Today is “Neither Rain nor Snow Day,” a day to celebrate the opening of the New York City Post Office Labor Day, September 7, 1914. The name comes from an inscription chiseled in granite on that building: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night, stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” The building on the corner of Eighth Avenue and 33d Street in Manhattan was later named for James A. Farley, postmaster general. The inscription – which is not actually the motto of the U.S. Postal Service – comes from a translation of The Persian Wars by Herodotus, praising Persian mounted postal couriers in 500-449 B.C. It’s not an apt description of our current letter carriers. We’ve missed our mail more than a week now, because a traffic cone made it impossible for the mailman to reach our mailbox without getting out of his vehicle.
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