A headline I spotted today on Google News: FBI investigating tip to Hoffa burial site. This story’s an evergreen, in news biz jargon. Actually, no. When a magazine editor, at least of my generation, called a piece an “evergreen” that meant it didn’t have to run in a particular issue. If you waited an edition or two, it wouldn’t go stale.

But I’m expanding the definition: the Hoffa article is evergreen because it could have run 15 years ago, or 10 or five or last year, with only a few details changed. It could also run next year or five years from now, provided Mr. Hoffa’s remains aren’t found, and I wouldn’t bet any money that they will be. But you never know, maybe someday — how long did it take to find Richard III?

I also read that the 50th anniversary of zip codes is coming up. Years ago I remember thinking, zip codes weren’t around when I was born? (Lilly might someday feel the same odd feeling about Google.) Maybe that thought occurred to me in high school, when I heard a presentation by a Canadian mathematician (or maybe he was just a math teacher) about postal codes. He claimed that five- and six-number codes were the easiest to remember — the postal code systems that the United States and the Soviet Union, respectively, had adopted.

“The most difficult system to remember is a combination of arbitrary numbers and letters, which the British adopted,” he said. “The Canadian government, in its wisdom, decided to imitate the British system, which is the worst.”

Zip codes, they say, were developed to help the post office deal with too much mail. Bet the USPS wishes it had that problem about now.