Saturdays Marked "Return to Sender"

United States Postal Service (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In 1863, the Civil War was raging.  President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.  And the United States Post Office began delivering mail six days a week.

In 2013, the U.S. is winding down their war in Afghanistan.  An African-American named Barack Obama enters his second term as President.  And the United States Postal Service announces it is dropping Saturday mail service.

That's correct.  Starting in August, you'll have one less day to get bills, pre-approved credit card offers and other forms of junk mail.  Packages will still be delivered, though, and post offices will remain open on Saturdays.

It's no big secret that the USPS is in financial trouble, and is fighting to stay relevant in an era where you're more likely to be using e-mail and text messaging instead of sending letters.  They've been begging and pleading Congress for years for increases in their funding, and usually getting it.  Problem is, the more cutbacks there are and the higher the postage rate goes (they just raised the cost of a first-class stamp to 46 cents), the worse the service gets.  The USPS is, according to their estimates, currently $16 billion in the hole.

With Saturday delivery no longer in the picture, this means there's going to be a backlog of mail going out on Friday and in your mailbox on Monday.  That's why the USPS is actually hiring more people to handle deliveries, just as soon as the people who work there now take retirement.

Compared to the Internet, UPS and FedEx, the Postal Service seems rather quaint to most of us now.  We can send correspondence, pay bills and ship packages much more quickly than with dear old 'snail mail'.  But the USPS still has its uses--they're the only ones who can legally deliver mail as an organization that has the backing of the federal government.  And they have history on their side:  Benjamin Franklin was the first postmaster general, just before the American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain.  The Pony Express ran the mail from Kansas City to California in a matter of days.  Mail was delivered twice a day up until 1950.

Technology marches on.  No matter how much postal rates go up and the number of days letter carriers work goes down, a piece of American history will try to deliver the goods to your doorstep or mailbox for as long as it can.