The postman – and the memories he carries – fading

I’ve always been amazed that mean dogs and some of the meaner members of Congress are so hateful toward post office workers.

Door-to-door delivery is a useful tradition, a unification tool that merges every last one of us into a nation, a massively inclusive service connecting every home and business.

In the early days, when the postal service became a unique bureaucracy specifically authorized by the Constitution and headed by Benjamin Franklin, it became an enduring instrument for keeping in touch. (It’s hard to imagine a dog or a member of Congress being mean to a jolly old dude like Ben Franklin.)

The formation of a postal service meant, from the early days until now, that you could be living in the wilds of Kentucky or of Idaho or, most dangerous of all, New York City, and still mail a letter to your mother. If necessary, they sent a horse, a train, a plane or maybe a friendly sled dog with that mail for your mother, for your sweetie or for that fool you voted for in the last election.

Yes, I know, most of us have email today. It’s speedy. And the post office has never been as able as email to flood your life with so many sordid advertisements or so much anonymous drivel.

But there’s something more gratifying about receiving a letter written in the recognizable longhand swirls of someone you love.

I realize I’m starting to sound like those people who resist the new electronic book readers. “I just like the tactile feel of a real book,” they say wistfully.

In the first place, sitting around feeling a book – caressing it, hugging it, kissing it – is a little weird. And these foot-dragging serial book fondlers are reminiscent of people long ago who complained about the arrival of movable type.

“That fool Gutenberg is ruining the charm of reading. I would rather fondle parchment scrolls than those wads of printed paper they dare call ‘books.’”

Hand-written letters magically appear like love packets in the box outside your front door. A magic mailbox is an exciting container, empty one moment and filled the next with letters written in the squiggly hand of a person you know.

As full-service postal delivery falls beneath the budget knife, still another national treasure is fading away. I speak of the postman and of the postwoman. There is something right as rain about affable people giving us mail from Mom and the rest of humanity.

And there is something fundamental about a human from the post office handing you a baby announcement with the smile of someone who is happy for you.

I suspect most of us are mailbox watchers. We are like children waiting for Santa, checking constantly to see if the mail has arrived, mail that may bring affection, sadness, glory or maybe even a small monkey in a cage.

Delivering the mail ain’t easy. Letter carriers in this community tell me they average about eight miles a day. Tragically, that level of exercise has developed large, tasty legs in neighborhoods where customers let slavering dogs repay these noble public servants with fang marks on their calves.

Progress is a series of tradeoffs, two steps forward and one back. Yes, email, though bloodless by comparison with a Mom letter, is faster than Ben Franklin’s personalized service.

But years from now you won’t discover a precious packet of love emails in the attic, tied up in ribbons, and written by Mom and Pop the year they met and got about the business of producing you.

Bill Hall may be contacted at wilberth@cableone.net or at 1012 Prospect Ave., Lewiston, ID 83501