Snail Mail? Just Remember, the Tortoise Beat the Hare

   

     With this day and age, the postal service is not as widely used as it once was. The article, Gloom of the Night, describes the decline in postal use and its importance to us. What was once one of the only forms of communication is now deemed as only semi-important. Mail is used heavily today to transport goods, but if you want to tell your mother "Happy Birthday" from Lee, more than likely it is done via phone call or text message instead of through the postal service. However, the post office at Lee holds high importance and may often be overlooked by students, as are most post offices overlooked.
       However, a passage in the article changed my perspective on postal service. I pasted it below-


    "It wouldn't be far-fetched to argue that the Postal Service has been the most important local institution in our country's history. The Founding Fathers considered it so important that they put it in the Constitution, mandating that Congress have the power to establish post offices. For decades, it was the largest public-sector employer in the U.S. At one point in the 19th century, three-quarters of all government employees were postal workers. In the country's early days, it carried mail by steamboat when no roads existed; it linked California to the rest of the country by delivering mail across the Isthmus of Panama--before the canal was built--using boats, pack animals and canoes.

To this day, the last mile can be an expensive piece of road. Want to send a letter to the Havasupai Indian Reservation at the bottom of the Grand Canyon? The Postal Service will take it there by mule. Need to mail a package to the Alaskan wilderness? The USPS can get it there by parachute. Have to mail something to someplace along Alabama's Magnolia River? The USPS has boats that travel from dock to dock. It has even sent mail via pneumatic tubes, missiles and hovercraft. And somehow, it costs just 44¢ to get a letter anywhere within the U.S."

     Like almost everything on campus, the postal services at Lee affect the students more than we realize. It takes much work to get mail from point A to point B. Plus, if we didn't have the post office, there would be no care packages. Then what would we do? The men, women, and students work hard everyday so that we can receive our postage. So next time you see a postal worker, give them a smile and a thank you. Like everyone, they would enjoy that.