Accidents Will Happen

Over 50, Still Kickin'

Once upon a time, there was a handsome young mailman named Paul. Every day he kissed his very lovely wife Lee Ann goodbye, shouldered his mailbag, and courageously headed out into the concrete jungle to deliver vital pieces of junk mail to every home. Daily, many dangers faced him, but he laughed in the face of hardship, as he did his duty to his country and neighborhood for, “The mail must go through.”

The difficulties that opposed him came in various shapes and forms, most of which would not be appear, to the uninitiated, to be dangers. There were bird feeders and ladders lurking around every corner, hoping to smack him in the forehead and knock him silly. (But his official postal jungle helmet always saved the day and his noggin.) There were ankle-biting Chihuahuas hiding behind the petunia patches. In the winter, there were sidewalks with hidden ice patches, just waiting to rise up and bang the honest man’s backside or cranium. AND there were dump trucks. Dump trucks here and dump trucks there, all waiting to run into our handsome hero’s mail vehicle and flatten it into a pancake.

Let us examine, a little more closely, just one of these dump truck incidents. Our dedicated letter carrier was minding his own business, attempting to deliver mail to a curbside box. Unbeknownst to him, construction workers have a certain quota of mailboxes that MUST become casualties to their construction job, and a dump truck driver had chosen that very mailbox to help him meet his quota. Unfortunately, the dump truck driver had determined to back into said mailbox at the exact moment that Paul was putting mail into it.
Beep, beep, beep, beep went the dump truck, as it relentlessly bore down on the mailman and his faithful mount. BEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!! went the mail truck’s horn, as our horrified hero thought, “This is the end of me!”

Fortunately, the dump truck hit and destroyed the front end of the mail vehicle, not the part where Paul was located. Shaken, but happy to still be alive, he called headquarters to give them a report of how much fun he was having delivering mail.

In the days that followed, our courageous hero found out that he was NOT a hero. He was the object of wrath, for everyone knows that being in the wrong place at the wrong time is the same as being completely at fault when there is an accident of this magnitude. The Postmaster General does not like to hear, while sitting at his fine desk in Washington D.C., that another postal vehicle has been demolished and must be replaced. He worries about the price of stamps going up, each time this happens. He has a very hard job, poor thingie! Mailmen are easy to replace, but alas! mail trucks are not. Had our hapless letter carrier been outside of his truck and been hit in his own insignificant person, there would not have been much problem. But such was not the case.

Weeks went by, during which the fearless? young mailman tiptoed gingerly around the post office, hoping the postal hotline would not ring with orders from the top command to eliminate the foul perpetrator of the crime (himself). Ahhh! But while being interrogated for the umpteenth time about HOW such a thing could happen to a postal truck, the light bulb suddenly went on, and he remembered a very important piece of evidence: the dump truck driver had been wearing hearing aids! This undoubtedly meant that there was a reason that the driver did not stop backing up when the mail truck’s horn went BEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!! He did not hear it! Perhaps he had forgotten to replace the batteries in his hearing aids, did not hear the BEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!! and this was why he destroyed the poor little mail vehicle.

The result of this important bit of data was that the Postal Service went after the construction company to pay for the replacement of the mail truck, the price of stamps therefore did not go up, the Postmaster General stopped treating his stress with TUMS and resisted the temptation to go postal, and …

Our handsome, courageous, completely competent, and perfectly vindicated young mailman hero and his very lovely wife lived happily ever after.

Over 50, Still Kickin'

The Eve of Retirement

Over 50, Still Kickin'

Today is my husband Paul’s big moment — his last day as a letter carrier. He has finally fulfilled the requirement of 55 years of age and 30 years of service. He’s been excited about making this change for months now, and the day has arrived at last.

Yesterday they had a little party for him at the P.O. They told him he could make a speech to everyone and say whatever he wanted to. If you knew Paul, you would have already guessed — he told them how he came to know the Lord, and invited them all to give their hearts to Jesus. They gave him a large crystal eagle sculpture, and he brought home enough leftover cake to add five pounds to his wife’s hips. (No, I will NOT let that happen!) They also chipped in for a monetary gift, which was overwhelmingly generous.

Truth be known, letter carriers are like Marines: once a Marine, always a Marine; once a postal worker, always a postal worker. Paul will still make snide remarks about FedEx every time we pass one of their trucks on the street. He will continue to roll his eyes in contempt every time his wife runs to the UPS station with a package that must get somewhere within days (not weeks).

Paul has always loved his job. He has built mutual bonds with many of his customers and fellow workers through the years. He has helped them with their postal frustrations, listened to their personal troubles here and there, and prayed with them when they or their families were sick, most of the time on off-duty hours. He’s kept an eye on the elderly by letting their families know when they haven’t emptied the mailbox for a few days. Small wonder that postal workers are the most trusted government employees in the nation.

Some of his customers know frightening amounts of details about our personal life — not because Paul has told them, but because they have gone to great lengths to find out for themselves. They know how many kids we have, their names, and how old they are. They know exactly when Paul comes home for lunch — and call or show up on the doorstep for personal attention during that time. I’m hoping they don’t know our social security or bank account numbers. When the girls were small, there were special little gifts just for them from some of the grannies at Christmas time. If people are going to know so much about us, at least it’s good that they like us!

It’s going to be a big adjustment for Paul’s girlies, having him home with us so much. He has volunteered to help with the home schooling. We’ll see. People who had to take remedial math courses throughout high school should not be teaching their daughters algebra. But we may let him get his fingers in on the science labs or let him expound on Civil War history once in awhile. (And shop class — he can teach shop. Beebee informed me the other day that she has no clue how to use the back side of a hammer to remove a nail from the wall, so she hurt her fingers trying to do it bare-handed. We will have to explain shop class, or she will think Daddy is going to give her a guided tour of Old Navy and Target.)

Paul does have some plans for his future — and God has bigger plans for him than Paul does! (So does my mom. She can’t wait to have her own personal lawn care and maintenance man.) But we’ll let the ol’ guy have the first few weeks to just enjoy doing whatever he pleases — unless he starts to drive us nuts, in which case we’ll launch him into his future career sooner than he anticipated!

I suppose I will have to tell thirty years’ worth of postal anecdotes in days to come. Some are pretty entertaining. I feel a series coming on!

Over 50, Still Kickin'