A LETTER FROM THE NEW WORLD and...

                             ...THE STATE OF THE POSTAL SERVICE



On this day, August 3^rd, four hundred and eighty-five years ago in 1527, the first known letter was sent from this side of the pond to the other, from the new world to the old, from Master John Rut to Henry VIII.  The King of England had sent Rut as commander of an expedition to North America to search for a passage to Asia.  There’s not much more to be found on line to say who carried the letter to Henry or even how long it took to get to him, but postal service has improved over the years.  It improved, certainly, but these days it’s showing definite signs of decline. That postal rates would rise, as everything does these days, is understandable, but I don’t understand the state of the service itself.

I say the postal service should decline to carry junk mail. Period, case closed. When bulk mail rates were initiated I’m guessing the postal authorities, probably thinking of mass mailings of bank statements and utility bills, couldn’t have foreseen the glut of junk to come. I can’t begin to fathom the economics of it all, but if they carried only first class and special mail, surely they could cut down on carriers.  I’ve got a recycling bin I regularly fill with junk mail.  Back at the end of March, on the day on which I was writing this essay, we got a package, weighing over 4½ pounds, from Restoration Hardware.  Where, I ask, did they get my name and address? The package contained three catalogs, the contents of the slimmest of which were duplicated in the largest one.  Not only did our carrier have to try to jam all this into our box along with the rest of the (mostly junk) mail, but she had a huge pile of them to be delivered that day. Where did our 4½ pounds of paper go? Right into the recycling bin, of course! Many days – perhaps four out of six – our carrier could have passed our house all together, and her round would have been finished earlier. We all get less mail these days, even at Christmas, because of e-mail, online banking, e-cards, blogs, and (dumb) social networking.

In these days of the internet it‘s easy to get sales information, fliers, and discount deals on line. Advertisers, like Restoration Hardware, should be encouraged to go green, conserve paper, ink, and money, and use the on-line resource they’re probably already paying for. Yes, I know that would cost jobs for the printers. Yes, I know that would cost jobs for the folks who produce the fliers and catalogs. Yes, I know, it would mean postal carriers would be laid off.  Yes, I know!  The ramifications are many and various.  But it still irks me that our carrier has to handle all that junk.

and I am unanimous in this!