By Sid Salter / syndicated columnist
The Meridian Star
MERIDIAN — Facing an estimated $238 billion deficit over the next decade, the U.S. Postal Service proposes to cut Saturday delivery this year, close inefficient post offices and open kiosks in convenience stores and supermarkets. The USPS also plans to raise postal rates.
Electronic communications have caused the number of items handled by the post office to fall from 213 billion in 2006 to 177 billion last year. Volume is expected to shrink to 150 billion by 2020, according to USPS projections.
At the same times, the Postal Service projects that increases of 3 percent this year and 10 percent next year would be needed to get the agency back to a fiscal break-even point.
For me, losing the Saturday mail delivery is not much of an issue. E-mail and other modes of communication have caused the suspense to leave the relationship between me and my mailman long ago.
The thrill is gone...
The USPS brings me bills, direct mail come-ons, out-of-town newspapers and magazines and invitations and thank-you notes from my most polite and proper friends. Oh, yes, and Christmas cards or the occasional greeting card.
As a little boy, the best thing that ever came in the mail were birthday cards from my great-Aunt Christine Haskins in Greenwood. Aunt Christine always sent a lovely card with a couple of lovely $1 bills in them.
My six-year-old grandson could not imagine the swagger with which a six-year-old boy with two bucks in his pocket in 1965 could approach a country store candy counter. But my aunt did - bless her heart - and her holiday cards from the Delta remain memorable.
Back in college, I would receive letters from my mother in her perfect handwriting. An English teacher, my mother wrote beautiful letters that conveyed her love and concern, her worries for me and her encouragement - all blessings.
I'm old enough to remember waiting for letters from girlfriends, letters from home at Boy Scout camp and the return loot from box tops I sent to the cereal companies - think about Ralphie and the Little Orphan Annie Secret Society Decoder pin from the "A Christmas Story" movie.
Been there, decoded that - although as I recall mine was decoding messages from The Green Hornet, not Little Orphan Annie, who I found just a tad creepy. Those blank, soulless eyes, you know.
...the bill is here
New technologies and instant communications have taken the thrill away from receiving "snail" mail. The thrill is gone, the bill is here - and even that's going the route of e-mail in most instances.
Aunt Christine is gone now and so are her cards She died long before e-mail. None of my aunts ever e-mailed me a cent.
That's why I say cut Saturday delivery if you must, but keep the mail truck rolling. Who knows what blessings may come for me tomorrow?
Contact Sid Salter at (601) 961-7084 or e-mail ssalter@clarionledger.com. Visit his blog at clarionledger.com. His talk radio show, On Deadline with Sid Salter, is broadcast on the SuperTalk Mississippi network.
