GOINGPOSTAL
a long way on back-country roads
and switchbacks, especially with
gas over $3 a gallon.
“You get back in the hollows
down here, some people would
have to go 15 or 20 miles,” says
Gene Pells, 75, a retiree in Syria.
That means some residents
might have to drive more than a
half hour to mail a package, pick
up some stamps or buy or redeem
a money order. According to Pells,
some locals who can’t read also
come to the post office to get help
paying their bills.
“A lot of people here are pretty well in the dark,” says Pells.
“We have no access to cell [service] where we are, and no access to high-speed internet until
fairly recently.”
The controversy exposed a few
nerves in town. Plenty of residents didn’t take kindly to Washington putting an axe to their century-old office, where for decades
families have been making a daily
pilgrimage to retrieve their mail at
the window, chatting at the informal parlor often assembled at
the front of the store. More than
170 people signed a petition, organized by Pells and a few allies,
protesting the closure.
Under heavy opposition, the
HUFFINGTON
07.22.12
$3.2
BILLION
THE AMOUNT OF MONEY
THAT THE USPS LOST IN Q2 2012
postal service ultimately scrapped
its plan to shutter the Syria post
office back late last year. But then
earlier this year it announced it
would be cutting the branch’s hours
— from normal business hours
to just two per day, right around
lunchtime — as it would for thousands of others around the country.
The lone full-time employee at the
Syria office would probably be looking for new work after an unexpected early retirement.
To save the postal service, lawmakers and the agency’s own
leadership want to dramatically
scale back its workforce and operations. Postal workers and some
public advocates warn that such
moves will send the agency off a
cliff, destroying a service as old as
the republic itself, not to mention
hundreds of thousands of jobs.
If that happens, the ramifications will be felt not just in small