After dad was discharged from the Army in 1945, he went to
work for Cudahy Packing Company in St. Paul Park rather that returning to the
farm to help his brother Clem.
A little over a year later, he married his neighbor in Hastings,
Minnesota, a young woman named Mae Stenson, and a little less than a year later,
their first child (me) came into the world.
Dave had saved most of the money he made in the Army, so he
was able to pay $5000 cash for his first house at 958 McLean in St. Paul. In
April of 1950, they became parents of a little girl, and it quickly became
obvious that they needed a bigger house, so they bought the house at 2059 E. Third
Street. Since the home sold for $12,000, dad was forced to take out a 20-year
mortgage – which terrified him. As a result, he paid off the mortgage in 8
years.
Life was pretty good for the young Brennan family until 1954,
when the Cudahy Packing Company closed its doors.
With two young kids and a mortgage, Larry Brennan took a job
working nights at the Zinsmaster Baking Company, but dreamed of getting a better
job.
Late in 1954, he studied to take the test for the United States
Postal Service – and passed. He began working for the Post Office in the spring
of 1955, and worked there until 1976., when he retired at the age of 67.
His first job with the Post Office was special delivery, and
he had a few of those moments of “neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor hail
shall keep the carriers from their appointed routes.” On one occasion, he delivered
a live baby alligator during one Christmas season. He was never involved in any
accidents, but managed to tear the fender off a mail truck when one of the chains
on a rear wheel snapped.
Eventually, he got a “walking route”, which allowed him to
work the day shift all the time. Over time, all that walking gave him bunions
on his feet, which he found to be uncomfortable.
His walking deliveries came to an end in the winter of 1968,
when he slipped on some ice on somebody’s front porch, causing him to land on
his right side, injuring his shoulder. He sued the homeowner, and received a cash
settlement of $3000, which allowed him to trade in his 1963 Chevrolet Biscayne,
and buy a brand-new Ford LTD.
By this time, the Post Office was using Jeeps identical to the
one shown at the bottom of this page, but they also used right hand drive AMC
Ambassadors for a period of time, before reverting back to the Jeeps.
About 10 years after dad retired, the Postal Service came to
the realization that an increase in first class mail volume made it necessary to
start using a larger vehicle. In 1987, the LLV (Long Life Vehicle) model that
is still in use today came into being.
The truck lacked a rear window, air conditioning, and reliable
heaters, and got 10 miles per gallon, but many of the originals are still in
use today, even though some of them are beyond their 24-year life span.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/05/24/uspstrucks/
Ten years after dad retired, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. PAEA was the first major overhaul of the United States Postal Service (USPS) since 1970, a year before it became an independent entity. It reorganized the Postal Rate Commission, compelled the USPS to pay in advance for the health and retirement benefits of all of its employees for at least 50 years and stipulated that the price of postage could not increase faster than the rate of inflation. It also mandated the USPS to deliver six days of the week. According to Tom Davis, the Bush administration threatened to veto the legislation unless they added the provision regarding funding the employee benefits in advance with the objective of using that money to reduce the federal deficit.
Between 2007 and 2016, the USPS lost
$62.4 billion; the inspector general of the USPS estimated
that $54.8 billion of that was due to prefunding retiree benefits. By
the end of 2019, the USPS had $160.9 billion in debt, due to growth of the
Internet, the Great Recession,
and prepaying for employee benefits as stipulated in PAEA. Mail volume
decreased from 97 billion to 68 billion items from 2006 to 2012. The employee benefits
cost the USPS about $5.5 billion per year; USPS began defaulting on
this payment in 2012. The COVID-19
pandemic further reduced income due to decreased demand in
2020. The latest quarterly financials of the USPS do not suggest the COVID-19
pandemic further reduced income due to decreased demand in
2020.
According to Bloomberg, prefunding the health benefits
of retirees "is a requirement that no other entity, private or public, has
to make". Columnist Dan Casey wrote in a July 2014 op-ed in The Roanoke Times that the PAEA is
"one of the most insane laws Congress ever enacted" Bill
Pascrell, a Democratic House member from New Jersey, said in 2019 that it was rushed
through Congress without due consideration, and referred to it as "one of
the worst pieces of legislation Congress has passed in a generation". In
May 2020, a segment on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver examined
the law and its impact on the USPS, demonstrating that it has contributed to
its debt. It has been alleged
that this legislation contributed to the 2020 United States Postal
Service crisis.
A 2021 bill, introduced with
bipartisan support, would undo substantial parts of the PAEA, although it is
unclear whether Senate moderates like Collins would support such effort
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Accountability_and_Enhancement_Act
First class mail delivery reached its peak in 2001, when it
delivered 103 million pieces of first-class mail, but has gone down daily
steadily since then due to our increased internet usage.
https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/first-class-mail-since-1926.htm
The Postal Service actually made a profit from 1989 until
2007, when the Postal Accountability Act went into effect. If Congress is successful
in amending the worst part of the act, the condition of the Post Office will
improve dramatically, which will make it easier to afford the $6 billion that
it will start to spend in 2023, as it replaces the current mail trucks with new
models called “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles”.
https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/pieces-of-mail-since-1789.htm
Megan Brennan began her career with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) in 1986 as a letter carrier in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She subsequently worked as a delivery and collection supervisor, a processing plant manager in Reading and the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania, and a district manager in Springfield, Massachusetts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan_Brennan
Brennan stepped away from the USPS
for a year to study as a Sloan Fellow at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. Following that hiatus, she served as
manager of field support and integration and manager of operations support for
the Northeast area. In May 2005 she was named vice president for the Northeast
area, where she coordinated and integrated processing and distribution,
transportation and delivery operations in that region.
Brennan was then named vice president
of Eastern Area Operations, putting her in charge of postal operations in the
states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Delaware, Kentucky, Central and South Jersey, Western
New York and parts of Virginia and Indiana. In December
2010, she was named chief operating
officer and executive vice president of the USPS. In 2012, she
began shutting down mail-handling facilities because of budget cuts brought on
by less mail and congressionally-mandated pension-funding rules.
On November 14, 2014, the U.S. Postal Service's Board of Governors voted
to appoint Brennan postmaster general to succeed Patrick R. Donahoe,
who was set to retire in February 2015.
In May 2018, the Washington Post reported that
President Trump personally
pushed her to double the rates on Amazon and other firms.
(You may be aware of the fact that
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, also owns the Washington Post – which frequently
criticized Trump’s presidency).
On October 16, 2019, Brennan
announced in a statement that she would be retiring upon fulfilling her
five-year commitment as Postmaster General. However, on January 6, her
retirement was delayed until a successor could be found.
The Board of Governors used two search firms to find Brennan’s replacement, and 53 names were submitted.
Louis DeJoy was not one of the 53.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_DeJoy
Prior to the appointment, he was a Republican Party fundraiser, the founder and CEO of a logistics and freight company, and the CEO and then board member and large shareholder of the company that acquired it. DeJoy's company holds contracts with the USPS.
Upon assuming office in June 2020, he
instituted a number of measures such as banning overtime, forbidding late or extra trips to
deliver mail, removing and dismantling hundreds of high-speed mail sorting machines, and removing some
mail collection boxes from streets. The changes caused significant delays of
mail delivery, resulting in investigations by congressional committees and
the USPS inspector general. Controversially, the
changes were implemented during the COVID-19
pandemic and the 2020 election,
where mail-in-voting was extensively used, with President Trump and prominent
Republicans deriding mail-in-voting. In August, DeJoy said that the changes
would be suspended, and in October, the USPS agreed to reverse all the changes.
DeJoy's appointment was not only
controversial because of his strong Republican connections, but also because of
his financial position. While he divested shares in UPS and Amazon before taking on his role, he did
not divest his $30–$75 million equity stake in XPO, a subcontractor for
USPS. Under his tenure as Postmaster General, USPS has increased its business
with XPO. Additionally, when DeJoy sold his Amazon shares, he
purchased stock options in
the company that represent between 20 and 100% of his prior holdings. USPS
prioritizes Amazon package delivery. DeJoy is the first postmaster
in two decades without prior experience in the United States
Postal Service.
Trump pushed to have him appointed in order to (1) slow down mail delivery during the 2020 presidential election and (2) gradually privatize the Postal Service.
President Biden has been successful
in adding three Democrats to the Board of Governors, and will soon replace Ron Bloom,
who is in a “holdover year”. When Bloom’s successor is confirmed, Louis DeJoy
will become the FORMER Postmaster General, and another “swamp creature” will slither
out the door.
Dad was known as “Larry the mailman”
to the people on his route, but his story is actually quite remarkable, since
he represented a time in America when a man could survive the Great Depression
and WWII, get a union job, and make a living that was adequate to provide a
comfortable way of living for his family.
The Postal Service will endure, and
so will my memories of my dad. Since I have an “Avon collectible” mail Jeep mail
truck on my dresser (identical to what he used to drive), I can always greet
each day with a smile.
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