On The Post Office

I love the Post Office. Now that it’s in the news, I don’t want you to think that I’m some kind of Johnny-Come-Lately, capitalizing on the news and this iconic institution’s importance for delivering votes, meds, mail, and Walgreen’s circulars. Please know that I have been a strong and sturdy PO champion since way back. Since I was in the Peace Corps, in the 60s. And the Nigerian PO, last in a long chain, would deliver those blue air mail flimsies from California in my mother’s careful typing (or my grandmother’s spidery Spenserian script) the news that this cousin was married again, or that neighbor had had a very loud party. I’ve always loved all the parts that go into writing a letter… the thought, the typing (my handwriting has always been terrible), the folding-into-the-envelope-licking-the-seal part, and the securing of the stamp. Even the finding of the post box or walking to the actual PO and dropping the letter in the slot. All that with full faith and confidence that within a matter of days (or weeks, from Nigeria), this written missive would find its way to the person whose name and address I’d put on the envelope.

No surprise that I was the one on line at the PO (as we say here in Noo Yawk), back in the days when the PO was there and standing on line at the PO was not life-threatening, I’d be the one explaining that the PO was the only agency who had to pay its pensions 10 years forward.

No surprise that one of my favorite stories is Eudora Welty’s “Why I Live at The PO.” If you’ve never read it, it’s here. And as a special treat, here’s a recording of her reading her own story.

Equally no surprise that one of my first stories was about a Post Office experience. “Zip Code” turned out to be fun to write, after I’d found the voice, which wasn’t Ms. Welty’s.

So when the current PO trouble erupted, and there was some talk about “Dead Letters,” I felt I had to make a tiny contribution. Here’s the first…

DEAD LETTERS

It was a shame about O. But really, there didn’t seem any way to avoid it. No one had wished him ill. It was just one of those things. There he was, part of a truly great mechanism destined for the clouds and beyond, attached to that ring, we all thought, well attached. Turned out we were wrong, wrong from the beginning, wrong from the start. Such a simple circle. Never harmed anyone in his life. Until, of course, he did. And in that very public way. Too bad the attachment was bad, faulty, wrong. Because, of course, now, whenever we see him, see him double (too, zoo, moo, boo, soon, moon…well, you get the drift), even see him alone, it’s impossible not to think of him in that negative celestial context. It’s like that old trick of you telling someone or someone telling you, “Don’t think of pineapples,” and all you can do for the next hour or so is think about that prickly exterior, that charming green top knot, that delicious yellow juicy fruit inside. I mean, let’s not talk about it. Don’t even think about “O.” Okay? Oops. See what I mean?

V was so sharp. I mean she really looked good. Swell, someone said, and I had to agree. It wasn’t only her neckline, there really was something about the way she stood, even in stillness, all eight cylinders were revving. You might even call it an angle of recline. Inside, of course. I mean, her expression never changed, her outside demeanor was always perfectly poised. A model of reflection. Whatever it was she had, it was outside fire and ice, almost a fifth element. 

I never really understood S. Always with the plurals. Two curves there, and then always showing off with double this and double that, not to mention how it was always something about showing up in the superlatives, always dissing R and calling him “second rate,” and “loser.” 

Give me D every time. Nothing like a good bit of finality, a good lot of things in the past, and always being friendly with E, now there’s a pair for you, inseparable when they got started, finishing things off, finishing each other’s sentences, that was always something to see, and always there for you they were needed.