Stamp of dis-approval

Stamp of dis-approval

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” — 1914 inscription on the James A. Farley Post Office Building in New York City

The news on April 9th came across the news ticker with all the urgency of a severe weather alert and about the same emotional impact: first-class postage stamps are proposed to go up in price yet again.

Eighty-two cents.

Starting July 12, if the United States Postal Service gets its way with the Postal Regulatory Commission next month, it will cost you 82 cents to send a letter, up from 78 cents last July and 73 cents in July 2024. Not a package. Not a crate of bowling balls. A one-ounce letter. One envelope. One stamp. One hopeful dispatch into the great bureaucratic bloodstream of the United States Postal Service.

Ten years ago, that same act of faith cost 47 cents. When I mailed out our wedding invitations 40 years ago, it was 20 cents. When I was in short pants, it was a nickel.

While the price of a first-class stamp only increased 17 times across the span of the 20th century, rising from two cents to 33 cents, prices have risen 16 times since January 2001, when it rose a penny to 34 cents.

Now, I’m no economist, but that’s not what you call a gentle nudge. That’s the kind of jump that makes you check your wallet twice and then blame inflation, Congress, and your neighbor’s barking dog just for good measure.

And here’s the part that gets people: the price goes up while the service, well, takes the scenic route.

Somewhere along the way, the mail slowed down. Not dramatically at first. Just enough that you’d notice a birthday card arriving on the 12th for a party on the 8th. Then a bill shows up the day after it was due, which feels like a trick. Eventually, you stop trusting the system and start hand-delivering things like it’s 1893.

Meanwhile, the cost keeps climbing like it’s training for Everest.

Now, before I go any further — and before I get any letters, which at 82 cents apiece I assume will now be carefully rationed — I should say this: the people actually carrying the mail, sorting it, and running the local post offices are not the problem.

Over the years, I’ve known plenty of letter carriers and postmasters. Good people. Proud of the job. The kind who remember your name, notice when your mail piles up, and keep an eye on things when you’re out of town. They work in the heat, the cold, the rain, tornadoes and whatever else the Midwest decides to throw at them before lunch.

If anything, they’ve had to absorb the frustration the rest of us feel, standing there in uniform while someone explains — again — why their package went on a three-city tour before arriving at the house next door.

So no, this isn’t about them.

This is about the larger machine — the decisions made somewhere far from your front porch —  have somehow produced a system where you pay more and wait longer and are told, essentially, to be grateful your mail showed up at all.

It wasn’t always like this.

My Nana used to talk about the mail the way people now talk about high-speed internet. Reliable. Fast. Practically magical. In her day, there were two deliveries. Morning and afternoon. Twice a day, a uniformed carrier through rain, snow, sleet, hail or gloomy dark of night would show up with letters, catalogs, postcards, and the occasional piece of news that mattered.

Imagine that. You could send a letter from Milwaukee down to Racine County and reasonably expect a response from Aunt Ida in Sturtevant — Corliss in those days — before your coffee got cold.

Today, you send a letter, and it enters a kind of existential holding pattern. It exists. It is traveling. Probably. Somewhere. You just don’t know where or when it will emerge again, like a groundhog with commitment issues.

And for this — this mystery tour of envelopes — we will now pay 82 cents if the Postal Regulatory Commission gives its, er, stamp of approval.

I can already hear the defenses. “Costs are up.” “Volumes are down.” “It’s a different world.” All true. Nobody’s arguing that the United States Postal Service has it easy in the age of email, text messages, and whatever app the kids are using to avoid eye contact.

But there’s something about the mismatch that grates.

If a restaurant doubled its prices while serving colder food more slowly, you’d stop going. If your streaming service raised rates and then buffered every ten minutes, you’d cancel. If your morning coffee took longer, cost more, and occasionally arrived at your neighbor’s house, you’d have a serious talk with management.

But the mail? The mail just keeps going. And we keep paying.

Part of it, I think, is habit. The mailbox is still there, nailed to the post at the end of the driveway or bolted to the house like a stubborn little relic. We open it every day out of muscle memory, half expecting something meaningful to be inside.

Mostly, it’s coupons, glossy political campaign flyers, and things that begin with “Important Notice” and end with “This is not a bill, but…”

But every now and then, albeit increasingly less frequently, there’s a real letter. A handwritten note. A card. Something that reminds you why the whole system exists in the first place, thanks to the Second Continental Congress and charter Postmaster General Benjamin Franklin back in July 1775.

And that’s what keeps it going.

Because for all the griping — and there’s plenty — the idea of the mail still feels important. There’s something quietly human about sending a physical piece of yourself across distance. Ink on paper. A stamp in the corner. A small declaration that somebody, somewhere, is worth the trouble.

Eighty-two cents’ worth of trouble.

Still, I can’t help but wonder what Nana would think.

Twice-daily delivery. Faster service. Cheaper stamps. And people still complained, I’m sure. That’s what people do. But I’d bet she never stood at the kitchen counter, squinting at a stamp, and muttered, “Eighty-two cents? For this?”

Then again, Nana never had to wonder if her letter would take the long way around.

Back then, the mail knew where it was going.

These days, I’m not so sure.

Vilas County News-Review columnist Eric A. Johnson can be reached at eric@fyinorthwoods.com.