response 1 of 1:

Nov 3 19:51 UTC 2006

 > What does "Sending mail... in background" mean?

 it means that the mail program you're using (pine?) isn't making
 you wait for the system to finish sending your mail before letting
 you get on with whatever else you want to do with the mail program.

 >  Does the mail sent this way ever make it to its destination? -:)

 Generally it does, unless there is some other problem that is
 preventing delivery of mail and in the event of such a problem
 other methods of sending mail would also suffer from the same
 difficulty.