Peter's Principles: Midcoast mail

As we roamed around the midcoast region of Maine this past week, I've kept my eye out for all the local post offices we have happened to pass. It's been extremely convenient that one of them is directly across the street from where we've been staying. So each day I drop off a stack of postcards - my personal travel ones, along with Postcrossing cards - to go out to the world. But we've glimpsed many others, some large and stately in the imposing style of 1940s-era government buildings, some very quaint and tiny. The closest one, here in Tenant's Harbor, looks like a simple wood framed single story ranch style house. It appears to share space in the building with the local Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter. Inside, it has all the basic requirements: PO boxes, mail slots, and a clerk's counter. Curiously, this post office is not the only one I saw this week that still has a relic of the recent past. There is a dedicated drop slot for Netflix disks. I assume this reduced the number of disks that were broken by other heavy objects, but I'm surprised these slots still exist for Netflix DVDs, which were discontinued two years ago. Still, it's fascinating to see the variety of facilities, from a tiny post office on remote Monhegan Island, to the stately, large office in Camden Maine, which we were told by a passing local resident that it served as a location shot in the Steven King movie Thinner. Each post office serves its role as an entry point into the mailstream of the USPS, and to the wider world. Even in this digital age, they provide an essential tie to the wider world.