For No REal Reason

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It was like an annual rite of passage. The snow would fall and continue to build up in the ditches as the snowplows would come down the road as fast as they could navigate and giant plums of snow would cascade from the front of the plow at times appearing to blind the driver!

Every year it seemed a driver would get too close to the ditch and would take out (destroy completely) the mailbox and post.

Over the years dad tired a variety of different configurations.

• Set the pole back further
• Raise the pole up and extend an arm
• Paint the pole a bright red
• Get a bigger box (easier to see)

None of these seemed to work every winter same ritual.

It was after I had left home and gone off to college I noticed once again Dad had a new mailbox and post.  But this wasn’t just a mailbox post it was like he had sawn off a 12″ tree and mounted the box on top of it.

There was a slight curve to the post putting the box exactly where the mailman (yes, back then they were all called mailmen) could reach it easily from their mail truck.

When I got in the house I asked Dad about the new mailbox (always a bone of contetion.  He said last year it was snapped off as usual and this past fall he had to cut down a large locust tree.  (Locust trees are hard wood and back in Ohio the bark is stripped from them and they make exellent fence posts.)

He decided it was going to be his new mailbox post instead of fuel for his stove in the garage.

He cut it so it was almost 10 feet long and dug one very deep hole and poured cement around the post and mounted the mailbox on top of the post.

I ask him if he thought this one would last.  He said “Yep, I think this one will last.”

I asked why he thought so, here is what he said.

“About a week ago we had a couple of snow storms and the trucks were coming down the road every couple of days.  Then we had one really big storm and the ditches were already getting pretty full.  I was watching from the window when the truck came down the road and I could tell he was going to hit the mailbox post.  He did, and when he did his truck spun right around in the road and landed in the ditch.  My mailbox post never moved.  I don’t think he will be hitting my post again.”

When mom and dad moved from Ohio to Tucson that mailbox and post were still at the end of their driveway.  It was never hit again by a passing snowplow : )