Article in Commentary magazine: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/a...ign=SocialSnap
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Article in Commentary magazine: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/a...ign=SocialSnap
A thoughtful article.
Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sharing this with us. :)
Yep, nice to hear others are discovering the pleasures of correspondence.
To my pen pals and pen friends: The domestic and international postal systems continue to be in disarray, and there is little correlation between posting dates and arrival dates. Yesterday and today, I received a couple dozen letters and postcards postmarked as far back as early May, so I have three months of correspondence to catch up on. :p Do postal sorting machines suffer mail constipation until they disgorge their burdens all at once? (Sorry about the image.)
Just received a letter from a penpal in Philly. Dated about a month ago, so about twice as long as usual from post to delivery. Also, in the interim, they never recevied my letter going the other way. All a bit random.
I received a New Year greeting from a friend in Rome this month. Six months!
The Russian postal system was storing all outgoing international mail for over three months! They just started dealing with it recently. That's the worst situation I've heard. On this continent there seems to be delays, but from what people are saying in this thread, some individual places must also be storing instead of moving.
I've had great service here in BC all along, And anything that makes it into the Canadian system that is going here is not appreciatively delayed. However, I just sent a package to Toronto, and it got to the post office there in a few days as usual, but then the postie didn't deliver it for a week! My guess is that delays in North America are not about lack of transport or sorting capacity, but probably lack of personnel at postal stations.
Watch for coffee cup rings on late postcards. Those were delayed in the postoffice's break room.
The new Postmaster General has made several changes, including cutting overtime, and no longer allowing carriers to go back to the postal stations to pick up Priority Mail and other mail that had not been sorted before the carriers left in the morning to make their deliveries.
Delivery estimates for Priority Mail that I've posted in the last couple of weeks are a day or so longer than they were before.
A letter air mailed from Surrey in the UK on July 1 arrived in my mailbox in Ohio seven days later.
Interesting to see different patterns. Hong Kong is no longer accepting mail from the US and UK but letters to and from New Jersey and Oregon from the UK seem unimpeded. Letters to Germany and Sweden likewise.
I am in the USA and I have a penpal in Canada, and it has been taking about 14 days for a letter to travel between the two destinations. Actually having this penpal is what got me interested in fountain pens, it is so much nicer to write a letter with a fountain pen.
So it begs the question of how I now have 10 fountain pens, 4 steel pen holders, a dozen steel pens, and a glass dip pen😄
This is useful to check. https://www.postcrossing.com/postal-monitor
I noticed HK to UK / US is mostly surface mail only, but there are normal airmail services to Switzerland (and some other countries)...
https://personal.help.royalmail.com/...tail/a_id/5317
France is not doing well with their international mail especially to the US. They’re always on strike for some reason but fortunately, my husband can call his dear “Maman” twice a week and she enjoys that. She’s 95 and has been through a lot in her lifetime but she remains cheerful and courageous. I try to send her postcards often but I mail them in sealed envelopes. It’s worth it for some privacy and the postage is the same.
I believe that letters/Large Letters between the US and the UK are showing some signs of improvement now. When junglejim sent out the mystery ink samples for MI# 28 and 29 I think they all arrived within a week, and on checking dates of personal incoming letters those are also taking about a week too. That's almost back to normal. :)
The postmaster general issued a statement today asserting that overtime be approved, etc.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/08...tting-measures