Now days, you can buy stamps almost anywhere--the grocery store, the drug store, the hardware store or your local big box "club" store. I don’t have any problems with this since you
can now order stamps on your computer or you can print them out or you can put
an order form in your mailbox and the post office will bring them to you. But what is missing from all of this is
visiting the post office.
I grew up in a
small town in Oklahoma where the post office is one of the places you can see
almost everyone in town during any given day.
The granite steps are worn with the footprints of who knows how many
people coming to check on their mail, buy stamps, mail a package, or buy
something from Harvey, the blind man who operated a small concession in the
post office lobby. There were
granite-topped tables with glass inkwells and steel-nibbed pins to address
letters or write postcards--ballpoint pens had not yet been invented. A first class letter cost 3 cents to mail and
a postcard cost one cent to mail anywhere in the country. The clerks at the window would ask you how
you were doing and how your parents, and perhaps your grandparents, were
doing. They would ask you about your
vacation and whether you took any pictures—they knew you. If you were mailing a package to your aunt in
Kansas City, they would ask how she and your uncle were doing.
If you walked
up to the second floor, you could find recruiters from the Army, Navy and
Marine Corps. After 1947, you would find
recruiters for the Air Force also. I
went there in 1951 to join the Navy—a career that lasted for 39 years. But that is a whole ‘nother story.
Now I live in
a small town in Northern Virginia that has two post offices. One is very
modern—you can go there and interact with a machine or machines to mail a
letter or insure and mail a package. You
can pick up your mail if you have a postal box.
You can do all of this and buy stamps and never talk to a postal clerk.
And the other
post office? Well, you can drive a few
blocks to “Old Town” and tucked away there is a small post office that reminds
me of the post office in my childhood hometown all these many years later. When you walk in the door, there is that
faintly musty smell of an old post office.
In this post office, you have to walk up to the counter and talk to a
postal clerk if you want to do anything other than open your mailbox or drop a
letter in the outgoing mail slot. After
you have been there a few times, the clerks will greet you and ask how you and
your family are doing. They will want to
know when and where you are going on vacation.
They are interested in you. And
if you are mailing a package to a family member in some far away place, they
will ask how they are doing. There is no
recruiting office on the second floor—recruiting is a big time business now
located in a nearby mall. And there are
no inkwells or steel-nibbed pens—ballpoint pens have replaced them. But don’t worry—if you want an insurance form
filled out or you need some other form filled out, the postal clerk will fill
them out for you, you don’t even have to ask.
This little post office is an experience in time travel, whisking me
back 50 years to a little town in Oklahoma.
I hear many
complaints about the quality of our postal service and what a terrible job they
do. I have even gone “Brown” a few times
myself. But give me a little post
office, perhaps located in the back of small town general store and I will be
pleased as punch because I can go there and catch up on all the town news,
maybe find out the latest gossip as I once again step into my own time machine.
