The World Has Changed Since....

I was looking in my wallet the other day in response to someone asking if I had a stamp. You know, that little piece of paper that sticks to an envelope and allows it to go through the mail. I realized that I now do most of my bill paying online. I rarely need to mail something and my stash of Forever Stamps was used up.

Wasn't that a short-lived idea; those Liberty Bell Forever Stamps. They lasted just long enough for the postal service people to realize that folks were buying them in droves and that the next rate hike would bring a lot of confusion as they would be delivering mail at the new higher rate but doing it with stamps that were possibly purchased at the lower rate. Since the stamps would look exactly the same, how would the Post Office know when they had made a profit. I can hear them now, "Mumble-mumble-put-the-prices-back-on-mumble...."

I remember when the mailman rode his bike through the neighborhood where we grew up. He came rain or shine and wore a pith helmet and shorts. The bike had a huge basket where his case sat. He called my parents Mr. and Mrs. and the letters were delivered with stamps that cost less than ten or fifteen cents. After the mail cart came into being and was widely used to deliver mail, the postman would zip from house to house - up one side of the block and down the other. One hardly had time to talk to him, much less gripe about the rising cost of stamps. We now knew the mailman by his first name.

Over the years, the cost of gas made driving a postal cart more expensive and so the mailman on our route was instructed to park the cart and walk at the beginning of the route. This was supposed to save money - the cart would be left to idle in neutral while the carrier toted a bag with our mail from box to box up one front walk and then another. The cost of stamps inched higher. I have a brother who became a mailman. He tells a horror story of parking his cart and starting to walk the route. The cart was sitting in neutral. He was down the block and heard a resident calling him, "Sir, sir - your cart. Your cart!" The clutch had slipped and the cart was slowly chugging toward a canal across the road. Brother made it to the cart in time to save the mail from a dunking. Postage rates went up and up and then the computer became all pervasive in society.

I don't know when I paid the first bill using a computer but the freedom was heady. No more 32 cent stamps to mail 10 envelopes. Nowadays about the only thing I pay by mail is a magazine subscription or two. At the price of stamps today, I feel like I'm doing my part to keep the Post Office afloat. I send money by mail and then they deliver the Digest or Country Living for the next 12 months. I may even ease into mailing birthday cards again, instead of posting an eGreeting. We'll see how it goes.