[On July 26, 1775, the Second Continental Congress established the United States postal system. So this week for the 250th anniversary I’ll AmericanStudy that moment and other histories and stories of the USPS, leading up to a weekend tribute to these vital federal workers!]
On
takeaways from four prominent cultural representations of the USPS (in addition
to the obvious best one, the Snail in the Frog &
Toad story "The Letter,” although he is more of a commissioned mail
carrier than a federal employee).
1)
“Please Mr. Postman” (1961):
First of all, I’m obviously talking about The Marvelettes’s original; no
offense to The Carpenters, whose 1975 version is fine
too, but it would be mail fraud (and at least a little bit racist) not to go to
the source. Second, I really like how this song captures (as does the Frog
& Toad story, come to think of it) one of the best parts of the USPS, a
pleasure that kids today might not know: the anxious excitement of waiting for
an expected but uncertain (at least in timing, but possibly at all, as seems to
be the case with this song’s situation) mail delivery. I also like that the last
verse concludes with “deliver the letter, the sooner, the better,” a quote
which also appears in…
2)
Dear
Mr. Henshaw (1984): … Beverly Cleary’s Newbery Medal-winning YA novel.
If anyone ever tries to argue that epistolary
novels are either a) from the distant literary past or b) generally not
successful, please point them to Henshaw, which uses letters as well as
any literary text I’ve ever read. While in some definite ways Cleary’s youthful
protagonist Leigh Botts is writing to and for himself (the famous author Mr.
Henshaw to whom he is writing doesn’t write back more than a couple times, and
the structure evolves into a diary as the book goes along), Dear Mr. Henshaw
nonetheless reflects how the mail can connect us to other people and worlds in
ways that can be very helpful, if not indeed necessary, for navigating our own lives
and stories.
3)
Newman from Seinfeld
(1989-1998): As that particular hyperlinked clip illustrates succinctly, Wayne
Knight’s mailman neighbor and nemesis of Jerry Seinfeld’s character on the
iconic sitcom was generally portrayed as an over-the-top villain, one for whom the
mail was (when it was mentioned at all) largely a mechanism for his sinister
plots. But I really enjoyed this moment, when Newman
was given a bit more complex humanity through his righteous rant about why so
many postal workers “go postal.” I have to think the writer of that particular speech
either had worked as a mail carrier (or other postal employee) or was close to
someone who had, and in any case I love that the “show
about nothing” featured a moment that was so much about something real and important.
4)
Dear God (1996): Full
disclosure: I haven’t seen this film, and based on the reviews I don’t imagine
I ever will (my favorite line, from James Berardinelli:
“At least after seeing this movie, I understand where the title came from—starting
about thirty minutes into this interminable, unfunny feature, I began looking
at my watch and thinking, ‘Dear God, is this ever going to end?’”). But I do
believe its premise—Greg Kinnear’s convicted con artist Tom Turner works at the
post office’s dead letter office for his court-ordered community service and begins
responding to letters sent to God—opens up two other layers of the USPS: the
very idea of “dead
letters,” and specifically of what happens to all the mail sent to God and
Santa and so on; and the question of whether and how the postal service can
become part of our identities and communities far beyond mail delivery. More on
that in my special weekend post!
That tribute
post this weekend,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Postal histories or stories you’d share?
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