Post Modern Mails

By Bennett Owen

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My family’s ranch is still pretty remote by today’s standards. By that I mean it is one of the few places left where it’s impossible to get a cell phone connection.  An Uncle recently discovered the only hot spot in the valley but depending on the season you’ll need either a four-wheel drive or a snowmobile to get there.

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What the valley DOES have is a post office. Aunt Mary is Postmaster and the single employee at zip code ----- and the ‘stage’ is still a lifeline to the outside world. But wireless Internet has also reached rural America and that’s mighty stiff competition.

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Snow and rain and heat and gloom of night are one thing. A party line is another.  But the Internet Cloud is a whole ‘nother kind of monster.

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The USPS is deeply in debt, based largely on plummeting demand in the Email age. Statistics show that over half of all bills are paid Online…”the check’s in the mail” is increasingly becoming, “the binary transfer is on the ether.” 

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The USPS plans to shutter as many as 37-hundred affiliates in an effort to regain solvency…85 of those are scattered throughout Montana and in some cases closure will leave patrons up to 60 miles away from the next post office.  As one customer in Dixon, Montana said, “a town without a post office becomes a ghost town.”  Not that we have anything against ghost towns, but…

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…The My-West team is fighting back in our own small way. The next great My-West road trip gets underway on October first and anyone who sends us an address will receive a greeting card, sent from one of the post offices pictured here. Now that’s a special delivery.  Do it for fun! Do it for nostalgia! Do it for…Aunt Mary!

Credit: My-West.com ©

Credit: My-West.com ©

Credit: My-West.com ©

Credit: My-West.com ©

Credit: My-West.com ©

Credit: My-West.com ©