One of the exciting parts for me of starting first grade was getting to eat lunch at school in the cafeteria. We had just moved to Boise, Idaho from Cleveland, Ohio, so I was starting at a brand new school with new procedures and new classmates. I had seen my older sister take her lunchbox to school with her, so I really wanted to have a lunchbox as well. With all that was going on with getting settled in our new house right before the school year began, my mother just quickly picked up a lunchbox for me at the store.

I had imagined getting a Schoolhouse Rock or Bugs Bunny lunchbox to carry to school with me on the first day, but instead, my mom presented me with a Mr. Zip lunchbox. For those who aren’t familiar with Mr. Zip, he is the mascot that the United States Post Office introduced in the 1960s to promote the use of Zip Codes. In 1975, when I started first grade, they were still struggling to get people to use Zip Codes, so Mr. Zip (or Zippy, as he came to be known) was really being promoted.

Needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled with having a Zippy lunchbox. I was the only one at the table from Mrs. Jenkins’ class that had this style. The thermos that came with it cleverly showed names of unique towns around the country and their Zip Codes (like Money, Mississippi 38945). Those first few days of first grade when I hadn’t made any friends yet, I would sit and read my thermos and look at Zippy on my lunchbox and just wish I could go back to Ohio (Zip Code 44139).

Everything worked out and I made friends and I learned to love Boise. I don’t know whatever happened to my Zippy lunchbox, but it did make me very aware of the importance of Zip Codes. Moving to Mount Vernon in 2013 allowed my family and me to enjoy Zip Code Day when we gathered at the Post Office on May 23, 2014 to celebrate Mount Vernon’s Zip Code, 52314. Whenever I write a letter to someone, I always look at their Zip Code to see if they will ever be able to have a Zip Code Day in their town.

All this reminiscing brings me to my point of the importance of the Postal Service. It isn’t hyperbole to say that it is the backbone of our country. It began on the backbones of horses and mules, as letter carriers used them to deliver the mail. The first national postal agency in the US, known as the United States Post Office, was founded by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia on July 26, 1775. That is before the Declaration of Independence!

I realize that we live in a digital age, but that doesn’t mean that the Postal Service is no longer needed. Many official letters and documents have to be carried out with actual paper and then delivered by the Postal Service. Sending cards and letters in the mail still happens and we rely on our mail carriers to get these delivered. It’s quite amazing, when you think about it, that for 73 cents you can send a letter to anyone, anywhere in the United States. The cost of you personally flying that letter to, say Alaska, would be almost $600. When we lived in Alaska, we loved all of the things that we received in the mail from loved ones in Iowa.

During the shutdowns of COVID, I spent a lot of time writing letters and putting together little packages for family members and other friends that I was concerned about. I believe in the power of the written word and in sending to someone else a card that had been at my kitchen table and in a few days was in their hands. I know that there is strength in that. An email can’t replace that and you can’t reread a phone call. I enjoyed my walks over to the Post Office to send off these letters and packages of love. My husband joked that I was single-handedly keeping the USPS in business.

When I was young, I went to Girl Scout Camp. I was terribly homesick. Getting letters from my parents and seeing their familiar handwriting helped me to make it through the week. I even felt like I could smell our home as I opened the envelope and took out their letters. I had brought along 13 cent stamps to write letters to them. I’m sure that my pages were dirt-smudged and some tears fell onto them as I wrote to them of the things we were doing.

Letters can give an authenticity like nothing else. We are faced with yet another “great” idea from Trump and DOGE to privatize the United States Postal Service in order to save money. This is ludicrous. Doing this would mean that they could sell the USPS to the higher bidder, which would take away the independence the USPS has and the mission it has to serve all the people of the United States. We would see higher prices, reduced services, and people who live in rural areas would have less access to receiving their mail.

I think back to all of the Post Offices I have known throughout my life. They have been bastions of the greater institution of the United States Postal Service. I have seen Postal Workers consistently follow their motto:

“Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” We need to send a message to President Trump: the Postal Service is NOT for sale.