“The whole (postal) journey took 10 days. The Pony Express and its horses could have done it in eight days given its standard of 75 miles per day.”

Since Christmas is always a busy time of year for our mail system, I spent some time reflecting on the changes that the U.S. Postal Service, aka USPS, has undergone during my lifetime.

Forever stamps has to be the best idea the post office has implemented, although one wonders why it took so long to figure that one out. USPS also deserves credit for its Informed “Deliver” software which not only tells you what will be delivered today but also any packages working their way to your home.

The customer service personnel are for the most part friendly and courteous. For example, my housing subdivision has been blessed with the same mailman for more than 20 years. He knows us by name and by sight, at least us retirees who frequently greet him at the gang of mailboxes on our street. His attitude toward customer service is tops. He frequently will bring our mail to the front door if there is a package that won’t fit into our standard size mailboxes. And I mean all of our mail for that day, not just the oversized package. He harks back to an earlier, simpler, friendlier time.

But not all the way back to my childhood when stamps were 3 cents each and there were two deliveries per day. We aren’t going back to the 1950s (sadly enough), but we can look at the increase in stamp prices to get an insight into what is happening to our postal service.

According to the Consumer Price Index, general inflation has exceeded 1,000% during my lifetime. That means things today cost more than 11 times what the same things cost in 1951. That’s a serious economic problem for a lot of reasons, but let’s narrow down our analysis to just the post office, which consistently blames inflation for its rate increases.

If the price of a first-class stamp would be priced in 2023 dollars to equal its 3-cent cost in 1951, it would be 35 cents. The next increase will take it to 68 cents, nearly double what can be attributed to general inflation.

And it’s not just letter stamps. I changed my preferred shipper to UPS from the USPS with a California retailer because the UPS costs were only about one-half of those charged by the post office after recent rate increases. Being the most expensive option in a competitive market doesn’t usually turn out well. Between the other package delivery companies and the replacement of personal letters by email messaging, the post office is in a very competitive situation indeed.

Inflation can’t be blamed for it all. Maybe it is the high wage costs involved in maneuvering my Christmas stamp order around the state of Michigan. That was not a nonsequitur. Consider this case study:

I ordered stamps directly from the USPS website on Dec. 16. On Dec. 19, the order was received at a Kansas City distribution center, and I was told to expect delivery on Dec. 21. Good enough, but they didn’t arrive.

When they still had not shown by Christmas, I used the USPS tracking tool to figure out what had happened. I learned they had been shipped to Traverse City, Michigan, and arrived there Dec. 24. Why Traverse City? I can’t comprehend how that can exist on any delivery line between Kansas City and Fort Wayne.

It gets better. On Dec. 26, after allowing for the federal holiday, the stamps were sent on to Grand Rapids, Michigan. They arrived there the next day and then made the trip to Indianapolis. They were gradually triangulating on my Fort Wayne home. Was Toledo next?

No. Indianapolis immediately sent them back to Grand Rapids, making the round trip within one calendar day. Perhaps it was for insufficient postage on the shipping envelope?

Eventually, I was alerted of a Dec. 30 delivery, but the stamps actually arrived the day before. It took Fort Wayne only 11 minutes from arrival to loading on my mail carrier’s truck.

The whole journey took 10 days. The Pony Express and its horses could have done it in eight days given its standard of 75 miles per day.

I should state this is unusual. Past experience has seen delivery in two or three days, and I should allow for the Christmas delivery load. But why send them to Traverse City and why did Indianapolis send them back to Grand Rapids? Perhaps there is an explanation other than Murphy’s Law. If so, I would love to hear it if only to satisfy my curiosity.

But I will put the best construction on this and be thankful for the forever stamp policy. At least my wife can use these stamps next Christmas.

Or maybe I should have asked for my stamps to be shipped through UPS.

Mark Franke, an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review and its book reviewer, is formerly an associate vice chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. Send comments to [email protected].