The U.S. Post Office Delivers. . .

. . .to the neighborhood, at least.

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

Although not an official motto of the United States Postal Service, that phrase was inscribed on the James A. Farley Post Office Building in New York City when it was constructed in 1914. Featuring such an inscription on such a prominent building in its portfolio is tantamount to getting a tattoo of a large heart on your chest, with the name “Shirley” displayed, while suggesting to others that you and Shirley are just dating, and are not really that serious about each other.

The importance of, and the respect for the U.S. Postal Service was famously reinforced in the courtroom scene near the end of the film, “Miracle on 34th Street,” the classic 1947 film, in which the district attorney says, “Your Honor, The State of New York is second to none in its admiration of the post office department.” This statement is seized upon by the attorney defending Kris Kringle, who directs couriers to dump twenty-one bags of letters addressed to “Santa Claus” on the judge’s desk, as evidence that Kris Kringle is indeed Santa Claus - “Case dismissed.”

What is the state of the U.S. Postal Service’s reputation today? As you can imagine, in this digital delivery age, mail delivery volume has declined. In data contained on the usps.com website, annual first-class mail volume is reflected from 1926 forward. The high-water mark was in 2001, when more than 103 billion pieces were mailed; in 2025, just more than 42 billion pieces were mailed, a volume reduction of 59.3%; the decline in the last five years alone is nearly 20%.

So, yes, there are fewer letters, bills and other detritus appearing in your mailbox; these items are mostly delivered now via other means, including email and other digital delivery options.

You know where mail delivery volume is increasing? Yes, FedEx and UPS delivered 8.4 billion packages in the U.S. during 2024. But, the real boss these days is Amazon, judging by the nearly daily delivery of Amazon packages to my front door; Amazon accounted for 6.3 billion delivered packages in the U.S. during 2024.

Now, I get confused regarding U.S. billionaires who run companies these days. I believe Amazon’s billionaire, Jeff Bezos, is the one destroying the Washington Post. Or is he the one who requested drugs to treat venereal disease from Jeffrey Epstein? That’s Bill Gates, you say? And, which one was it who posed with a chainsaw and a cheesehead? Right, that was Elon Musk. These are all important facts to keep straight, in the event you find yourself in a lively game of “Billionaire Foibles Bingo.”

From a microgeographic standpoint, the critical finding here is that Amazon delivers every day, right to your front door. Can you guess who is no longer delivering to your front door, or even to a mailbox on your property? That’s right, the United States Postal Service. They’ve developed what are known are cluster box units, placed in a location within neighborhoods, an example of which is pictured atop this column.

I managed to receive daily mail for sixty-two years, on premises, before I was relegated to cluster delivery status. So, for the last several years, I have had to make a conscious decision to walk, or drive to a common location in the neighborhood to retrieve my mail from a cluster box. This strategic shift has been effected by the U.S. Post Office at a time in which Americans are increasingly being asked to perform fewer and fewer tasks outside their home.

Fast food restaurants have been around for a very long time, but the trend has been toward drive-thru lanes, eliminating the need for diners to even leave their cars. Similarly, Grubhub, DoorDash and Uber Eats have grown tremendously, delivering meals to your front doorstep, right next to the ubiquitous Amazon package. And, services have been created by Walmart and other grocery stores to conduct your grocery shopping for you, and deliver your groceries to your front doorstep, assuming the Amazon and Grubhub delivery guys have left room for it.

You don’t even have to go to the movies anymore, or even visit a Blockbuster Video store, to enjoy a moviegoing experience. No, with Netflix or any one of a number of other video streaming companies in place these days, you simply click a button on your TV remote, itself a step-saver, and settle in on the couch to enjoy the movie theatre experience. I will say that movie theatre popcorn is difficult to replicate at home, as is the sticky movie theatre floor dynamic - not impossible, mind you, but difficult.

Other tasks which required actually leaving your home years ago, but which can now be accomplished from the comfort of your LaZBoy recliner, include: banking, retail store purchasing, fitness and socializing with friends (you know, social media). So, the United States Postal Service is seriously bucking the trend of performing activities without venturing off property.

A fellow traveler in this shift away from uber-convenience is a delivery service which appears to have pulled back the reins on its doorstep (albeit, usually backdoor step) delivery: milkmen. Remember when bottles of milk would be deposited on the doorstep, at the same time your empties were retrieved by the milkmen? That was truly first-class delivery service! Now, you have to make the trek to the grocery store, and purchase milk yourself and lug it home. Unless. . .you avail yourself of the grocery store delivery service, which replicates the old milkmen model, and has expanded it to include every conceivable product imaginable.

To me, the United States Postal Service is not the post offices scattered all over the country, or the instantly-recognizable mail truck. . .

. . .or even the neighborhood cluster box units surfacing everywhere, but rather, it is the people, the mail carriers who subscribe to the (unofficial) motto of the U.S. Postal Service: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” You know, people like Seinfeld’s Newman, and Cheers’ Cliff Clavin and Petticoat Junction’s Sam Drucker.

I think it only appropriate that we offer Newman the last word here. . .

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