European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 27, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                When the postal service can t deliver by Dan a priest Washington Post no the Christmas package you sen your relatives was t sucked into a Black Hole in space. No the Poal card fro Hawaii was t carried out to sea and no the Bill the Telephone company sent a month ago was t chewed up by a dog. They re probably in Philadelphia. Just across the Street from the 30th Street train Slation in the main Philadelphia Post office is a room the size of a basketball court where All the lost Tollers arid packages from the Washington Notro Pollari area and 11 Stales end up his one of seven such rooms in the country where . Postal Sarvice clerks Are allowed to open your mail. What they find can Only be described As a commentary on the curious stale of american life bibles drugs dirty clothes mortgages and insurance policies scraps of Lood in plastic  lots of Odd containers Peanut tins Coffee jars and plastic Pill bottles filled with pennies nationwide about $872,000 in Cash was taken out of Indeli Vorabo letters and put into the postal service copters last year. It s no wonder Why much of the mail arrives Al Tho Philadelphia office millions of the envelopes there  Street address or the City or stale has been left off. Some Are addressed in a foreign language and others Are completely Blank the most common Arror. Postal officials said to incorrect address and no return address. You d like to return their mail you d like to return their Check said clerk Gerard Insall As he ripped open greeting cards and threw them one after another in the trash can at his feel. You feel bad when you can t return a Mother s Day card a father s Day card their Bills. It a pen l seem to end about 89 million tellers and packages were lost last year according to the postal service. Thirty percent of those were eventually delivered or returned. Clerk Pearl Banks receives about 150 mail tracer requests each Day. She spends Hall her Day Hunting Down the items people list on the forma. I Don t find something every Day but there s other people looking she said. Last time i found something was a couple of months  postal clerks in Philadelphia and the other six offices discard bulk business mall and Post cards with the wrong addresses no forwarding addresses. And no return addresses they also throw away correspondence that contains no identifying addresses inside. Cash and items Worth $20 or More Are recorded and saved or 90 Days. If a item is not claimed either through a tracer form available at Post offices or a phone Call or letter describing it it is kept by the postal service items Worth More than �500 go directly to the new York dead letter office for storage. Once every several months the Philadelphia Otico auctions off unclaimed hems such is cameras television sets and figurines. It gives perishable goods toys and used clothing to local charities. Unclaimed valuables such As credit cards Are shredded. The journey to the dead letter office starts at the local Post office where the mail Carrier collects incomplete and undeliverable letters and sends them to a regional mail processing Center. Such letter from Northern Virginia , end up  Heine Shanda Heine is a Nixie clerk at the huge Northern Virginia processing Center at Tefft fiend. For eight hours a Day he Irles to determine things such As what one sender meant when he wrote Gilboa.  on an envelope. He s not allowed to open a letter so he s left Wilh Lew clues. You be got to know How to read the writing or know the town with no slate said Heine. As Long As a have a town and a Street we re supposed to deliver it.". / it la not Only individuals who Are responsible for Tho volume of letters that arrive there. Heine displayed hundreds of Telephone Bills with no address in the Cut out envelope window. Ori oct. 14 the internal Revenue service sent a letter to someone somewhere in Pennsylvania. The unopened letter came Back to the mall Carrier with person no longer at this address written on it. The irs had in return address in  Corner three months later on Jan. 13, the letter made its Way to the Philadelphia dead letter office whore a clerk opened it and found a return address. I  myself Why Don t they put their name on  said clerk Mary Jackson. I really think they should be More careful she said. We be talked Beffle about my husband the Prince of darkness i be told you How he has dedicated his me to turning off Light s How he turns off the porch Light before our guests have reached their cars in the driveway and How he figured the Donald Duck night fight Cost 8 cents n Yoor and pulled the plug on it. -.well. Avant in Correl an erroneous impression i May have toll with you. There is one moment when the Cost of a Light is no object it can never Burn too Long or too brightly. In fact in has the Only 200-Watter in the ensue House i m talking about the Light by the bed he shines in my eyes when i am trying to Sloop and he wants to read a Little to gel sleepy a Lighthouse should have such a Light night baseball games and operating rooms should Benefit torn such radiance. President Bush should have 999 More polls of Light just like this one. Page 16 the stars and stripes the other night i asked How Long Are you going to read he said until i get sleepy Why because want to know  30 sunscreen Louse on my eyelids it s not that Bright he said it s like looking at Queen Elizabeth in a snowstorm. It is. The whitest White i have Ever  do you want me to ruin my eyes he asked if that s what it  i said. I personally do not know Why it takes so much Light to peruse a Dull Book he has been Reading for three years. Lately a new wrinkle has evolved in his discovery of monday. March 27,1989 tight. He has started to bring to our bed boxes of snacks and a television tuner. Even if 1 were not winded by the Light the sound of him grinding up a hard pretzel in his Teeth would Jolt anyone out of a coma. Did you Nowil takes .133 Chews to Mast Cate a Small triscuit thei vist Rheon the television set is Low enough to know cats on is saying something but you Don t know what. It is loud enough to hear the  once sat Upari the Middle of his orgy and said angrily cannot believe you Are the same Man who. When the Power goes out tells me god is punishing me Tor leaving the garage Light on All night. The Man who turns off the Christmas tree lights when we leave the room to answer  he stopped chewing and said Why Don l you just Sif up and join me it would be More Cost efficient if you did i almost punched his lights out "