You've Got Mail

Did I get any mail? This is one of the most common questions we find ourselves asking. I suppose all of us like to receive mail. We all like someone say to us, “You’ve got mail.” There is something rewarding and exciting about receiving mail, even if it is junk mail. If nothing else it, lets us know that somebody somewhere knows about us. Somebody somewhere knows our name.

Many of us growing up can remember how excited we were when we received a letter. Most letters were addressed to our parents. But how excited we were when we received that letter addressed to us. How good it is to hear those words, “You’ve got mail.”

One of the best times in the armed forces other than chow time is mail call. At one time I was a mail clerk in the army. Any of us who were ever in any branch of the armed forces remember how happy we were to get a letter from home, and how disappointed we were when we didn’t receive a letter. Many times a soldier would say to me, “Did I get any mail, Sgt. Taylor?” How good it was to be able to say to him, “You’ve got mail.”

If you are away from home for any reason, on a job, at college, or whatever, how you long to get a letter from home. We all like to receive mail. And even now with the rise of E-mail, we like to receive an e-mail from someone. There are even some computers which will let you know when you have received an e-mail. The computer will tell you in some way that you’ve got mail. In fact there was a movie some years ago with the title, “You’ve got mail.”

Although many people now receive checks sent directly to their banks, many who do receive SS or pensions checks know how anxiously they wait for the mailman on the days when the checks are due. Around the first of the month when many checks were due the mailman was the most popular person on the street. Some people even got mad with the mailman if there was no mail for them. I’ve seen people stop the mailman on the street and ask him if there is any mail for so and so.

Have you ever been waiting for any important letter? Maybe you were waiting to hear from an employer that he had hired you. Or maybe you waited to hear from a college that you had been accepted. Or maybe you were just waiting for a letter from a sweetheart. How good it was to find out that you had mail.

And even in our day when we have E-mail, fax machines, telegrams, telephone, and TV, the postal serve is still the most popular way of getting a message from here to there. Many people don’t have access to e-mail or some of these other means of communication. But there is always the mailman putting mail in your mail box or slot. How we love to hear that we’ve got mail.

I am amazed that of all the millions of pieces of mail handed each day by the postal service how very few of it is lost. The mail always seems to get through somehow. From time immemorial people have sought to get messages to each other. As long ago as 3000 B.C., fast couriers or runners memorized messages and carried them for their rulers. In those days there was no demand for a postal service since few people could read or write. Early letters were carved on clay or bronze. Later they were written on the skins of animals or a vegetable material called papyrus. Most of the Bible was written on papyrus. The Persians had a vast postal system that stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to India, a distance of over 1600 miles. They erected relay stations for the swift transfer of men and horses every 14 miles, and so speedy were the couriers who carried the messages that they could travel the distance in a week. That famous expression which is inscribed on the front of the post office in New York city saying, “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” dates back to the days of Persia. Our modern day courier the mailmen and women are still making their appointed rounds despite wind, rain, snow, sleet, or heat of day. They are determined to see that you get your mail. They want you to be able to say, “I’ve got mail.”

The mailmen and women who deliver the mail are backed up by hundreds of other postal employees, clerks, mail handlers, inspectors, drivers, watchmen, supervisors, dispatchers, all dedicated to getting your mail to you. The bottom line is to get messages from here to there, from me to you. The concern of the postal service is dedicated to getting your mail to you. If you’ve got mail, the postal service is dedicated to getting it to you.