Where have the blue boxes gone?

When I was growing up there was a blue mailbox two blocks east of my house. There was another one on a corner near my school and an third a little further by a mall entrance. Of course I could always take mail to the Post office, good old Bacon Station. Or I could simply put my letter in my own mail box where the smiling mailman would pick it up fight from my porch.

So recently I needed to mail a bill, which I don't like leaving in my own mailbox at the curb, and was trying to think about where the closest blue box was. I thought and I thought and that box sits outside of the USPS building 4 miles north east or three miles south west. There aren't blue boxes on any corners between here and there. There isn't one near the school. There isn't one near the mall or even the grocery. There aren't mailboxes anywhere around here except the drives in front of the post office.

That got me thinking about why there are not blue boxes on corners anymore. It surely takes time to stop and unlock and unload a mailbox. The USPS is losing money like some people lose their hair. They need to work smarter not harder so maybe that is why all of the mailboxes are gone. Additionally, there are bad people in this world who look at the USPS as their personal means to an end. They want to use the USPS to do their dirty work for them and deliver bombs or poison to people while they stand back and wait. Maybe you can't drop a letter or package in a blue box any more because the USPS wants to see (and/or record) who sends what packages through their system. Maybe there are many more reasons that the blue boxes are missing. Maybe they are expensive to build? Maybe the blue paint used to keep them bright was lead based? Maybe someone considered them more of an eyesore than a service?

I do not know the answer. There is probably more than one anyway. But I do wish there was a blue box two blocks to my east.