The Superior Express -

I almost feel guilty telling a friend who lives not more than 10 miles from Lawrence that we got about 2.5 inches of rain Friday. She replied: “Ya, we got almost ten hundredths of an inch.”

Rainfall sure differs this year. The western part of Nebraska (the Panhandle and area) seems to be receiving the most rain when they are usually shorted any rain that falls.

Speaking of rain,t Friday was surely a day most all folks around Lawrence and south received with joy as reports of as much as 2.75 inches of rain fell. Many folks were also anxious for the football games that night. While grateful for the rain they didn’t know if it would make the football games be postponed.

Well, the rain stopped in plenty of time for the games to be played. I have cut down on the number of games I attend because of my ability to get around. However, with Blue Hill as close as it is, I wanted to watch the game first hand.

So, there I was, having climbed those ‘steep’ bleachers on the east side of the Blue Hill football field so I could get a better view, I found the seating was still wet from the rain.

That was OK, the game started, but in the second quarter, the rain returned. It was a calm rain, but it wasn’t long when the sun came back out and there I sat . . . trying to cover my ‘stat’ sheet with plastic and using my other hand to block the sun out of my eyes as we were all facing west.

I didn’t even see a rainbow for all the trouble the sun and rain caused.

Another story in my life.

A O

I have almost always supported the United State Postal Service. They have a hard job to do, and for the most part have always done it well.

However . . . I may be changing my mind on this subject. A number of ‘happenings’ have been occurring recently that I just don’t understand.

A few examples:

• A commercial business in Red Cloud recently mailed out their month’s end statements and were hoping their customers would shortly be mailing back a check to pay for their purchases. After waiting a while, no money was coming in and a few questions were asked. It seemed all of the statement mailings never got to the customers, and no reasons were given by the Post Office as to why.

• On a personal note: we usually charge our automobile gas purchases and pay at the end of each month. Well, a couple of months ago, our new statement came showing no payment for the previous month. Upon calling to see if they really did not receive our check, we were told they just received it the day after they sent out the new billings. It took a month for that check to go from our home to the business not more than two blocks away.

•  Then, I read in the Hastings newspaper of the schools and county governmental agencies that wanted to hold a meeting with the citizens in their area about tax issues. Seems not a lot of people attended as were expected. In checking with a number of people it seems many people did not receive the notices that were mailed out, or they received them after the meeting date.

• The editor of the Superior newspaper was recently informed by the Post Office he had to change the addresses of all his newspapers that went just a few miles south of Superior, but didn’t have a new address and zip code for him to use.

Over the years I’ve heard of occasional instances of mail being lost or misplaced, but in the last few years the instances seem to be more common. I can’t suggest things are going from bad to worse, but I really wonder what is causing a sudden increase in mail being lost or delayed.

My favorite suggestion or evaluation of the situations is this:

• A few years back the Post Office spent a ton of money on machines that could sort mail at an amazing pace and was supposed to enable the Postal Service to deliver mail faster and with more accuracy.

• Before these machines were used if a person mailed a letter to someone else in the same town, all the Post Office had to do was cancel the postage and put the letter in the addressee’s mail box. Short and sweet.

• Since the new machines started working, they seemed to do a good job of sorting mail and getting it on its way. However, the managers of the facility found the machine had enough down time, they were looking for to do. As such, every little Post Office around it was told they had to forward all their mail to the central location for the machine to sort the mail and then continue it on its way.

• What this meant was that the letter I mailed to a business two blocks away had to travel close to 200 miles to Omaha, be sorted and returned back to my town (in our case, that trip took a month).

• The final nail in the coffin for me was a week or so ago, I had to be gone all day and upon coming home I stopped to pick up the mail and the Post Office door was locked. Now, I know I don’t remember everything, but that was the first time . . . ever . . . I ever found the Post Office door being locked. I later found out the reason the door was locked was that the inside window lock was broken and the local Post Master was having trouble getting the Post Office maintenance people down to repair the broken lock.

• Consider all those people who go to work early in the morning and can’t get their mail before noon. The Post Office is locked when they get back home and their mail is never picked up.

The Post Office was originally set up to be a “Socialistic” organization, and that made sense. However, maybe it is time to rethink the problem of getting our mail from one place to another.

A O

I have not heard much about Planned Parenthood lately. I still have to laugh when I see that name as Planned Parenthood does everything it can to make sure a person does not become a parent by pushing its abortion efforts.

Do you remember about six years ago when it was discovered PP was selling human parts it recovered from its abortion efforts. I think this information made public cost them support and money. As such, PP thought they were the object of wrong efforts and took the people to court who found and released the information to the public. PP won the court battle, but the question is still in the Supreme Court being studied.

Please pray that PP is called to justice in defense of all those children that were killed inside their offices.

A O