The Importance of the Postal Service and it’s big problem

By: Charlotte Smith and Delia McQuown

Charles story

January 1864

The Letter (Civil war era)

The sun had risen in all the splendor of a Canadian summer morning when the sleepers arose from their leafy bed. In...

The sun had risen in all the splendor of a Canadian summer morning when the sleepers arose from their leafy bed. In spite of…

“Gah!” Charles read the same sentence again, and again but he couldn’t get his mind to focus. His thoughts kept straying to the war; the bombings, complete chaos, men laying dead covered in thick blood on the hard ground, red and blue uniforms, but most of all his blue suited father John, in the thick of all that. The thought of that made him nauseous sometimes so much so that he would have to lie down and take deep breaths to calm his pounding head and focus his blackening vision. He shut his eyes and thought that any day now the postal service workers will be here delivering his letter along with the latest news. “Yawn”. It’s been so long since he has slept, he had huge circles under his eyes to prove it and he was so comfy on the mothball smelling maroon couch with white flowers and silky smooth pillows with red ruffles. He slowly closed his eyes and his head gently lolled to one side as sleep took over.

“Knock knock.” “CHARLES!” His mom bellowed “CAN YOU GET THE DOOR PLEASE?!” Charles nearly fell off the couch. “GAH! Wha how long why Oh!!” Was it the post office??!! Who else could it be? Does he have letters? He nearly tripped over his feet sprinting to the door. “Who is it?” He called flinging open the door. A young man in a blue suit and cap stood on our porch holding a rolled up newspaper and Charles couldn’t believe it two letters!! Yes! Charles took the mail from him. “Momma! He, there, his letters! There here!” “Wait really?!” She gasped from their tiny kitchen. “Coming”! “Thank you” Charles said to the smiling postal service worker. His mother arrived as the postal worker turned around and headed back to his car. Charles gave her her letter and the newspaper. He held tightly onto his. “We’re lucky we have the postal workers'' she said, holding the newspaper under one arm and clutching her letter in the other hand. Yeah, it’s comforting to see them steadily handing out mail in the center of all this chaos. Besides where else would we get our news and to think without them he would have no idea if his father was alive or not, and in what condition… he shivered.

EMBRY’S STORY

Date 5/8/2020

Hi I’m Embry,

I’m starting this journal because my teachers said that we should document this time and by this time they mean the quarantine. It's bad for everyone but for me it's even worse than for most, my parents left a few weeks before the travel ban. Yes we know they can go back but we can't afford for them to come back so right now I am here now I'm with my grandma.

It's hard living with her, she's so old fashioned but she is a good cook. I miss my dad's food but this is also okay. One of the problems is that she can't go out because she has a respiratory illness so the doctor sends the stuff through the post office. Only they have our apartment wrong so I have to go down the street to the post office to get it. I have go to the post office by myself to send stuff to my parents. I go there so much they know my name. The problem is, it's getting smaller because they are slowly losing money and they have to lay some people off. I really like the post office though, it's a cheap way to get my parents clothes and to talk to them by mail. One of my favorite things about the post office is that the stamps are hilarious

😊

The post office’s big problem

We’ve had the post office for so long. The post office started in 1775. In winter 1862 a Cleveland postal clerk decided that instead of going to the postal service to collect your mail and news it should be delivered to your house. He felt sorry for the women standing in long lines waiting out in the freezing cold. The postal service has been a reliable source since then. Even during the civil war the postal service still delivered mail and newspapers. In the middle of chaos the post office remains a steady deliverer and to some, that is calming. Now during this pandemic we have tens of millions of Americans quarantined in their homes and some people are too afraid to leave the house. Those are dependent on the steady delivery of checks, food, letters, medicine, and more. We need the post office right now more than ever.

The post office has been losing money for a little while. The post office loses several billion letters a year to the internet so it’s not very surprising. Without new major funding the amazing service will run out of money in September, a month before the presidential election. If the postal service runs out of money at that time, then it makes voting by mail impossible. The USPS gives almost half the world's mail. If that does happen people will have to choose between the risk of getting sick and for some people that could lead to death or staying home and choosing not to vote.

Fun facts

• The USPS delivers more in 9 days than UPS does a year

• The USPS delivers more in 7 days than FedEx does in a year

• Yet some still call it lumbering and insufficient compared to private businesses; FedEx and UPS

Thanks for reading! I hope you now see the importance of the USPS and enjoyed reading!