I can almost remember when most of the mail I received was something I wanted, aside from bills. It was not 90%+ JUNK. Today’s mail was 100% junk, and, with the exception of one item, I recycled them.

The one item that did not get recycled was a solicitation from a professional organization to which I once belonged to purchase accidental death and dismemberment insurance for $2.00/month. Right. Hmmmm . . .

The USPS (United States Postal Service) is losing money. Many, if not most, of us now use e-mail and pay bills by computer instead of mailing letters, invitations, thank you cards and checks. This cuts down on the volume of first class mail delivered by the Post Office.

I am able to filter out much, if not all, of the “spam” I receive in my e-mail accounts, but I cannot seem to do the same with my USPS mail–even when I attempt to opt out of things like credit card solicitations from banks and others. This appears to be about as effective as the Do Not Call Registry is for robo-calls and the like.

Therefore, I am going to increase, on an organized basis, my outgoing USPS mail.

BRM–Business Reply Mail costs the same as regular US postage plus a fee for the company that owns the BRM permit. That company pays nothing if the reply envelope is not used but pays full cost+ if it is used, even if the envelope is empty. If I send two of these back per week, this generates more than fifty dollars/year in additional revenue for the USPS.

There are some 120,000,000+ households in the United States.

Let’s see $50.00 times 120,000,000 = $6,000,000,000 — I believe this would go far in reducing the seemingly perennial USPS monetary losses with no increase in cost to us. It might even get businesses to change how they operate–no more (or maybe just less) junk mail.

If you wish to push up the cost even more, put something in the envelope–NO, not sand (that’s probably illegal anyway). Put all, or part, of the advertisement in the BRM envelope–where it won’t clog your trash/recycle bin. It’ll up the weight of the envelope and raise its cost. You might even get creative–put a Guy-co ad in a Prfoessyve envelope or send in a half-dozen coupons from one of those super-duper coupon envelopes.

All those BRM post cards? Send those too and don’t bother to fill them in.

If we all do our part, maybe, just maybe, we can help return the Post Office to the profitability and admiration it enjoyed in 1947. 1947? Why 1947? Because that was when the movie Miracle on 34th Street came out. (If you still don’t understand, please, watch the movie–the original version: 1947.)

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The Letter

By Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Edward Rowland Sill, Died February 27, 1887

I held his letter in my hand,
And even while I read
The lightning flashed across the land
The word that he was dead.

How strange it seemed! His living voice
Was speaking from the page
Those courteous phrases, tersely choice,
Light-hearted, witty, sage.

I wondered what it was that died!
The man himself was here,
His modesty, his scholar’s pride,
His soul serene and clear.

These neither death nor time shall dim,
Still this sad thing must be–
Henceforth I may not speak to him,
Though he can speak to me!