No matter what we say about "snail mail" and the price of stamps more than tripling since we were kids, the fact remains that a majority of Americans describe receiving mail as "a real pleasure," and 95 percent of us assess and sort our mail daily. There is a fondness for the old, reliable mailbox, ...

There are two things my grandparents would look for every single day—the morning paper and the afternoon mail. (Well, three, if you included Walter Cronkite in the evening.)These events gave them a sense of normalcy and regularity. If the morning paper didn't arrive by 7:30 a.m., Grandpa had to make...