ENID — Going to the mailbox isn’t nearly as much fun as it used to be.

Of course, that’s been the case since I stopped looking for that set of plastic toy airplanes I was supposed to get from sending in cereal box tops 50 years ago or so.

These days, the mailbox contains mostly bills, the occasional magazine and a whole bunch of stuff addressed to “Occupant.” I’m thinking of changing my name to “Occupant,” just so I can get some personal mail.

Hardly anybody writes letters anymore, which is one reason the U.S. Postal Service is in such bad financial straits.

The USPS is considering closing 3,830 post offices nationwide later this year, nearly 80 percent in rural areas. Among the post offices on the USPS hit list in the Enid area are the ones in Carrier, Hillsdale, Fairmont, Bison, Hunter and Goltry.

The postal service is hemorrhaging money faster than the federal government, and figures closing the aforementioned post offices will save around $295 million per year, which sounds like a lot of money, but pales next to the USPS’ annual expenses of $70 billion.

The costs of everything have gone up, of course, but part of the post office’s woes stem from the fact hardly anyone writes letters anymore.

It is easier to dash off a quick email, a text or a tweet. Even greeting cards are being supplanted by the e-version, which often feature elaborate animation, dancing, singing cartoon animals and the like.

The USPS did a survey in 2010 of what it was putting in customers’ mailboxes, and found that 22 percent was what it called “standard mail in envelopes,” which it said was largely advertising. Seventeen percent was made up of fliers and circulars and 13 percent was bills and invoices.

Catalogs comprised 8 percent, financial statements 5 percent, first-class advertising in envelopes 5 percent, newspapers and magazines 4 percent and greeting cards 3 percent.

Personal letters made up only 0.7 percent of the mail being delivered, according to the survey.

Letters used to be the best way to communicate across long distances. Today’s soldiers fighting overseas can communicate with loved ones at home via email, text, cell phone or Skype, but in long-ago conflicts, letters were the only news from home that soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines received.

Letter-writing is a rapidly vanishing art. A well-crafted letter can convey not only information, but emotion. A good letter is a piece of fine literature.

In a letter dated July 14, 1861, Sullivan Ballou, a Civil War soldier, wrote a letter to his wife, Sarah. His unit was getting ready to go into battle, a fight he didn’t think he would survive. As it turns out, he was right.

“I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more,” he wrote. “But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night — amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours — always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.”

No email, text or tweet could ever convey such depth of feeling.

Among the most famous love letters ever written were those exchanged by 19th-century poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning.

Their 573 love letters now are available online at http://www.wellesley.edu/browning, where they can be viewed as they were written — on paper, with quill pens.

Writing a letter by hand has always been an extremely personal form of communication. To sit and write a letter longhand in these days of instant messaging is extraordinary.

I am certainly not holding myself up as a shining example of letter-writing prowess. Far from it. When I take time to write a letter these days, I do so on the computer. Otherwise, you can’t read it, the recipient left pondering a series of incomprehensible chicken scratches no Rosetta Stone in existence could decipher.

My bride even struggled to read my Valentine to her, and I hope she believed me when I said the card read “I love you,” instead of “I lump yams.”

When it comes to writing letters, my bride is my hero. This past Christmas, she sent out well more than 100 cards, and included a detailed, hand-written letter in each. I wrote one letter and only changed the names of the addressees each time I printed one out, or at least I hope I did.

She hand-writes everything, including thank-you notes. And these are no perfunctory, “How are you? I am fine,” letters, but long, detailed tomes. Nobody does that anymore, but she does.

As communication becomes faster and easier, a return to hand-written letters seems less and less likely. But it is sad that the easier and faster communication becomes, the more impersonal it seems.

Next time, instead of a text or a tweet, consider a personal letter. When you hand-write a letter, you put something of yourself in it no email could properly impart.



Mullin is senior writer of the News & Eagle. Email him at jmullin@enidnews.com, or hand-write him a letter at P.O. Box 1192, Enid, OK 73702.