Without a written notice to box holders, the Yellow Jacket Post Office is gradually replacing its 60-plus-year-old combination post office box doors with ugly tin-colored ones that open with keys. I just found out about this, not being the family member who usually goes in to get the mail, so have not noticed the gradual replacing of the doors, and quite frankly, didn’t even think to look.
When speaking with someone at a larger area post office (who was very nice and polite), I was told the combination locks will be going to the Cortez Post Office as parts to repair their older combination locks. I, and probably other Yellow Jacket box holders, particularly those with a generational connection to the boxes, would very much like to have my door. I would be willing to pay a reasonable price for it. I also wondered why Cortez would get our parts when I think the opposite could occur, and Yellow Jacket could get the old doors from the Cortez boxes, to repair the historic box doors at Yellow Jacket.
Anyway, I realize it’s a small matter, only important in my world, very small when compared with the fact that there are Marxist maniacs who want to blow up Mount Rushmore and rip down the Jefferson Memorial. But it is important to me and others in Yellow Jacket, and I suspect that there are other similar situations around the country. It seems a good example, albeit a small one, of government overreach, and, quite frankly, inefficiency. I was told that they are saving money by using the doors as parts, but they could also sell those doors and make a little money.
Of course, we live in a vastly different world than even 20 years ago, and as they say, you can’t fight city hall – or, in this case, you can’t fight the USPS, sadly. Truth be told, we probably won’t even have our Yellow Jacket post office for too many more years, which is all the more reason to preserve a part of its history.
Ruth Wilson FranciscoYellow Jacket