Letters from Somewhere

Once a casual outline of a running chicken carved on a bottle cork could serve as a postmark. Then came names, and now, in the name of efficiency, postal authorities have begun to do away with place names. Under a system known as Area Mail Processing, mail is picked up and taken directly off to distribution centers where huge, highspeed letter sorters shuffle through thousands of pieces formerly handled by local post offices. Instead of postmarking a letter with the name of the town where it was mailed, the AMP machines simply stamp envelopes with the phrase "U.S. Postal Service," followed by an abbreviation of the state and the first three digits of the area's zip code.

Today there are 22 AMP centers, with more to come, and many resonant place names are vanishing from American envelopes. Letters from Concord, Mass., for example, are trundled off to the AMP center in Framingham. Gone will be such postmarks as Shickshinny, Pa., and Truth or Consequences, N. Mex. If these pieces of Americana must disappear, however, the postal authorities might consider labeling letters with, say, "Somewhere in Oklahoma." That would at least cover the loss with an air of jaunty mystery.

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