The United States Postal Service (USPS), that darling of Benjamin Franklin and his vision for America now gone virtually bust in the face of the digital revolution, created the ZIP code in 1963.

The Zone Improvement Plan (ZIP) was introduced in 1944 by Robert Moon, but it took nearly 20 seasons of moons for the USPS to finally got around to implementing the system.

ZIP codes were designed to speed delivery, as we all know. When the service assigned the ZIP numbers, it awarded 12345 — the simplest to remember — to General Electric in Schenectady, N.Y.

As a result, GE gets thousands of “Dear Santa” letters each year from kids who think “12345” is Santa’s personal ZIP Code.

The good news is that employees at the plant volunteer to answer the letters.

The bad news is, well, that USPS is going bust despite its Zone Improvement Plan.

But I’d better shut up. I’m beginning to sound too much like Scrooge.