Snail Mail for Millenials

It has come to my attention that we failed our children in at least one life lesson: how to use the United States Postal Service (USPS or "snail mail").  There is ample evidence that we did not cover this life skill and I thought you might be in the same boat.  If it hasn't become apparent to you yet, I promise you--it will.  My gift to you this Christmas is this 2013 Snail Mail for Millenials.  Share this with your children if you feel they might benefit.  There will be a test later.

The USPS is an independent agency of the federal government.  It moves paper and packages from your house to mine.  It's pretty efficient and cost effective especially when you consider what its customers ask of it sometimes.  However, for many people, going to the post office personally can be challenging--like spending Thanksgiving night with your parents.

Despite current technologies, there will be a need for this service for the foreseeable future.  So buckle down and learn how to use it.  Stop calling your mother while she is in the cemetery to ask "how do I send this phone back again?  I'm at the post office and the lady says she can't help me.  I have the phone right here in my hand.  What's the problem?"

Sorry, I wandered a little bit there.  When you need to send mail out--like a birthday card to your father or a wedding invitation -- you'll need envelopes, addresses and stamps.  An envelope needs to be addressed to the desired recipient.  Put this in the middle of the envelope when it is in landscape format.  Usually you want the back flap on top but it doesn't really matter.

There should be 3 lines: the first is the person's name (first AND last is helpful).  The 2nd is the street address and the 3rd is City State Zip.  It's a little like sharing on Facebook--you have to find the person by name with whom you want to share that crazy link.   This information should be clearly written to be legible by your most elderly aunt.  The print should be in contrast to the envelope (white envelope: blue or black ink creates contrast).  Avoid using gold ink on a gold envelope for example.

You MUST add postage.  One Forever stamp per envelope is generally sufficient.  Put the stamp in the upper right hand corner without obliterating any portion of the TO address.

This is a "Forever" stamp.  You can use it Forever, I guess.  Currently they cost 46 cents each.  It will not go down.  You can pay 46 cents for this bonsai stamp today and use it a year or two from now when the cost of a stamp is 48 cents.  As millenials, you will not have that precious experience of looking across the table at a friend and saying "Remember when we stamps were 6 cents?" while smiling fondly and shaking your head.  You'll never know how much it cost to send that envelope because the stamp won't tell you.  Back in the olden days, looking at the stamp could tell you quite a story:

Yes, this was in my lifetime thank you very much.

A third item on an envelope is the return address found in the upper left corner.  Contrary to popular opinion, a return address is not mandatory but is quite helpful if you haven't followed USPS guidelines to the T.  The return address is your name, street address and city state zip.  You'll get the envelope back if you fail one of the postal guidelines.

The USPS has a great deal in common with the TSA in that the rules change regularly and you never quite know what new thing will be disallowed (and it's always something new that you CAN'T do--never something new that you CAN do).  If  you send a sister pin out without a return address because you want to surprise your sister, it can't come back to you because you aren't allowed to send pins through the mail and you'll never know your sisters did not get theirs unless they come back to you with a nasty note from our friends at the post office.

Then you have to put the letter in a mailbox or give it to the person manning the desk at the post office.

 That's what these blue boxes are for--you can drop your letters in these to mail them OR

 use your own mailbox.  It helps to put the little flag up to let the carrier know there's something in there for him to pick up.  It's also a good way for you to tell if your own mail has been delivered yet since the postman will put the flag back down after he picks up your mail.

Mailing packages follow similar guidelines.  You need postage, an address and a properly sealed package.  You may re-use boxes you might already have if you scribble out any barcodes and do your best to remove any labeling that might cause confusion.

Seal it up really well --the kind of sealing up that makes people nuts when they try to open it.  The USPS designed the rules that way.  Usually you put the name and address on the top of the box--I like to use a clean sheet of paper so it stands out.

Then you're probably going to have to take the package to the post office to pay the postage and have them put it on their trucks.  This can be tricky sometimes as postal hours can be a little finicky:

Ha Ha!  Just kidding, USPS!  I'm feeling like the NSA might be lurking in blog posts so ..... just kidding :) Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Puzzles to Ponder

I received a great gift via Facebook recently when Monica Moore sent me to a link from a Forestville group.  The group was discussing having Dad as an English teacher.  As a child, I was completely aware that Dad taught English to upper level high school students.  About the only specific thing I recall about that was his making kind of a big deal about baking a cake (with peanut butter frosting?) to take in and share with his students to prove that he could.  Sounds just like the Dad we all knew, right?  But, other than that, I really didn't know much about Dad in his professional role. 

Monica lived on Dennison Road heading toward Forestville.  I can't really remember how we became friends but I imagine it was through Brenda Hazelton who was also a Forestville student.  It was a minor mystery in my mind how we went to Silver Creek but Brenda and Monica went to Forestville when we lived between them, on the other side of the road.  Monica's dad was a farmer as I recall.  There was a landing strip on their farm and he took us for a ride in a plane one time.  That seemed like a big deal--and it was!  After we moved to Buffalo Street, I lost track of both Brenda and Monica but we've been reunited through Facebook.

Anyhow, perhaps you saw the FB conversation but just in case you didn't, here you go (in part):


One of the few things I remember about Mr. Ryan was his way of pronouncing the word "extraordinary". He always said it with 5 syllables "ex-tra-ord-in-ary", but with his accent it sounded like a very polished way to pronounce it versus the more typical 3 syllables "extraod-in-ary" or 2 syllables "extraord-nary".


I remember one time when he got ticked atthe students in his class - he climbed up on his desk and threw erasers at the students . . .  Now THAT sounds like Dad


I remember having him for both 11th and 12th grade English. He's the reason I studied English in college.


We were one of his first classes at FCS....he did that "New England thing" of adding "er" to the end of words, therefore he always called me "Linder"...I remember he was dramatic in the classroom, but I do not remember what he said about swearing


A great deal of drama when we were reading Macbeth! I also babysat when their first was only a month old. One of my favorite teachers.  Long, long time ago

 Anyhow, I really enjoyed reading these comments and they touched me deeply.  As a teacher, you always hope your legacy will look like this.  Jim certainly has that for himself and it's very heartwarming.  This conversation was also shared with cousin Cathy who shared it with Uncle Tim.  She said he literally had a tear in his eye which chokes me up even writing this.

So, naturally, I went seeking some more information about Dad's time in Forestville and discovered that I could sketch out an interesting family timeline related to our homes.  Until recently I never knew Mom and Dad lived in Forestville.  I always thought we lived in Olean when I was born but perhaps this was similar to when he worked in Ellicottville and lived there during the week.

I'm having a grand time reviewing old Lake Shore News papers.  I had completely forgotten about this publication and it's just full of newsy-news.  In this quest, I learned something else about Dad that I never ever knew--that he ran for the Silver Creek Board of Education.  This page might be hard to read but there are two big articles on it related to this.  Buried in here we learn that our Dennison Road house was the last house in the Silver Creek district (perhaps explaining a bit about how Monica and Brenda went to Forestville).  From 1963:

Naturally he was embroiled in some kind of controversy and apparently he lost the election or I am quite sure we would have known that he had been on the Board.

Another article I found verified what I thought I knew about moving to Dennison Road --that we moved shortly after Paula was born. From Aug 1960:

There was a Bob Stoll in my class that I dated for a bit.  Coincidence???????

So, Monica gave me quite a gift with this link she shared as it led to these discoveries.  How interesting to get to know a different side of Dad.  It helps to complete some of the puzzle.  And to think it's likely that I've only scratched the surface here.  And what clues will be found about ourselves 50 or 60 years from now??
Puzzles to ponder during a snow storm.