Wild Postcards

Just for fun, I will frequently post a tweet or status update listing the destinations of my outgoing mail for any particular day. Today, however, in addition to some of the normal swaps and correspondence, I’m sending out the latest issue of Permit Patter, the newsletter of the Mailer’s Postmark Permit Club. Thankfully, the Club sends the materials and pays the postage.

Turns out that too much of anything can be a good thing: while I enjoy cancelling my own mail, I would not want soon to repeat having to do it nearly 200 times in one sitting. But the membership will know the joy of receiving mail cancelled with Gainesville, Georgia, Mailer’s Postmark Permit #1.

Today’s mail goes to:

Alabama: Theodore

Arizona: Sun City West, Tucson (x3)

Arkansas: Bryant, Rogers, Sherwood

California: Albany, Alpine, Chatsworth, Denair, Fort Bragg, Half Moon Bay, Lodi, Modesto, Northridge, Sacramento, San Diego, Stockton, Sunnyvale, Thousand Oaks, Torrance, Yucca Valley

Colorado: Broomfield (x2), Crook, Olathe

Connecticut: Berlin, Bristol, Enfield, Tariffville

Florida: Cape Coral, Ft. Myers (x2), Milton, Ormond Beach, Seminole, St. Petersburg (x3), Tampa

Georgia: Gainesville (that’s me!), Harlem, Powder Springs, Stone Mountain

Hawaii: Wahiawa (x4)

Illinois: Addison, Champaign, Chicago, Galesburg, Peoria, Rockford, Schaumburg

Indiana: Buck Creek, Muncie

Iowa: Iowa City

Kansas: Caldwell, Caney

Louisiana: Talisheek

Maine: Bangor, Greenville

Maryland: Annapolis

Massachusetts: Easthampton, Oxford, Weston

Michigan: Bay City, Cheboygan, Delton, Hazel Park, Munising

Minnesota: Bemidji, Rochester, St. Louis Park, St. Paul

Missouri: Birch Tree, Joplin, St. Louis

Montana: East Helena

Nebraska: Omaha (x2), Sidney, Virginia

Nevada: Henderson

New Hampshire: Contoocook, Epping

New Jersey: Englewood, Marlboro, Union

New Mexico: Albuquerque, Santa Fe

New York: Bronx, Farmingdale, Lake Clear, Liberty, Newark, Potsdam, Rochester (x2), Syosset, Owego

North Carolina: Cary, Sanford

North Dakota: Pembina, Warwick

Ohio: Akron, Canton, Chardon, Lakewood, Marion, Oberlin, Sidney, Solon, Stow, Warren

Oregon: Ashland, Newport, Portland

Pennsylvania: Bellefonte, Hughesville, Lemont, Mount Joy, Murrysville, Pittsburgh, Royersford, Spring Mills, Temple, Upper Darby, Valley Forge

Rhode Island: Newport

South Carolina: Columbia

South Dakota: Deadwood

Tennessee: Lawrenceburg, Portland

Texas: Atascocita, Austin, College Station, Garrison, Kilgore, Luling, Nome, Port Neches, San Antonio (x2), Silsbee, Sugar Land, Texarkana, Longview

Utah: Highland

Virginia: Alexandria, Colonial Heights, Falls Church, Herndon, Norfolk

Washington: Duvall, Kent, Seattle, Snohomish, Spokane, Tacoma

West Virginia: Moundsville

Wisconsin: Madison, Oshkosh

Today’s International Destinations: Don Mills, Ontario, Canada; Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico; Skopje, Macedonia; Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles; San Salvador, El Salvador; Madrid, Spain; Abingdon, Oxfordshire, UK; North Walsham, Norfolk, UK; Tripoli, Libya; Vaivadai, Panevėžio, Lithuania; Minsk, Belarus; Moscow, Russia; Saint Petersburg, Russia; Brookfield, Queensland, Australia; West Hindmarsh, South Australia, Australia; Dordrecht, Netherlands; Guangdong, China; Brunnen, Switzerland; Kouvola, Finland.

Nearly 200 mailpieces! In addition to the normal swaps and correspondence, I’m sending out the latest issue of Permit Patter. Thankfully, the MPP Club sends the materials and pays the postage.

After 10 weeks of wrangling with the United States Postal Service, I have managed to convince them that it is perfectly legal (and, in fact, covered in the Domestic Mail Manual) for them to issue me a permit that allows me to cancel my own stamps before mailing, instead of having them do it.

Why? Besides the fun of taking on a government which is ignorant of its own rules, I hate the new ink-jetted text that passes for a postmark nowadays. I’ve also noticed that I get one or two mailpieces a month from mailers that have their own permits, and one can actually tell when and from where it was mailed.

My cancellation device (an “indicia”, really just a rubber stamp ordered from a private manufacturer) arrived a couple of days ago, and I presented it at the Post Office for approval and received my permit. I am sure they were happy to see the back of me.

I am holding off on using it for now; I ordered some special postcards to commemorate the first day of use and am awaiting their arrival. If you’d like a snazzy piece of “First Day of Use” mail with my new postmark, leave a comment.

After 10 weeks of wrangling with the United States Postal Service, I have managed to convince them that it is perfectly legal (and, in fact, covered in the Domestic Mail Manual) for them to issue me a permit that allows me to cancel my own stamps before mailing, instead of having them do it. Why? [...]

I’m not trying to sell you anything for Postcard Friendship Friday, but I’m sure that this salesman had a very compelling pitch.  This photo was taken around 1915 by a Georgia photographer with the delightfully alliterative name over Cicero C. Simmons, whose career spanned 45 years, until he retired in 1925 at the age of 68.  The picture was probably taken in Talmo, Georgia, which is a small town located along the old Athens Highway.

I picked up this postcard about five or six years ago at the Athens Welcome Center.

I’m not trying to sell you anything for Postcard Friendship Friday, but I’m sure that this salesman had a very compelling pitch.  This photo was taken around 1915 by a Georgia photographer with the delightfully alliterative name over Cicero C. Simmons, whose career spanned 45 years, until he retired in 1925 at the age of [...]

This is the first time I’ve posted a view of my own town; I can’t imagine why that’s so except that I have so many cards from everywhere from which to choose!  Then I realize that a card showing a view that I see almost every day will seem as exotic to one of my postcard friends as their postcards seem to me.

This is a linen postcard, probably from the early to mid-1940s, of what was then the United States Post Office and Federal Building in beautiful downtown Gainesville, Georgia.  It’s still the Federal Building today and is also the Federal Courthouse, but the Postal Service moved out some time ago.  Today, there are four post offices in Gainesville; the main post office was built in the 1970s, and there are two more (and newer) branch offices along with a very new and very large carrier annex.

You’ll note that there’s a sign showing that street in front of the building was US Highway 23; today, it’s a narrow, poorly maintained one-way local street that leads to the downtown square, but back then it was one of the main highways to Atlanta.  Oddly enough, just the other day as I was standing near this spot, a very elderly gentleman asked me for directions to 23 and I had to think for a minute — US 23 in this part of Georgia is usually referred to by its other name of Interstate 985.  It turns out that he didn’t want directions to 23 at all, but to US 129, which is one of the main roads through town — but apparently he first came to know it as US 23, and that’s how he remembered it.  (If you don’t live in the US, you should understand that our numbered highway systems are generally superb, but that the numbers shift from time to time depending on when newer, better roads are built, what roads the federal government has the facilities to maintain, and which politicians can funnel those federal maintenance dollars to their own districts.)

Here’s a modern view I took recently from the same vantage point.  Kind of makes you wish for the good old days, doesn’t it?  Maybe you can find some at the other blogs celebrating Postcard Friendship Friday.

This is the first time I’ve posted a view of my own town; I can’t imagine why that’s so except that I have so many cards from everywhere from which to choose!  Then I realize that a card showing a view that I see almost every day will seem as exotic to one of my [...]