{"id":107308,"date":"2025-08-14T06:55:33","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T10:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.owegopennysaver.com\/PS\/?p=107308"},"modified":"2025-08-14T06:55:33","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T10:55:33","slug":"the-old-coot-gets-a-package","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.owegopennysaver.com\/PS\/2025\/08\/14\/the-old-coot-gets-a-package\/","title":{"rendered":"The Old Coot gets a package"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">By Merlin Lessler &#8212;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I went out the door the other morning and noticed a package lying on the porch steps. I said to myself, \u201cI wonder what I\u2019ve ordered this time?\u201d But it wasn\u2019t for me; it was for the second-floor tenant. I was relieved; I didn\u2019t remember ordering anything, but I never do since I order stuff online all the time that I can\u2019t get in a store. So, when it shows up, it\u2019s a surprise! &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Our family hardly ever got a package when I was a kid in the 1950\u2019s. We could buy anything we needed in town. If we couldn\u2019t, we didn\u2019t get it. My sister and I got a Christmas package every year from our aunt in New Haven, Connecticut. It always contained two pairs of knitted mittens. I still remember how cold my wrists felt when I wore them outside to sled ride, build snow forts, shovel the driveway, and have snowball fights. The mittens just covered my hands, never making it to my wrists. Red wrists were with me through most of the winter.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">It didn\u2019t cost very much to send a package back then. 1st class mail was three cents an ounce; it had been that way since the 1930\u2019s. A one-pound package cost less than fifty cents. Today it costs over $10. Even so, a package on the porch back then really got a big, \u201cWow,\u201d from us. A rare treat.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">An even rarer event back then was a long-distance phone call. It was expensive! When our aunt in New Haven called, my mother immediately turned to me and told me to be quiet, \u201cShut up! This is a long-distance call!\u201d I would run outside to brag to my friends that we had a long-distance call. It cost $3.70 for three minutes in 1950, a dollar more than the monthly bill for our \u201ctwo-party\u201d line. Now, a long-distance call is a no-brainer since most cell phone plans include it for free.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">That cheap cost to mail a package in the 1950\u2019s doesn\u2019t seem like such a big deal to me since I\u2019m an Amazon Prime member, where postage is \u201cfree,\u201d if you don\u2019t count the annual membership cost. I would rather not be a \u201cPrime\u201d member; I want to go to stores to buy things, but that option has virtually disappeared. Postage on Prime is \u201cho-hum,\u201d just like a long-distance phone call on my cell phone. I probably do too much of both!<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">Comments? Complaints? Send to \u2013 <a href=\"mailto:mlessler7@gmail.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">mlessler7@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Merlin Lessler &#8212;&nbsp; I went out the door the other morning and noticed a package lying on the porch steps. I said to myself,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":82349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Old Coot gets a package - Owego Pennysaver Press<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.owegopennysaver.com\/PS\/2025\/08\/14\/the-old-coot-gets-a-package\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Old Coot gets a package - Owego Pennysaver Press\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Merlin Lessler &#8212;&nbsp; I went out the door the other morning and noticed a package lying on the porch steps. 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