Why I LOVE the P.O.

Not surprisingly, about a week after I ran out of mailing labels, I ran out of stamps.

So on this warm, sunny Friday afternoon, I go into my local post office. The line is just four deep, and there are three workers on duty. I am called up within a minute or less by a guy about my age. He has slicked back hair and an air of Vinnie Barbarino about him.

"What can I do for you today?"

"Could I get a roll of --"

"-- We don't have rolls --"

"-- postcard stamps?"

Vinnie smiles broadly. "Oh, sorry! Yes, that we have! How many you want? There's a hundred in a roll, you know."

"Just one."

Vinnie pops a roll onto the counter and says, "Anything else?"

"Yeah. Could I see all the different first class stamps you have?"

At this, I expect some balking, or at least a little drop in Vinnie's enthusiasm.

But no! "Sure!" he says. He slides open a big draw with a bang and starts pulling out sheets of colorful postage. "We got bicycles, we got O. Henry. He's like, like a literary guy... we got cherry blossoms" -- Vinnie looks at me -- "You like cherry blossoms?"

I say, "Yeah, yeah, I like cherry blossoms. I'll take those and the O. Henry and the bicycles. What else you got?"

"We got baseball --"

"--Definitely no baseball for me --"

"--We got the Disney cars --"

"I've had those already, maybe this is enough?"

"We got Miles Davis and Edith Piaf --"

"WHAT?" I exclaim.

Vinnie grins and hands me the Miles and Edith without a word.

Sixty-eight dollars later, I am ready to correspond again.

Picture Postcard Ouray

Although I grew up in California, I spent part of every childhood summer in Ouray, Colorado, nestled in the San Juan Mountains. Most of my mom's relatives either lived there year-round or stayed part of their summers, too. So I ran around with first and second and third cousins, daring to wade into the rapid Uncompahgre River, teetering over the swinging bridge, climbing to Box Cañon, swimming in the hot springs pool, setting off firecrackers, and getting the occasional spanking for it. 

On Fourth of July, thousands of tourists filled the tiny town's streets. My Aunt Karen never failed to grumble and call them "turkeys." Uncle Jack and Uncle Bus fought in the crowd-pleasing water fight - an event where teams blast streams of water from high-pressure fire hoses to try and beat their opponents into submission. Uncle Jack and Uncle Bus won year after year.  

What's more, my family has history there. My mom's people came over from Italy in the early 1900s to work in Ouray's productive mines. Decades later, my Grandpa Fay and Uncle Jack were the last of the gold miners in our family. The mines in the surrounding mountains are now closed, the outbuildings historic landmarks. Even the house where my mom grew up - a turn-of-the-century two-story her family called the baracca (Italian for "hovel" or "shanty") - looks like Doc Holliday might walk out of it any minute. 

What with all that history, extended family, and my intimate knowledge of its gravel back streets, I got away with considering myself a Ouray local. 

Nowadays, I spend a week with my parents nearly every summer. They live about 40 minutes from Ouray, in the forgiving valley that gets about one-fourth as much snow in winter. When I visit, we spend at least a day in Ouray, hiking a 5-mile trail around its perimeter and eating lunch somewhere on Main. It's impossible not to run into a relative or two, or one of my mom's high school classmates. 

Though this makes me feel at home there, let's be honest - I'm not. My camera is perpetually around my neck. I'm shooting photo after photo after photo. I go in the Columbine Gift Shop. I buy postcards and silver baubles. I look at vacation rentals and dream.

If there's a more picturesque town in the country, I haven't seen it. Surrounded on three sides by 13,000-foot snowcapped peaks, a person could stand at the intersection of 6th and Main and make a living taking pictures for postcard companies. (Well. As long as she lived somewhere else. To own a house in Ouray you're not grandfathered into, you pretty much need to make an Oprah Winfrey type living. But I digress.)

Gobble Gobble.

On my recent trip, I scooped up dozens of postcards after the annual perimeter hike. I also made a point of visiting the tiny little Post Office (to buy postcard stamps I didn't even need). I stood in a line three people deep. All three were picking up parcels too big for their P.O. boxes, and the postmistress knew each of them by name. When I reached the counter and she said, "What can I do for you, ma'am," I realized just how hard I was working to fit in.

It hit me like a slap. I've become one of Aunt Karen's much-loathed "turkeys." But you know what?  It's worth it, for a day in Ouray.

Anonymous

I was waiting for Wendy outside a Starbucks on Government Street in Victoria, British Columbia when I noticed something odd. There was a little indentation in the side of the building, like you’d see for an urn at a memorial site. In the niche sat a crown of concrete. Beneath it, a plaque that read:

FIRST

DOMINION GOVERNMENT

CROWN ERECTED IN

BRITISH COLUMBIA

SURMOUNTING THE

POST OFFICE BUILT ON

THIS SITE IN 1873

Well, of course I took pictures.

Then: a firm tap on my shoulder. I turned and looked around, then down. An old, hunchbacked woman with a red and white scarf tied around her head peered up at me. Her small self was bundled in a black coat buttoned up to her neck. She wore black gloves and her white hair peeked out of the scarf. Her eyes were clear and bright.

In a right British accent she said, “I’ve lived here for 30 years and never noticed that there, what you’re taking pictures of. Let’s have a look.” We stood at the bronze inscription together. I felt compelled to explain, “I have a – um – thing – for post offices.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Oh, yes, I remember when this building still was a post office. A grand old thing it was. See this?” She gestured to the end of the block, past the Starbucks and Eddie Bauer stores. “All of this was the Post Office, the whole thing,” she sighed. “Beautiful inside. You could go in and never wait in a queue, and everyone was friendly and helpful.” I could practically hear the footsteps echoing across the old marble floor tiles.

Can you believe one of these women is 90?

I smiled at her encouragingly. That was all it took. As Wendy joined us (looking just a little puzzled), my new friend shared a bit of her story. Nostalgic for the old P.O., she showed disdain for the influx of chain shops on Government, the so-called march of progress. The new P.O. was relegated to a nondescript storefront where “nobody knows what they’re doing and the lines are just dreadful.” In a spurt of off-topic verbosity, she revealed that she was 90 and had moved to B.C. at 60 to be nearer her children. “I think people your age – you’re about my grandchildren’s age, I think – you’re the ones who appreciate things like this old building. The generation before you ruined things like this.” 

When I asked her name, she smiled coyly. “Oh, I never tell anyone my name. I say, ‘Call me Anonymous. Annie, for short.'” When I said I wanted her picture in front of the crown, she would only relent when Wendy posed with her.

Oh, Annie. If you weren’t so private, we might be pen pals.

Beating Back the Lonelies

I read an article recently about how Facebook is making people feel lonely and isolated.

Say what? 

Ironic, isn't it? You there with your 900 or 372 friends? Even if you only have 23, that's still quite a lot. Twenty-three would fill up your house and 372 a rented community center if they all showed up for your birthday party.

Lonely? I totally get it. You sit around in your little office or living room or college dorm all "connected" to your "social network." You read the status updates that go out to all 177 or 1,032 of your friend's friends. You look at the pictures of their recent trips to Rome or Houston or Grandma's Easter Supper. You might even feel that little green monster of envy tickling your cerebral cortex (a miserable irritation if there ever was one).

How often do you get a personal notification more than two lines long from a Facebook friend? How often do you wonder why you only got two "likes" on your recent, wholly original and super clever status update?

You know what doesn't produce a feeling of solitude?

(Wait for it. You know what I'm going to say already, don't you?)

A letter or postcard in the U.S. Mail!

Get on board with this, people! Even if you don't have a limitless social calendar full of parties and date nights and girlfriend getaways. Even if you live in a Quonset hut in the Aleutian Islands where it's pitch black from October to March. You get a piece of written correspondence with a Liberty Bell Forever stamp on it and I guarantee it staunches loneliness in its tracks.

You gotta give to receive.

So get out there and write someone a letter! Do it now!

Slowing Down

I’ve experienced an unexpected side effect of my campaign to go postal. It’s called patience.

The definition of patience is “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.”

Those who know me are aware that I’ve pursued serenity most of my adult life. I’ve explored yoga, various religions, meditation, beer and wine, all in the chase of a calmer, less angry, more tolerant self.

The parents of my students invariably tell me, “You must have so much patience.” My internal response is, “Hah! If you only knew!” But they are onto something. Little kids with disabilities relentlessly test adult kindness. That’s why it’s them, more than Buddhism or focusing on the breath, who can lead us in the pursuit.

Still I struggle, even with the little ones. It takes effort and awareness to keep my cool.

Antithetical to the search for tranquility has been my overuse of email and IM and facebook to correspond. When I started writing letters and postcards again, at first I raced and waited anxiously for instant response. And waited some more for someone to write back. 

 

Then - eventually - they did.

Now I slow down when I write a letter – even with a postcard, I take my time. I’m no longer in a big, breathless hurry to finish, to hear back. It’s improved my communication, I think, this thoughtful, measured writing, and the results continue to open slowly, like envelopes. Or birds learning to sing, butterflies spreading their wings, blossoms in Spring.

Immortal Words of a Postal Worker (apologia)

The other day, quite by chance, I met a man named Connor from Mississippi. We got to talking and I mentioned the road trip along the Southern Literary Trail that Paul and I took last summer. Eudora Welty’s home in Jackson had been a highlight.

It turns out that Connor’s grandfather, a man with the novel-worthy name of Holden Vann “Skeet” Kincannon, once worked with William Faulkner in the Oxford, Mississippi Post Office.

One of Skeet’s favorite, oft-told tales on Mr. Faulkner involved his parting words on the day he quit. The illustrious author apparently said, “All my life I’ll be at the beck and call of somebody. But never again will I be at the beck and call of any son of a bitch with 2 cents to buy a stamp.”

I wonder if poor old Bill rotated in his tomb when, last month, I was fussin’ about the 3-cent price hike on a postcard.

If so, I'm real sorry about that, Mr. Faulkner.

Oh, Just Pay it Forward

I’d sent off about 25 postcards by the tenth of January. W and my mom were the only people who’d responded. Not that they’re chopped liver, but, well, you know. I never doubted they’d write back.

Then, by chance, I talked to Charlie on the phone, and he said he loved my postcard campaign, and described how he’d had every intention to run right out and buy one and mail it to me but then, well, he and his lovely wife Sarah are having a baby soon and very busy and somehow it just went from an intention to a nice idea and then ….

Yeah.

Like that.

But I would not be disillusioned! No. I still had 75 postcard stamps and I wasn’t going to be one of those people who only wrote when written to.

(You know those people, don’t you? The tally-takers of society. I paid last time, it’s your turn. I’m not calling her again until she calls me back. It’s his turn to invite us to dinner. Tedious, no?)

I will write postcards without reciprocation! I just sort of hoped… but come on! This isn’t about me filling my mailbox – no! It’s much nobler than that. It’s about saving a government agency that’s rife with nostalgia – Pony Express, anyone? – shoot! It’s about preserving a way of life if you think about it!

Okay. Maybe that’s blowing it out of proportion.

I’ll console myself with this notion, that everyone I know is paying it forward, writing to someone – anyone – after a little postcardial prod from me.

Meanwhile, I’m treasuring every bit of mail I get from W and my mom.

Not Just for Junkmail Anymore

I heard on NPR that the U.S. Postal Service is in trouble. That it’s in danger of going bankrupt. That a bunch of people who think they know everything think it shouldn’t be a government agency anymore. That it should be privatized to force it to become economically viable. That it needs competitors. That capitalism as always is the answer.

I don’t have a stake in this, I don’t. I know we need a way to send and receive mail, but, pragmatically speaking, I don’t think it’ll make any difference to us as consumers if it’s private or public. Philosophically, I don’t see enough of a difference between our government and a private corporation to stand on a soapbox about it.

But.

In my gut, it feels like corporatizing the postal service is a bad idea. I admit, I’m biased. I teach public school, and the people who advocate privatizing the P.O. sound an awful lot like the people who favor charter schools. And I really don’t trust those guys.

Which got me thinking. When was the last time I got a piece of mail? I mean real mail. Not bills, not ads, not unreadable medical claims forms. Christmas cards don’t count. I’m sorry, they just don’t.

The poor old P.O.! How we’ve neglected you! With our status updates and our internet banking and our visions of a paperless society! No wonder it’s going bankrupt! Nobody can be bothered to take down an address anymore unless it’s to program into a GPS.

I took such extreme pity on the one government agency in more dismal shape than public education that I decided to do something about it.

 I went down to the P.O. I waited in line for a really long time. I bought what felt like a lot of postage – 100 postcard stamps. I thought, it’s a new year. It’s a great time to start de-cluttering. Why not diminish that pile of postcards I've been accumulating for the last 20 years?