Next Trollope

 Earlier this week was the final Zoom meeting session to discuss the Anthony Trollope novel The Claverings.  This is a part of the ongoing Big Read project organized by The Trollope Society.  Starting today, I begin reading the next novel on the list, John Caldigate.  This is a story of a young man, estranged from his father, who leaves his home in England to make his fortune in Australia.  After doing so, he returns to England, only to be embroiled in a bigamy scandal when he is accused of being already married to an Australian wife when he marries in England.  The book is said to be Trollope's response to the common theme in the novels of Charles Dickens of bureaucratic incompetence, as exemplified in Little Dorrit by the Circumlocution Office, which displays its unerring knowledge of "how not to do things."  Trollope, himself a government official in the Royal Mail, refutes Dickens with characters who are government employees who possess cool efficiency and professionalism. I look forward to this book, and the bi-weekly Zoom meetings to discuss it.

Postal History

 

This year, the US Postal System will celebrate 250 years of service.  As most of us learned in school, the service was begun by Benjamin Franklin in 1775 as a crucial means by which the 13 colonies could communicate and unify against British rule.  Later on, in 1787 when the US Constitution was created, it specified the postal system as an essential service of the government. Today, the USPS is the largest postal service in the world, processing about 318 million pieces each day.  To recognize this moment in history, the USPS will later this summer issue a sheet-sized stamp mosaic of postal functions. Leading up to the release, the USPS podcast, Mailin' it!, has put out an episode examining the history of rural free delivery, an important service of the USPS.  From the episode notes:

USPS Historian Steve Kochersperger joins us to discuss the origins and lasting impact of rural free delivery—an initiative that began in 1896 to bring mail directly to farm families across the U.S. Learn how this historic service helped bridge the gap between urban and rural communities, supported economic growth, and laid the groundwork for modern mail delivery. 

Give it a listen at the link below.

Mailbox improvement week

 Yes, there is such a thing as "Mailbox Improvement Week", and we are currently in the midst of it.  During this week, we are reminded that it is important to maintain the receptacle that receives household postal mail.  For many of us who live in single-family homes, this amounts to a streetside box on a pole.  But how many of us know there are detailed specifications for the size, design, and position of these boxes?  This effort to standardize home mailboxes is intended to make the postal carrier's life easier and delivery more efficient.  From speaking to postal carriers myself, I gather the thing they like best is for you to have a well-maintained, sturdy and clean box of sufficient size for daily mail delivery.  And in these days of increased parcel delivery (from Amazon and similar vendors) a box that will accommodate at least the smaller parcels is greatly appreciated by working mail carriers.  Beyond that, there recently have been increasing reports of mail theft, both from home boxes and from blue collection boxes.  The latter is a headache for the US Postal Inspection Service but the former is something we must deal with individually.  For myself, I recently installed a sturdy, lockable box made by a company called Mail Boss.  It relies on a long chute and baffle arrangement to receive mail and hold it in a steel box with a locked door.  Even though I live in a sleepy, low-crime suburban community, I sleep better knowing that checks (yes, they are still used, on occasion) and other important documents are protected from casual pilfering.  Whatever choices you make regarding your mailbox, this week is the right time to think about it being properly maintained, clean, and usable for the purpose it was intended.  Write on!

First Day

 Among my many small pleasures in life, ranking up there with a cup of well-made coffee first thing in the morning, are US postage stamps.  Let us proclaim the beauty of a postage stamp!  They remain a wonder which has not yet been ruined by our government.  In other countries, stamps now have ugly bar codes, or even more lamentably, they have no stamps at all.  I recently learned from a German Postcrossing member that his local post office no longer sells standard postage stamps, but instead will issue a soulless print-on-demand barcode sticker to serve the same function.  No artwork, no photographic vista, no history, no character. So while they still exist, let us exalt the US postage stamp!  Few other countries can surpass the US in this area; it is truly something that makes America great.  Russia has some beautiful artistic stamps,  France's stamps are notably large, and Finland has always impressed me with the wide variety and innovation of their stamps.  But the US has always demonstrated inventiveness and creativity when issuing new stamps.  We have seen stamps of unconventional shapes, scratch and sniff stamps, and color-changing stamps.  An amazing amount of work goes into the creation of some stamps, an example of which is the documented design process of the stamps recently issued to commemorate the American Revolutionary War.  Given the fascinating detail contained within postage stamps (for those who take time to investigate it), one activity I often participate in is to collect First Day Of Issue covers for newly issued stamps.  For those not familiar, this is symbolic cancellation of a stamp on the first day it is made available for use.  Special and often elaborate postmarks are used on the occasion, which usually includes a formal unveiling ceremony at the geographic location and/or on the date that is significant to the subject matter of the new stamp.  I collect these ceremonial cancellations by sending (by mail in a covering envelope) self-addressed envelopes with the new stamps affixed.  They are given the FDOI cancellation, and are mailed back to me, usually in a plastic envelope with a cardboard stiffener so they arrive in pristine, collectable condition.  The process takes several weeks, so when I mail off the new covers, I've usually forgotten about them until the day they arrive, unexpected, in my mailbox.  Then it's like a little Christmas Day.  Yesterday was such a day, when I discovered a stack of cancelled FDOI covers in my mailbox.  This included stamps I'd sent off in batches over several prior weeks.  So I received the new freshwater fishing lures stamps (five different designs), the American Revolution Battlefields stamps (15 designs), and the commemorative Betty White Stamp.  I add these to my collection of FDOI covers that dates back over two decades.  While I have never considered myself a dedicated stamp collector -- my philately skills are largely undeveloped -- I do enjoy archiving practical examples of the tiny little wonders that are US postage stamps.

April stats

 The Postcrossing stats for April are in, and it was a slow month in the postcard department.  Chalk it up to real life getting in the way.  And the added time devoted to National Letter Writing Month.  This month, I sent only 61 postcards and received 76.  This puts my national ranking at 28th, measured by sent cards, out of about 76,000 Postcrossing members in the USA.  I remain the #1 leading postcrosser in Alabama, at least.  Hopefully, I can pick up the pace in May.  Write on!