Signed, sealed, delivered -- seven months late -- Oct. 21, 2021 column

By MARSHA MERCER

An “OFFICIAL BUSINESS” brown envelope from the United States Postal Inspection Service arrived in the mail the other day.

“Dear Postal Customer: The U.S. Postal Inspection Service has recovered stolen mail bearing your name and address. The suspect(s) were identified and prosecuted,” the letter inside said.

“It was determined he/she is not a postal employee and is not affiliated with the Postal Service in any way. The original mail is being returned to you in the condition in which it was recovered.”

With the letter was a sympathy card addressed to me about my dad, who died in February. The card was postmarked Feb. 26 in Lubbock, Texas. The envelope had been sliced open, but the card was intact.

I was amazed, and grateful, postal inspectors had gone to the trouble to deliver a condolence card after seven months.

The inspection service is the U.S. Postal Service’s law enforcement arm and the first federal law enforcement agency. Ben Franklin appointed the first of what would become postal inspectors in 1775.

Today the postal service has many problems, largely stemming from bad management at the top, so it’s a pleasant surprise when something goes right.

Mail theft may seem like a crime out of the 19^th century Wild West, when robbers on horseback stopped stagecoaches and made off with gold, cash and bank transfers.

In 2021, perps see opportunity in greeting cards and business envelopes for cash, checks, money orders or gift cards. None that was in the card to me, which contained only kind words.

The inspection service’s letter included a case number, and I searched online to no avail. But I did find many news stories about people around the country being charged with mail theft. One report caught my eye.

A man, 22, and woman, 35, were indicted Oct. 15 in Lubbock and charged with conspiracy to possess stolen mail and possessing stolen mail.

The two, who worked for a contractor that loads USPS mail on and off planes at the airport, allegedly looked through the mail while on the job Feb. 25 and 26 and stole eight checks totaling more than $2.3 million. Two were corporate checks, one for $2 million and another for about $242,000, news reports said.

I don’t know if the duo also happened upon the card addressed to me in Virginia on Feb. 26.

Most postal workers are dedicated and honest, although there are bad apples. One postal worker in Lubbock charged with mail theft admitted he stole mail every day he was on the job for four months last year.

Many, if not most, mail theft cases in the news are outside jobs. In Mount Jackson, Va., a man was charged Oct. 5 with 28 counts of identity theft to defraud less than $1,000, 12 counts of financial fraud and other crimes.

He allegedly stole people’s mail and used their personal information to open several accounts and credit cards in their names.

That wasn’t the extent of his troubles with the law. After the local sheriff and police officers went to his home, the man was also charged with 10 counts of animal cruelty and five counts of inadequate care by owner, The Northern Virginia Daily reported.

Nearly everyone has a story to tell about mail delayed or lost. The inspection service received about 300,000 mail theft complaints in the year that ended in February – and could investigate only a fraction of those cases.

Its 1,300 inspectors and 500 uniformed police officers around the country have responsibility for investigating about 200 federal crimes besides mail theft.

They protect postal workers, intercept illegal narcotics and hazardous materials sent through the mail, and investigate cybercrimes, consumer fraud and scams against veterans and the elderly, among other things. The inspection service also investigates COVID-19 scams and makes sure pandemic relief checks reach their rightful destinations.

To keep mail safe: retrieve mail promptly; deposit mail inside the post office, in blue collection boxes before the last collection of the day or hand it to a mail carrier; and never send cash. Learn more. 

It’s not the Wild West, but some things don’t change. We’re all potential victims of mail theft, and postal inspectors can’t catch all the criminals.

©2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, into the attic we go -- May 20, 2021 column

By MARSHA MERCER

A year ago, it seemed everyone in America who was stuck at home because of the pandemic was in cleaning mode.

My social media feeds were replete with triumphant tales of cleaned-out closets, garages and home offices.

I envied my industrious friends but had no such stories to share. I procrastinated.

I spent my time washing my hands and trying not to touch my face and chasing the holy grail of toilet paper, hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes.

Now, while others enjoy post-vaccination freedom with trips to the beach and family reunions, I’m fully vaccinated indoors, tackling the attic.

It’s not my own attic that’s occupying my spare time this spring. It’s my late parents’ attic.  

My parents and I moved every three years while my dad spent his first career in the Air Force, but when he retired and launched a second career teaching at Virginia Commonwealth University in the 1970s, they stayed put.

Over half a century, they took a short set of pull-down stairs to stow all manner of things they thought they or their daughter might need or want someday.

The great essayist E.B. White wrote in “Goodbye to 48^th Street” about clearing out his Manhattan apartment in 1957 before moving to Maine:

“A home is like a reservoir equipped with a check valve: the valve permits influx but prevents outflow. Acquisition goes on night and day—smoothly, subtly, imperceptibly.”

Taking advantage of a string of cool spring days, I enlisted Keith, my partner in crime, and our friend Kelli to help liberate objects from their dusty attic confinement.

Kelli is a woman of unstoppable cheerfulness, who, fortunately, is not put off by layers of dust. She even insisted she has seen worse. I appreciate her kindness.

Clearing an attic is physically taxing and surprisingly emotional. Objects become a family timeline. Long-forgotten memories flood back, item by item.

Christmas lived in my parents’ attic, but so did spare china, teacups and chafing dishes. I lost count of the discarded coffee pots. A note in my father’s handwriting on one electric pot said it worked well but failed to produce coffee hot enough for my mother.

A sewing machine and our old typewriters – electric and manual – are heavy enough to anchor a rowboat in a strong wind. Out-of-fashion glass ceiling light fixtures went to the attic with their old lightbulbs. An array of medical equipment sat ready for the next patient.

The attic teaches you about your family and yourself. I’d forgotten stashing my high school newspapers, college and grad school textbooks, notebooks, snapshots and letters as well as every brochure from my first solo trip to England in the 1970s.

Though we weren’t athletes, we accumulated a jump rope, badminton racquets, fishing gear, golf clubs, a bowling ball and croquet set -- all gathering dust.

When my mother died a few years ago and I bagged up her clothes for charity, I didn’t think to check the attic, where hanging garment bags contained mothballs and memories: evening clothes, handbags, footwear, and even a white Catalina one-piece swimsuit. She never gained an ounce so could have worn any of it into her 90s.

Some of my father’s military uniforms still had dry cleaner’s tags from Florida, indicating the uniforms accompanied them when they moved into the house.

There were also a few forgettable clothing pieces from my earlier incarnations: an alpaca poncho, bridesmaid dress and two formal gowns.

The long-forgotten trunk I’d shipped to college came home long ago to be filled by my parents with clips of newspaper stories I wrote. My dad filled his military footlocker with folders containing snapshots, tickets, letters, and other ephemera from his younger years.

E.B. White wrote about clearing out his apartment: “It is not a simple matter. I am impressed by the reluctance of one’s worldly goods to go out again into the world.”

I am, too. Possessions exert a hold on us, and it takes time to pick up every object and make a judgment on its future.

Eventually, though, my parents’ house will be ready for a new family to call home and to begin stashing their treasures in the attic.

©2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

In pandemic, Trump's tweets backfire -- May 28, 2020 column

By MARSHA MERCER

As the COVID-19 death toll neared and surpassed 100,000, President Donald Trump used his Twitter pulpit to sow fear, distrust and discord.

He even took after Fox News, calling some on-air personalities “garbage.”

Fox is “doing nothing to help Republicans, and me, get re-elected on November 3^rd,” Trump complained in a tweet May 21.

Poor Donald. Then, a new Fox nationwide poll found former Vice President Joe Biden, the putative Democratic presidential nominee, leading Trump by 8 points, well above the 3-point margin of error and a healthy jump from a month earlier when the Fox poll showed a tie.

Such numbers explain Trump’s desperate rush to reopen the economy, even though he acknowledges it will cost lives. COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, most severely affects the elderly, the poor and people of color. The states hit hardest tend to vote Democratic.

After nearly four years in office, Trump still claims to be an outsider and a victim – of “fake news,” of former president Barack Obama, of Democrats, and of the social media he himself manipulates so skillfully.

It didn’t have to be this way.

Trump believes he cannot win reelection without a bustling economy and strong stock market, but he should not present a false choice between public health and the economy.

He just as easily could wear a mask and urge his 80.3 million Twitter followers to do so and keep social distance, as medical experts recommend.

He could lead national testing and contact tracing programs. He could urge states to follow the guidelines his own administration issued for a safe reopening of the economy, even if it takes more time.

Instead, motivated by self-interest, he ridicules Biden for wearing a face mask and bullies governors who move cautiously to reopen.

“They would rather see our country fail,” Trump says of Democrats. And, if the reopening fails, we know he’ll blame the Democrats.

But the virus doesn’t know red from blue. The virus doesn’t care if you have the luxury of working from home or must risk your life in a store or restaurant.

More than 40 million people have filed for unemployment benefits in the pandemic, and many small businesses may not survive.

Now Trump wants a Fourth of July celebration on the National Mall. He threatens to move the Republican National Convention from Charlotte unless North Carolina’s Democratic governor quickly promises to allow “full attendance at the Arena.”

To distract from harsh reality, Trump accuses Obama of unsubstantiated, unspecific crimes and even treason and Biden of, well, everything. Obama has indirectly criticized Trump’s leadership; Biden called Trump a “fool.”

In recent days Trump isolated himself from his usual allies by suggesting – without a shred of evidence – that a prominent critic, MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough, committed murder.

In 2001, when Scarborough was a Republican House member in Washington, a young female aide in his Florida office died. Authorities investigated the death of Lori Klausutis at the time and found she had an undiagnosed heart condition and fell, hit her head and died. Her body was found the next morning.

On Twitter, Trump has urged authorities to reopen the “Cold Case.” Her widower begged Trump and Twitter to remove Trump’s tweets, but they refused.

This time, Trump’s baseless attacks prompted a rare backlash from conservative media, including the New York Post – “Trust us, you did not look like the bigger man.” The Washington Examiner called the claims “vile.”

And my personal favorite, from The Wall Street Journal: “ugly even for him.”

“It’s a smear,” a Journal editorialist wrote. “Mr. Trump is debasing is office, and he’s hurting the country in doing so.”

A few congressional Republicans also spoke up. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, chair of the House Republican Conference, urged Trump to stop tweeting about Scarborough.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, tweeted that Trump’s Scarborough tweets were a “completely unfounded conspiracy. Just stop. Stop spreading it. Stop creating paranoia. It will destroy us.”

Twitter fact-checkers tagged two other Trump tweets as “unsubstantial claims” after he said, again without proof, that mail-in voting would be “substantially fraudulent.”

Trump is on the warpath against social media, which he and conservatives have long claimed stifle conservative speech.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus is still here and likely to stay around. Even if a vaccine is developed, it could take years to control the virus worldwide, if ever.

Our lives must and will change. Trump’s misleading tweets won’t stop that.

©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.