An Urban's Rural View

As we closed up our West Virginia house for the season over the weekend I stopped by the Lost City post office to make sure our mail will be forwarded to our place in Oregon. The visit reminded me how much I'd miss our little post office if it went away.

It's not just the service, which is great. It's the human factor. A good rural post office is where you bump into neighbors you might not see otherwise. It helps bring a far-flung community together.

There doesn't seem to be any immediate danger of the Lost City post office disappearing. Last year congressional pressure forced the postal service to back off a plan to close 3,600 rural post offices. Ours wasn't on the list, anyway.

Still, the postal service is gushing red ink. And while the Lost City post office gets lots of visitors it's hardly the only one around. There's another in Baker 4.9 miles to the north and still another in Mathias 3.3 miles south. Lost City may not be lost, but it's not out of the woods.

The current postal service plan is to cut some rural post offices' hours or switch some post-office duties to letter carriers or grocery stores. Rural communities retain service and the postal service saves $500 million. Wait for the details before cheering; in the abstract it sounds like an improvement.

But will things be the same? If a letter carrier does most of the work will I still meet the fellow from down the road who told me about the music festival when I stood in line behind him at the post office? If hours are cut back will the employees still have time for the extra effort, the personal touch? We patrons of rural post offices have become accustomed to being spoiled.

I benefited from this spoiling last year when my wife and I decided to take up residence for a while in what had been a vacation house in the West Virginia mountains. I called the Lost City post office from Oregon with a question: Any of those mailboxes two miles down the gravel road ours?

The lady who answered didn't know but promised to drive over and find out. When she called back the next day she had an answer -- "Yes" -- and a plan: We'll make a key and hold it and your mail until you get here. I felt the warmth of her smile across the continent.

Something tells me I won't get that kind of service from a grocery store. At a time when the postal service is struggling to survive, maybe I don't deserve it. Some service is better than no service.

Still, as someone who uses both urban and rural post offices, I'm with those who urge that more of the cutbacks take place in populated areas.

California Congressman Darrell Issa was quoted in the New York Times last year as saying the smallest 10,000 post offices collectively cost $600 million a year to operate, less than an eighth of the $5 billion it costs to operate all 32,000 post offices.

"To achieve real savings creating long-term solvency," Issa said, "the Postal Service needs to focus on consolidation in more populated areas where the greatest opportunities for cost reduction exist."

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