Kay Hively: A salute to the United States Postal Service

I don’t often get a chance to compliment the United States Postal Service. I guess because they usually do a good job, I just take them for granted.

We are a fairly faithful user of the service. Almost every day there is at least one piece of mail hanging out to be picked up, often several pieces. Also, usually we are pleased to get some mail delivered each day.Not that we haven’t received some poor service at times.

Once in a while we get mail that belongs to a neighbor. We usually just deliver it ourselves. On occasion we get mail delivered by a neighbor who has gotten ours.

As the calendar turned December, we started getting Christmas gifts for relatives in North Dakota. We were determined to get them there on time.

After getting the gifts, we realized it was a strange group of stuff. There was a small tent, some ice spikes for my brother-in-law’s boots, a large sleeping bag, and a blanket. Of course there were the usual items such as gloves, hand lotion, a shaving kit and other things. There were gifts for six people.

Finding the right box proved to be more of a challenge than finding the gifts.

Finally we found an acceptable box but it was very odd. We checked with two commercial carriers and they said our box was too long and too wide. They would not take it.

So we went to the post office and they said they could handle anything that was fifty pounds and no bigger than a bicycle. We were under the weigh limit and it was shorter than a bike. BINGO!

We put everything in the box, added a paper with the mailing address inside, just in case there was an accident and the label outside was destroyed.

We closed it up, super glued the flaps and used heavy shipping tape. Then to the post office we went, carrying the large unusual package.

The man in the post office said it looked very good and put it in the outgoing mail pile. He then rang up charges for regular ground delivery and gave us our tracking number.

He said the package would be delivered no later than Friday. We began tracking the package on the computer. It first went to Des Moines, Iowa, and then made its way to a mail center in Fargo, ND

Our relatives live in the country, outside a small town near Fargo. Their rural mailbox is at the end of a long winding driveway and their house cannot be seen from the road. On top of that, they had a lot of snow at the time. I worried that the large, unusual package would be placed near the mailbox and not be picked up by

the family for several hours. It was a good candidate for theft.

But, to make a long story short, they found their package placed under the eaves of their garage, safe and sound.

The letter carrier had made the trek up the driveway and put the package in a safe place. And, instead of it arriving on Friday, it showed up on Thursday.

Just between you and me, I say “Good job, USPS. Thanks so much.”
(Kay Hively is a historian, author and former editor, reporter and columnist for the Neosho Daily News and Neosho Post.)