> Date:    Mon, 7 Dec 1998 10:04:47 -0500
> From:    Lawrence Kestenbaum <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Don't knock the stamps!
>
> We often forget that we have the best and cheapest postal service in
> the world.  (Granted, Chicago is a big exception.)  ...

Speaking as a Chicagoan, granted, where a week never goes by without
some mail, correctly addressed to me, returned to sender or received
several days late with an inked notation "wrong address,"
the above statement strikes me as provincial.

It's like saying "The world's best marching band is right here
in River City."  Spoken by someone who has never been outside of Iowa.

Of course I don't know how well traveled Mr Kestenbaum is.
This might be unfair to him, but his statement "best in the world"
doesn't sound factual.

Postal service has declined everywhere since the days when I lived in
Paris and there were several deliveries a day plus the pneumatique.

I was about to say "space does not permit" but hey, isn't this the list
for anecdotes?  So here: We were living in Rosey House, Shellingford,
Faringdon, Berks.  (Shellingford is a tiny country village, Faringdon
is the postal town, Berkshire the county.)  Someone mailed us a
postcard from Amsterdam addressed to our name, Faringdon, London
(there is a Farringdon Road in London), without the village or the
county.  We got it in a couple of days; there was a handwritten notation
"try Faringdon Berks").

But that was in 1974.  The only comparable story I have for the USA
is from the 1930s, when my father received a letter addressed only
"Albert Tangora, New York" (he was famous in those days).

Can anyone tell us:  is there any country where there is still more than
one delivery per day?  Is there any country where the postmark still
shows the time stamped and not just the day?  Is there any country
where mail can normally be received the same day if posted before noon?

Well, actually, I'm way off topic, hmm.  But I want to believe in
some standard of factual accuracy on this list, even if the
anecdotes and opinions are entertaining.  Aside from chewing-gum
hoaxes, don't we want to believe that facts and opinions stated
or expressed on the list have some basis in real experience?

Getting old and becoming a curmudgeon *