Post Office Blues

Sept. 19, 2017

    If civilisation can be measured by the efficiency and ethics of the postal service civilisation is in serious trouble.  While many people simply opt out of snail mail and live on the computer , there is a point for even the most avid tweeter, that the system fails. One needs to obtain one’s  Landsend t-shirt by mail. All the services that deliver anywhere in Canada, or U.S don’t. One place that they don’t is Brabant Lake and other communities of northern Saskatchewan.  

    A friend of mine and I launched on a project to restore letter writing. The ingredients are a pen, preferably fountain pen, stationery... non existent except for the size that enables you to say thanx.   I make my own by cutting and pasting pictures from magazines and seed catalogues. It works well except for the delivery . It is difficult to have a thinking, developing conversation with someone if you never know they got your last letter and will all the news be out of date, irrelevant or absurd because you can’t remember what you said a month ago?

    However the whole crux of the difficulty comes to a head in La Ronge Post Office. La Ronge Post Office operates on the DNS Northern Assumption. DNS was an imaginary line that determined north of here Socialist Fantasy Rules. Any rule, law or touch of reality the higher ups didn’t like, doesn’t exist.  Ergo the Caswells who do not run on socialist fantasies should not get mail service. So for years they ripped off our stamps and sent theletters back. They especially did this to letters addressed to our credit union.  Now they just put them in the mail bag for Prince Albert and we wait a month or a few days while the letter travels 800 miles or so.  When we get a donation by a cheque in the mail we mail it to the credit union.  We can do this Monday or Thursday .When the credit union picks up its mail , which is not always daily it goes to our account. But in that process there is plenty of opportunity for politically sensitive fingers to interfere.
   
    At election time we were supporting Rob Clarke, Conservative. The post office decided it was not in the NDP’s best interest for us to have money that could be used for gas to travel back and forth on Highway 102 passing out literature and putting up signs so no envelopes to the credit union were delivered until AFTER the election.

    Now we are waiting for an envelope to be delivered to the credit union, two blocks away from the post office. The post office claims they have not seen it and thus Conexus has not seen it.  And thus we are waiting for money to travel to La Ronge for supplies. Poof magic disappearing act.

    Of course we have no idea how many letters and donations never are put in our mail bag. We can only assume that the same lack of ethics and efficiency applies here.
   
    We used to complain to a Mr.Gord Luit in Winnipeg but now it is impossible to talk to a real person in the Canada Post Empire. One can write a letter but... the limitations of complaining about mail service by using mail service are obvious.

    Keep on sending donations please even through the mail but pray for their safety. May we suggest electronic transfers?

    Now this may be unfair to the kind and friendly people we encounter at the Post Office Counter when we ever get to La Ronge. But it is the Post Office who will have to determine who the bad “ THEYS” are. We’re just the victims.  Gay