Nearly everyone receives “something” from the U.S. Postal Service almost daily, perhaps a payment due bill, a receipt, some advertisements, a greeting card, a package? So many years have passed since the Pony Express and the Stagecoach delivered “mail” in multi-time periods, and the passing use of the telegraph, the mimeographs, the fax machines, and the war-time “V-mail,” etc.
One type of correspondence seemed most likely to survive: the envelope.
Nearly everyone receives “something” from the U.S. Postal Service almost daily, perhaps a payment due bill, a receipt, some advertisements, a greeting card, a package? So many years have passed since the Pony Express and the Stagecoach delivered “mail” in multi-time periods, and the passing use of the telegraph, the mimeographs, the fax machines, and the war-time “V-mail,” etc.
One type of correspondence seemed most likely to survive: the envelope.
Envelopes were manufactured for six primary uses; namely, the most best known number 10, corner-card envelope of the sender; the number nine return envelope, the two-way remittance envelope, various types of payroll envelopes; also inter-company systems-type envelopes such as the “inter-departmental envelopes“ and a great variety of packaging envelopes to hold small screws, nuts and bolts, or to hold photographs, music discs, etc.
With the advent of the computer, most of the above-mentioned types and uses of envelopes have been replaced with digital instruments including e-mail, blogs, the growing number of “social-media” too numerous to mention.
Here’s an example of how “things” change.
“An envelope’s life story
I am only an envelope, a lowly bit if paper, designed, fashioned, and made to convey messages.
I am impersonal, dispassionate, neutral.
I have no feelings, yet within me may be the incitation of the whole gamut of emotions;
Love, hate, greed, avarice, inspiration, joy, exultation, happiness, hope.
I may convey felicitations, flattery, fear, discredit, despair.
Who knows what my burden may be, whether joy, sorrow, pain, pleasure, heartthrobs, heartaches; a notice of death, a paean of passionate love, confession of a dream shattered, an order for merchandise, or a contract cancelled.
I am only an envelope, yet business depends on me more than upon any other servant for the exchange of thoughts, ideas, plans, instructions, orders, payments, acknowledgements.
I am only an envelope, yet romance finds in me a faithful ally; lovers adore me for my secretiveness and security in passing sweet sentiment
I am only an envelope, yet diplomats, dictators, presidents, kings consider me their trusted messenger.
If it were not for me, the vast, complex mail distributing systems of the entire world would collapse, becoming useless, obsolete.
Before you destroy me think of the service I have performed for you and am capable of performing for others.
Think, and be grateful that my cost is so little, and my services so indispensable.
Note: Back in the 1950-60’s (14 years) I designed and sold millions of of envelopes, all types and sizes to banks, savings & loan companies, manufacturing corporations. many of the aero-space developers, etc.
It was during that time, I wrote “The Life Story of an Envelope.”