This Exeter Life: The Post

You might think I’m crazy, but I love going to the local post office.

There’s something quintessentially small town and old timey about going to the post office to mail a package or buy stamps. No matter what the season, it’s a haven from the weather outside. On a warm summer day, it’s always cool and quiet. On a snowy winter afternoon, it’s so warm the employees are in short sleeve shirts. For some reason, every visit reminds me of being a kid and running errands with my mom.

I open the glass door and it makes that great whooshing noise as it breaks the airtight seal and slides across the tile floor. There’s a mild echo as the conversations at the counter bounce off the wall of mailboxes. I move into line with a collection of people I never seem to see anywhere else in town—tattooed motorcyclists, an elderly man wearing white shorts, wing tips, a fedora and a cream colored sport coat, and teenager in camouflage shorts with aspirations of traveling abroad.

More often than not, I bump into a neighbor or local acquaintance. We exchange stilted pleasantries and chat about the weather, our packages or something equally trivial, aware that everyone else in line is listening to our conversation.

Certainly, it is often an exercise in patience. Invariably, there’s only one of the mild mannered postal workers on duty and the line is long. But I try to take it for what it is: a rare opportunity to simply take in my surroundings and think about the fact that the American post office, and the mail in general, is an endangered species.

I love mail. That you can fold up a piece of paper, scribble a few measly instructions on the front about its destination, and have it whisked away and delivered to its recipient is a marvel to me. Not to mention the fact that Americans have been able to do this for more than 200 years. For at least a century, mail went where few people could.

But, I am the rare person who still regularly sends written thank you notes, birthday cards, postcards, and even the occasional letter. With each passing year, I receive fewer and fewer of these in return. I fear the day when even wedding invitations are electronic.

Out of necessity, I recently mailed a package at a postal center. You know, one of those one-stop affairs located in Anywhere, USA strip shopping centers. Sure, it was efficient and convenient, but it lacked any of the emotion of a traditional post office visit. It felt generic and soulless, a little like buying a book at Walmart rather than in Water Street Books. There was no man behind the counter with a barbershop haircut and a big mustache, no collection of workers in matching pinstriped shirts with funny Girl Scout- style ties, and no man in shorts and a fedora.

In an era where you can buy stamps online, print package labels from your home printer, and send evites, I feel like I’m doing my civic duty when I make the effort to go into the post office. By waiting in line (patiently) and doing my business with a live person, I signal my commitment to living in a town where our post office is still a modern destination rather than one more building with a placard on the facade describing what it used to be.

Nowadays, Buy Local is common parlance. Exeter has a vibrant downtown with businesses supported by conscientious shoppers who’d rather buy a shirt in Serendipity than at the Gap and a wedding gift at The Willow rather than at Pottery Barn. But do you shop local when it comes to your mail?

Like many towns around the country, the folks in Tariffville, Connecticut are facing the closure of their local post office. Their battle cry sums it up for me: “This is not just about the mail, it’s about our community.”

How about we make sure this doesn’t happen to Exeter? We’ll do it together. You write those long overdue thank you notes and I’ll dash off a letter to a distant friend. Then, I’ll meet you in line at lunchtime.

I can’t wait to talk about the weather with you.