Address Change, and Pity for the Postal Service

First an announcement:  my snail mail address has changed.  If you have me on a list, strike PO Box 14515, Silver Spring MD 20911, and replace it with my home office address: 410 Windsor Street, Silver Spring MD 20910.

The reason for this change is that the US Postal Service is (today) closing my convenient local post office, and if I want a box it's going to be a 2-mile walk away, rather than a 1-mile walk along my usual route of march to and from the Washington Metro; it's not worth it.

Several people to whom I've sent this notice have emailed me to sympathize and excoriate the Postal Service.  I disagree.  Sure, it's inconvenient for me not to have a handy PO box, but on the other hand, I now have the convenience of doing almost all my correspondence, bill-paying, and invoicing on-line, and the fact that millions of us are doing so is among the factors that makes it cost-ineffective to keep so many post offices open.  I feel a good deal of sympathy for the Postal Service, but I fear that it -- like typewriters and stick-shifts and cuneiform tablets -- has simply had its day and will become history.