Non-Saturday Morning Post

Last week the US Postal Service announced the decision to discontine regular deliveries on Saturdays. That makes me wonder if the pony express made a similar announcement upon their demise or if that service just faded away, unnoticed when something better came along.

Once again, something better has come along, email and pay online and skype. 

Progress, it's called. Maybe. But in the back of my mind, I remember a well quoted verse:

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

 

So the mailman won't be around on Saturdays, not because of rain nor snow nor gloom of night. It's all about the money!

Thanks to Life Magazine's archives for these photographs.



But wait. This is nothing new. There were days and even a few weeks back in the late 1940's and 1950's when no delivery service was the usual rather than the unusual. This had nothing to do with saving money, but more to do with road conditions. In one word...

                          Mud.

Note that the poem quote above left out that minor detail! During rainy stretches, the backroads of the Pilot Mountain School district in rural Burke County, North Carolina were far too often impassable. The deep ruts carved by the logging trucks on their daily runs collected the rain into puddles, massive puddles. Puddles that stopped even the most skillful of drivers.

Mail delivery would be suspended on particular routes until the roads cleared. Sometimes that would be days. Sometimes, weeks.

No mail on Saturday? Piece of cake.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen