier took a well-deserved vacation. Really, he deserved it. No way — even in my younger days — could I do the job he does. Not through wind, thunder, snow, hail and heat waves.
But there is often no substitute handy for when our letter carrier is away. So, our mail piles up at the post office.
That’s why our daily newspaper never arrived last week. The issues will arrive. Eventually. They’re not lost.
They’re just buried in the post office, waiting to get sorted.
The letter carrier does more than carry and deliver mail. He also sorts it, usually in the post office itself, perhaps using those pigeonholed racks. This way he can organize the mail into the order in which he will deliver it.
If all the mail for a route was dumped, unsorted, into a mail truck, it would be a nightmare trying to deliver the right mail to the right house in one day.
Last week the post office verified that all the newspapers and such for our route are unsorted and weren’t close to being sorted. Simply no one available to do the work. I volunteered to do the sorting but was turned down.
Then I phoned the newspaper, to see if our delivery could be switched to a person not working for the post office. No.
“But rest assured we’ll take care of it on our end.”
The newspaper won’t take care of it. They can’t. It’s beyond their control. The newspaper’s representative was just reading from a prepared script, telling me what she gets paid to tell people, without thinking for herself. I offered to deliver their newspapers for our neighborhood but was turned down.
There was no mail truck in our neighborhood on Monday (the 21st), Tuesday (22nd), Wednesday (23rd), Friday (25th), or Saturday (26th). On Thursday (24th) the post office managed to borrow a delivery person from elsewhere to deliver some of the piled-up mail. But not all the mail. No newspapers or magazines.
To allow for news to spread, magazines and newspapers are categorized as “periodicals,” which receives a cheaper rate than first-class mail. Sending them as “periodicals” allows for cheaper costs for the publisher and cheaper subscriptions for the consumers.
They’re not first-class mail. Which is why our newspapers are piling up in the post office while I wonder who won the ball game.
We’re grateful for the mail we received on Thursday. Two checks, which are nice but will sit a week or so before going to the bank. One bill, which is necessary but can wait a week or two to pay. A typed letter (signed with a fountain pen, yet) from a pal named Joe G., which is always appreciated. But nothing urgent.
All the rest was junk mail. A mass-produced postcard from a stranger who has never seen our house but is offering to buy it. A solicitation to join an organization we’ll never join. Two reminders to sign up for health insurance for 2025. Circulars from supermarkets and other stores. And eight election campaign pieces that we discarded without a glance. To us, junk.
Because news is, to some extent, perishable, we’d much rather receive the newspapers and magazines and let the other mail pile up at the post office. But that’s not an option.
So what can be done?
Short term, I stopped at the gas station to purchase the newspaper to which we subscribe.
What about long term? Maybe rent a post office box and make that our address for subscriptions; that way periodicals would not be placed in the pile for our route but in the pile for postal boxes and would get sorted. But that’s kind of expensive; the smallest size costs $200 a year.
It would help if the post office told folks in advance when their letter carrier will go on vacation. Then we could buy the newspapers ourselves that week, instead of waiting in vain for a mail truck that doesn’t arrive.
Tennessee Ernie Ford released a single in 1952 called “Snowshoe Thompson” (written by P.M. Howard and B. Ebsen) honoring a 19th century U.S. mail carrier who used skis to deliver mail to otherwise inaccessible locations:
“When the roads were blocked and the lines were down
and the birds was a-walking on the ground
and the snow was drifting tree-top tall
and no one getting through at all”
Through all that, Snowshoe Thompson delivered the mail. For the mail had to go through. It still does.
I believed it then, and I believe it now.
But that motto should be revised. I suggest:
“Junk mail must go through; newspapers can wait.”
