Dear Editor,
There have been numerous debates over the U.S. Postal Service losing immense amounts of money. 
Back when my late dad was growing-up at Gretna in Phillips County, that village had a post office (it no longer does).
But mail back in the 1917-era was carried principally by trains.
In smaller places: a large “mailbag” or “mailsack” might be dropped on a steel rod or spike by a passing train that never stopped.
Mail-carriers delivered on foot, not by jeep.
My mother’s cousin George J. Riedl, Jr., was a letter-carrier who walked a beat in Indianapolis, Ind. for over 30 years. My father’s fourth cousin, Ernest Marples, was once postmaster general of the entire United Kingdom (England, Scotland, etc.) back in the 1950s. 
The greatest mistake this country ever made was removing our postmaster general from the president’s cabinet.
Today’s American postmaster general is just another C.E.O. 
It has followed a business model of over paid bureaucrats at the top and middle.
Yet I feel sorry for the ordinary window clerks whose jobs may be cut to strike some sort of bargain.
Saturday delivery as well as Monday delivery may have to be eliminated.
I like receiving mail six days a week, but I know we are in a changing world.
To my way of thinking, if Saturday is eliminated, Monday should be eliminated too. 
Many Mondays are already non-service days due to being “observed holidays” anyway.
If I were postmaster general, I’d simply stop both Saturday and Monday delivery and prohibit any federally-paid holiday except Christmas and New Year’s Day. 
That would save labor costs and it would save huge fuel costs. 
I’d make more postal workers walk a beat, rather than ride in an air conditioned gas hog of a jeep. 
President Obama talks “job creation.”
Well, let’s create some modified jobs, by taking a page out of history.
For smaller rural towns, we might have to go back to using railroad track and dropping mail-sacks. 
The Postal Service should be modified and saved, not driven to extinction.
It is a Constitutionally-mandated “service” to all citizens.
Ben Franklin would spin in his grave if he could see its current mismanagement.
James A. Marples,
Esbon