I don’t know why I keep this thing.
It’s not as if I’ve used it since sometime in the 1970s. But I suppose since it doesn’t take up much space and is tucked among a lot of other things on that particular bookshelf in my office, I forget it exists.
It was printed in the late 1960s/early 1970s by a business in Tupelo, Mississippi, that appears not to exist now. There’s a bank on or near the site. Google Maps–so fun! With the Internet, this kind of book is extinct. Doing a quick online search, I can find the zip code for exactly the address I’m mailing to. (In this book, each city gets only one code. So Houston is 77000, though as of March 2012, the city apparently has 181 zip codes. We’re BIG.)
The book lists around 35,000 zip codes. Present day, there are around 45,000 zip codes. I’m supposed to be writing it ZIP code, because ZIP is an acronym for Zoning Improvement Plan. That little guy on the front is named Mr. ZIP. He was adopted to promote the use of the codes in the 1960s (when they replaced the old postal zone numbers) and the 1970s. Some people call him Zippy. He was originally drawn by the son of a letter carrier, Howard Wilcox, when Wilcox worked at an advertising agency in New York. That’s right: Mr. ZIP could have been created by that Mad Man Don Draper.
Woof. Now I’ll never be able to throw the book away.
Mine has a cream colored cover with red lettering and is in the center drawer of my office desk. You never know when it might come in handy.
Ha! If I had to guess whether anyone else might have one, I’d have guessed you. I think we are soul mates.
I agree. 🙂