La Poste

I am a fan of the handwritten letter. There is something about going to the mailbox and seeing that someone has taken the time to sit down to write you a letter. Yes, I email, facebook and well blogging is a whole other creature...but I love real, tangible mail.

Here is a piece by NPR’s Brian Naylor: Post Office Forced To Rethink Model In Digital Age

Some of the main ideas are closing some branches and reducing delivery days. And as I’m not the authority all I can say is what I know. In France, La Poste is also a bank and offers several services in their locales. One thing they do have is a lovely automated touch screen system. You select your language (they offer all those in the EU) place your mail on the scale, answer a few basic questions, print your stamp and voilà: put it in the out of town slot! Also in the little towns I visited, not only were they closed on the weekends: they closed for lunch – everyday. In England some of their post offices were in the back of a convenience store...so blinkin’ convenient! I’m not sure about the pension and health benefits portion of the equation. I just hope our Postmaster General and Congress can sort it all out...in the meantime, take the time to write a handwritten letter to someone. It will brighten their day as well as save a dying tradition.