Buy a stamp, send me a note

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court of Sticky Stamps (officially, the Postal Regulatory Commission) invites us to what is advertised as "a short briefing" in a room crammed with lobbyists and lawyers. On the dais are three men (all Republicans) and two women (both Democrats) who are here to inform the United States Postal Service whether or not they will permit it to raise the price of a first-class stamp by two Lincoln pennies, all the way to 46 cents.

The Postal Service has asked for an "exigent rate adjustment," far exceeding the microscopic rate of inflation, because email, Facebook, Flickr, and the Great Recession have eaten savagely into its revenues, while its pension obligations to millions of retired mailmen can be stayed by neither snow nor rain nor heat. Annual losses are being measured in the billions of dollars, hence the appeal to the PRC.

Yet to come, probably in November, is the commission's yea or nay on the elimination of Saturday delivery, a luxury still available here that was abolished in Canada in 1969. (In New York and other cities, late in the 19th century, the postman rang not twice, but nine times a day, but that was before most homes and businesses had a telephone.) Even more drastic measures have been mooted by postal officials, including the closing of thousands of retail Post Offices and the end of residential mailboxes altogether.

But to a writer who first learned about the nations of the world and their proud, sad histories from a stamp album, and who still rushes to buy and use the latest commemorative issues, the deeper worry is that the letter to Grandma and the postcard from the seaside soon will follow Morse code and the singing telegram to extinction.

What a loss that would be. All of us are the children of starry-eyed suitors and war-weary mothers who waited breathlessly by the letterbox, knowing that -- in the beautiful words of the Book of Proverbs that are inscribed on the wall of the General Post Office in Hong Kong -- "As cold water to a thirsty soul, so is glad news from a far country."

But today, even the gladdest tidings -- hand-delivered anywhere from Washington to Wasilla for less than half a dollar, or shipped all the way up to Bouctouche for only 75 cents -- are deleted when a new Tweet arrives. So the Postal Service lays down its satchel and comes to the PRC, cap in hand, for two paltry coppers.

In the audience, while we wait for the decision, is a man named Rafe Morrissey from the Greeting Card Association, which has deposed against the rate increase, arguing that "the exigent provision was intended to address the impact of short term events such as the anthrax attacks or natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina."

"Is the e-card going to replace the paper card forever?" I ask him, fearing the worst.

"Not at all," Morrissey replies. "In fact, the trend is going the other way. You can't really save an email. You can't hold it in the same way. A paper card is something that somebody has taken the time to select, to write, and to mail. It's more than a few clicks on a keyboard. There's a certain thrill."

The room is called to order and the chairman, a former mayor of Santa Monica, California, named Ruth Y. Goldway, reads her panel's decree.

"The decision we have come to is a consensus and is unanimous," she announces. "We concluded we must deny the request."

The postmaster general, Goldway says, should have seen the recession coming and adapted his business model to what she calls "the ongoing electronic diversion of the mail." It's up to Congress, not the Commission, to deal with the burden of the old posties' pensions.

Besides, she adds, "As the recession fades, mail volume seems to be responding."

The briefing is, just as promised, short. When it ends, I approach another of the commissioners, a woman named Nanci Langley who grew up in Honolulu and who attended a private academy named Punahou, as did BlackBerry Barry Obama, a decade later.

"I was 2,500 miles from my grandparents," Langley tells me, sighing with the memory, "and I remember how I would wait for the mail every day and hope that they had written to me.

"Hand-written mail is still important. It is important to individuals, it is important to countries, and -- I don't want to overstate it -- it is important to civilization."

"So I'm not the only one," I tell her.

"My father just passed away, and when we were cleaning out his home, we came across the cards that his parents had sent to him when he was a boy," Langley says. " My brother wanted to throw them out. So I took them, and I will save them forever."

In my mailbox, when I get home, is nothing from anybody. Perhaps your slot today is just as sad. This can be easily remedied. Buy a nice stamp. Write to me.

Allen Abel is Brooklyn-born Canadian journalist based in Washington, D.C.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 23, 2010 h11