2. Mail Carriers
Katherine D. Bennett
(First published in the Lathrop News August 8, 1996)
When I was a girl growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, we had a mail carrier we called George. Well, our street called him George, the next block called him Spike. He also answered to Jim, Fred, and John.
He was a kind, craggy, weathered man, who cheerfully delivered our mail through my entire childhood and most of my adolescence. He carried bulging mailbags and his pockets were full of dog biscuits in case he encountered a less than friendly watchdog.
In nice weather, the neighborhood children would trail after George and basically pester him beyond belief. He stoically endured everything our neighborhood had to dish out until my family brought home a pet pig from our grandmother’s farm.
Up until this time he came into our fenced yard and put our mail in the small mailbox on the porch. Unfortunately, our pig bit him and he regretfully insisted we put a rural type mailbox on our gatepost.
This did nothing to lessen our affection for George and my sisters and I left home-made cookies for him in the enormous box we put up. One of the earlier batches we made was pretty well burned, but he gamely ate one in front of us insisting he liked burnt cookies. We then deliberately burned a few for him each time we baked until he had eaten quite enough and told us he liked regular cookies, too. Finally, he retired, quite worn out. I hope he has had a lovely life.
I find it ironic that mail is delivered so differently here in small town Lathrop. The pace of the city carrier is much slower than the efficient rush of the rural mail carrier. Here the carrier is safe from dog, (and pig) bites because he or she remains in his or her vehicle. Any child wanting to trail behind a rural carrier will be worn to a frazzle trying to keep up. Although there is part of me that misses the carrier striding from house to house, pausing to occasionally talk to someone, I do appreciate a big job done well and in a timely fashion. If one were inclined to be philosophical, one could muse about how things seem to even out in small ways, and then go one to explore the apparent contradictions and so on, but the mail truck is coming, and I might get something interesting today.