Speaking of post office problems...My brother-in-law found a bag laying in the street around 10 days ago. It had around 90 pieces of mail for houses on his block. Also, I live in an area where there have been several blue mail boxes that were broken into this summer.
Having said that, my father-in-law worked for the post office "back in the day" and would have probably been startled by what seemed to be a more efficient & safe system back then vs. today.