Leader of the pack: even in the face of youthful competition, sourdough postal service reigns.

• Author: Ess, Charlie
• Position: Mail distribution in Alaska

Say the words Postal Service and we conjure up anything ranging from tax returns, to the trail-hardened riders of the Pony Express - to Cliff Claven, the nightly resident of the TV sitcom Cheers, whose interjections between swigs of fake beer are highlighted with, "It's a little known fact . . . ."

As an institution of service, it has been the bearer of good news, bad news and no news at all. It has, through its 223 year history been criticized, revamped and corporately restructured. As an institution of lore, it has been sung about, joked about, relied upon - and perhaps too often taken for granted.

But how is the Postal Service doing, businesswise? Of late, how does it stack up in delivering its goods in a world where technological advances enable us to send documents via wire almost instantaneously, or to download digital images from afar?

One look in the daily box - with all its bills, junk mail and cards of greeting - reveals America's steadfast dependency on snail mail: Vendors have tapped into the medium with increasing fervor when it comes to hawking credit cards, investment plans, groceries, tools, cookware, furnishings, magazines, vacations, kids' clothes and lingerie. Where else can you receive a brown envelope authenticating your eligibility for a shot at $10 million? And where else can you subscribe to a service that will mail out a reminder so that you won't forget to send out a gift for an oft-forgotten birthday? More than one Alaskan bachelor has depended upon the Postal Service to gamer himself a bride. Then, of course, there's Christmas.

Claiming to handle 43 percent of the world's mail volume, the U.S. Postal Service in 1996 processed 182.7 billion pieces of mail. That's about 603 million pieces a day. Its national delivery network reached nearly 128 million addresses. The Postal Service owns nearly 7,000 buildings (168 million square feet) and leases 28,823 buildings (98 million square feet). If relocated into one city, this spread would fill all Chicago's office and industrial space.

If the USPS were a private company, it would rank 9th among the largest businesses in the United States. Total operating revenues make it more massive than Coca-Cola, Xerox, and Eastman Kodak combined. Or another way to look at it: The annual budget is nearly 1 percent of the U.S. economy. Fortune magazine ranked the Postal Service 29th on a list of the world's largest corporations. As for net income, the Postal Service posted record net earnings of $1.8 billion in 1995.

In short, the Postal Service is here to stay. But much of that argument is hedged in a historic infrastructure that grew of a need that will always exist.

"Our business - and our only business - is to collect, process and driver the mail," says Nancy Cain Schmitt, senior communications specialist with the USPS in Anchorage.

However, some things have changed.

THE PONY EXPRESS

The mail delivery business began back in the 1700s when even the news moved no faster than the speed of a horse. Back then, a USPS prototype was borne of messengers who traveled by horse, steamboat and railroad between the North and the South delivering letters and news between farmers and buyers in America's cotton trade.

The Pony Express, one of the system's early contractual delivery systems, began in 1860 and lasted only 18 months. Over the 1,950-mile route between St. Joseph, Mo. and Sacramento, Calif., the new postal system involved 119 relay stations, 500 horses and 90 riders who were paid around $125 per month.

The rates to customers, unfortunately, started at $5 per half ounce, but were later reduced to a dollar. And even at that, the venture proved unprofitable for Central Overland California and Pike's Peak Express Co. Expenses for the 16-month period of...