Neville, Ohio - While checking for mail on her daily visit, Susan Reid regaled the town postmaster with news of the wonderful swimming lessons enjoyed by her two home-schooled children. Suddenly, her 9-year-old son began tumbling around, ever so playfully, on the floor, as if he were at home.
Janet Blackburn, Neville’s postmaster for 39 years, paid him no mind, wondering aloud: “Do you know what happened to the plaques on the war monument?”
Part of the town memorial to two dozen soldiers who died in the world wars, the brass plaques, Ms. Reid said with regret, had been badly damaged by a cleaning man using the wrong chemicals. Meanwhile, the door of the white clapboard building opened and in walked Norma Bowling, a retired nurse’s aide, carrying a plastic bag. “Here are the bell peppers I promised you,” she said, handing the gift to Ms. Blackburn.
In Neville, and in many towns around the country these days, homespun conversations over post office counters are often turning from the latest gossip to a worrisome, newly pressing issue: the United States Postal Service has warned 3,700 communities, many of them in rural areas, that it is considering shuttering their local offices over the next few months.
“I just wish that they would leave our post office alone,” Ms. Bowling said. “If I couldn’t come here to get my mail every morning, I’d feel a big part of me has died.”
1 comment:
Penn Central also paid ridiculously high salaries that ultimately led to their demise.I owned stock in PC when they went broke&converted to Conrail.The USPS has done the same,excluding stock of course.Rational salaries may not have completely saved either,but it could,nt have hurt.
Post a Comment