title: What's Behind Your Stamps?: The Post Office Story
author: Ventnor T. Wright
description: Ventnor T. Wright, retired from the United States Postal Service, January 28, 2014. During the years he worked at several post offices as a "front line" supervisor, overseeing the flow of mail, and managing people. He owns and operates a funeral home in Pennsylvania. Ventnor is married to Leslie, and is the father of one son named Christian. He had a "special" daughter, Stephanie Lauren.
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  ![](../images/iii.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  For all the girls whose names we know, and those whose names we don’t.
  
  
  
  
  
  Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not
  cute. They are life-sized.
  
  
  —Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER ONE
  
  
  NOW
  
  
  There’s nothing special about the envelope. Standard #10 size, 24-pound white
  paper stock, available in any office supply store. My name and address written
  in capital letters with black ink. Deliberately generic, so neat it appears
  typed, but the giveaway is a tiny smudge on the d in Maryland. No return
  address.
  
  
  Early-September sun peeks through the window blinds behind me, cutting bars of
  light and dark across my desk, and a plane rumbles overhead on its way to or
  from nearby BWI Airport. I have a letter opener in one hand and a small pile
  of unopened mail before me. To my right, a messy pyramid of opened envelopes
  and their contents; on my left, a laptop with an unfinished game of solitaire
  on the scree