THE
Some Observations on Yesteryear
by George W. Earley
I was down at the Pink Rat the other afternoon,
sharing a frosty pitcher of Black Bart's Best with
good friend Kent Allard when a BigBelly several
stools down started fulminating about the govern
ment.
No problem there . . . I’ve done the same myself,
but he was bad mouthing the postal service, one gov
ernment o utfit that people in my business depend on.
You can talk all you want to about FAX and e-mail, but
for getting hard copy from here to there with a maxi
mum of reliability, confidentiality and low cost, I'll
stick with Uncle Sam.
Now cost was what this good ole boy was belly
aching about. He’d had it straight from his daddy that
service had been better and cheaper many long years
ago. Unfortunately, either junior hadn't been paying
attention or Daddy had forgot to mention a few
things, so I stuck my oar in.
Pardon, friend, I said, nice and polite like, but
would your daddy be about the same age as me?
Well, he didn't exactly count my wrinkles and
gray hairs one by one, but his bloodshot eyes roamed
over my tall and once-lanky form a couple times
before he nodded in the affirmative.
I remember those days, said I. I grew up in the
30's and your Daddy's right - letters took a 3<t
stamp and post cards were a penny and the mailman
came twice a day, including Saturday.
He was all smiles now, nodding happily to the rest
of the crowd who'd sorta bellied up around us, antici
pating one of those hot old arguments webfoots enjoy
as a diversion from the coastal rains and fogs.
But what your daddy forgot, I went on, was that
times then were really really different from now.
There were, says I, only about 140 million of us
back in the 30’s - today it's what? Almost double
that number. And when you sat down to write a
letter in those days, you put in some time doing it.
No computers, no quick copy machines so you could
send the same letter to several folks. Nope, back
then you took a piece of paper and your fountain pen
and you carefully wrote . . . real handwriting the
way they taught it to you in school. You didn't just
scratch away; before you put ink to paper, you
thought long and hard about everything you were
going to write down.
So not only were there less folks then, but folks
just didn't write many letters in those days.
Then there's that cost your daddy talked about. A
3<t stamp took a letter by train or truck or both and
that took awhile. You wanted faster service, you
paid extra for domestic Air Mail. Now when was the
last time you bought a domestic air mail stamp?
Don't remember? That's because it doesn't matter
where your letter is going, the postal people send
first class by the quickest way. Trains and trucks,
sure. But they'll also fly it for the same postage and
they've been doing it that way for over 25 years.
Cannon Beach
?
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Vbs, if costs 32c now as against 3c when there were
a lot of us and a whole lot less mail too, but a tenfold price
increase in 60 years isn’t too bad.
You know what hardcover books cost in the 30's?
About $1.50 to $2.00. Abit more with fancy bindings.
Today? &19.95 and up . waaaaay up!
And back then you could buy a brand-new 2-door
sedan for about $500. Know any new cars selling for
$5000 today? Or even for $10,000 which would be
20 times that 1936 car? Today more than half of us
own two cars . . . I grew up in a neighborhood where a
lot of folks took the bus because they couldn't afford
a car. Gasoline for those who needed it was about
11-12C a gallon . . . multiply that by 10 and you're
still some distance under the pump prices today.
So I say a 324 stamp doesn't look so spendy, and
while it's true we don't get 2 deliveries a day, that's
a direct result of all those added millions of people
cranking out a lot more letters per person than any
one ever dreamed of 60 years ago. Not to mention,
o f course, the junk mail, magazines, political fliers,
and other 's tu ff that finds its way into my mail box
and yours. As a matter of fact, I'm right glad all that
s tu ff doesn’t come twice a day!
BigBelly cleared his throat a time or two, all the
while noticing folks were bobbin' their heads at what
I'd said, and owned as how he'd not thought of it just
that way. Looked a bit sorry too, having had what he
thought was a good fulmination shot out from under
CO NTEM PO RARY
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43681885
(503) 436-2910
263 N. Hemlock
P.O. Box 1208
Cannon Beach, OR 97110
L i n (I a
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would like to invite yon to try our fresh
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him.
I patted his shoulder, filled his glass with BBB
[you were paying attention to what Kent and I were
drinking, right?], suggested a couple topics he could
rant about and sent him off. Finished my own drink
and went out to watch the sun set and sniff the salt
breeze. Beautiful as always.
P.S. For those of you who were wondering, there
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1-800-394-3303, or drop a note to The Lighthouse
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IKHI
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