After the hard-won gains of the first six months, a more playful spirit prevailed in summer.
A philatelic edition of Monopoly and a puzzle featuring stamps of the 1980s were both released in July and quickly sold out.
Soon after, The Great American Mail Race, another licensed board game, made its debut at the Gen Con gaming conference.
And a milestone was reached for that adorable battery-operated mini LLV for kids when it celebrated its first year of success in July.
Even the stamp releases were fun: Mariachi, Buzz Lightyear, Pony Cars, Elephants and Charles M. Schulz all made their debut.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy dined with the top prize winners of the Sustainability Excellence Awards, installed 50 postmasters at the United Postmasters and Managers of America convention and visited employees in Texas and Louisiana.
Informed Delivery reached 50 million subscribers, a centralized portal for sales leads was unveiled, a new Update newsletter was introduced and Extended Mail Forwarding was made a permanent product.
Unfortunately, not all was upbeat. A series of intense thunderstorms caused catastrophic flooding in eastern Kentucky, the latest in a string of natural disasters that has tested the area in the last few years. More than 25 Post Offices were forced to close for repairs.
The bad weather news for the Southern United States was just beginning, however: September closed out with one of the most destructive hurricanes in Florida’s history, a storm whose aftermath would be felt for months to come.
Coming next: Link’s four-part review of 2022 concludes Dec. 29 with a look back at autumn achievements.
