Do You Pick Up Your Mail Daily? I Don't.

Yes, I do think the postal service should cut to five days a week. They can choose the day. Maybe keep Saturdays and close on Wednesdays.

I do understand rural areas. I semi-live in one. I drive through West Texas, which no longer has grocery stores except for bread, milk, lunch meat and mustard in the Stop N Go, or a Walmart somewhere within 60 miles.

These folks are surviving just fine. It's not like I need to get my Social Security check. That goes straight to the bank. Always has. Now everyone else's is as well, in one form or another.

Probably 20 years ago, I was driving down a Farm to Market road in East Texas, and I saw an old woman in a housedress, hair pinned up, drawing her mail out of the mailbox on the side of the road. It was one of those picture frames you note and file.

I thought,"That is going to disappear in my lifetime."

I am so tired of posturing. With so much electronic exposure, it is inevitable that we do so, and it is indeed a danger to survival to let your warts hang out unless you are very strong. It helps if you are rich, too, I think, but not as much as some seen to think.

You have no power over me unless I consent to let you. The older I grow, the more I see this. I also see as I age that the more I speak out in anger, the more damage I can cause to those who don't deserve it.

I still have this obstinate, immature streak. I hope I am curtailing it more often. Words said cannot be unsaid. I have to live with the results.

Here is what I know:some cancer patients aren't getting their medication now because Medicare isn't paying because they are so expensive. That hurts. I may have to learn to live on less and less as costs rise and my check doesn't. When I was working fulltime, I once went five years without a single cost of living raise because the bosses said there was no money. The golden years for lots of money for aging patients (and the corporations who handle the money and provide the care) are going away. That's fine. Just keep the money there for the children. And the helpless. Societies who do not care for the vulnerable don't survive very well, historically.

We HAVE to treasure the children. We must. Government doesn't have to do all of this. Society must somehow.

I am optimistic about the plans I see locally. Community gardens with lessons on how to cook and store fresh vegetables. A move to see that all the kids not only have school supplies but their athletic shoes for the start of school. More support for low-cost or free clinics. Festivals with music and dancing and fun for families. So many good things are happening.

We have sequesture because Congress would do nothing. They can't even pass a budget.

But the people go on. We always have. I hope we always will. With or without mail on Saturdays.