The post office

(The photos that illustrate this post come courtesy of the Flickr Commons, which hosts a wonderful collection of vintage postal photography from the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, and more.)

When I was growing up, my dad was postmaster at a small Wisconsin post office in the next town over from ours. I always thought that his title sounded so powerful and important: POSTMASTER. Being declared "master" of anything should automatically entitle you to carry a really awesome sword or wear a cloak, or something. But really, he just wore ties and plastic pocket protectors to keep his No. 3H pencils (ALWAYS No. 3 pencils) from shedding graphite dust in the pockets of his clean white dress shirts.

Some of my best childhood memories are from time spent at the post office while my dad worked Saturdays. To a child, the post office was magic. Everything smelled of carbon paper and ink, and it felt like the entire building and its contents were covered in at least 30 years of dirt - sunbeams streaming through the high windows revealed just how dusty it was. There were always rubber stamps and label makers to play with, and an old typewriter to plunk around on. When that got old, I would draw pictures with No. 3H pencils and thick black felt pens, or go fill the powdered soap dispensers in the bathrooms (exciting, I know...but it was!). One time he taught me how to decipher bar codes. And when all that that got boring, I'd explore the guts of the post office - the stuff that most people hardly ever get to see.


One of my favorite games was to shoot rubber bands at the big wall of open PO Box cubbies - the side where the postal workers stick your mail. I'd sit on a low countertop opposite the mailboxes, swinging my feet off the edge, and make a game of trying to get my rubber band into a certain "target" box. One time I thought it would be fun to try to hit a box just as a customer was opening it to claim their mail. Surely my aim couldn't be that good. But I totally nailed it, and the person jumped back, surprised at the rubber band that was flying at their hand. (I ran and hid.)

The rest of the post office was a maze of shelves and mail cubbies, and each letter carrier had their own little space to sort mail and organize their daily haul.

I'd explore each cubicle, finding all sorts of curious things. Once I found a coconut that someone had covered in stamps and sent just like that, with the address scrawled on the husk. Another time there was a crate of live, chirping crickets. I'm sure those aren't the strangest things that the post office has ever seen, but for a little girl who only thought of mail in terms of letters, it blew my mind that someone could send CRICKETS through the mail.

The best moments were when my dad would let me help him sort packages. He taught me to memorize which addresses were rural routes and city routes, and I'd toss packages into big canvas bins labeled with corresponding numbers. "River Park Circle!" He'd call out, and I'd respond with "Rural Route 3!" I can't believe I still remember that, to this day. My dad had a great way of making you feel important, even if you were only seven years old - and tossing brown paper-wrapped packages into those giant rolling bins made me feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

The little post office that I remember best eventually moved to a bigger location as the town grew. My old typewriter was replaced with a dinosaur of a computer, where I occupied my time learning to type with Mavis Beacon. An automated machine sorted letters right outside my dad's office. The old PO Boxes with the tiny brass dials, the kind that required a special series of turns and stops to unlock them, were replaced by sleek gray metal panels of doors that unlocked with a key.

One Christmas when I was about 13, I think, I asked my dad what happened to all of the letters that kids sent to Santa Claus. I don't recall the exact protocol that they used, but at the time, I think they eventually just threw them out. This broke my heart, so that year, I decided to collect the letters that came through the post office and respond to every one that had a return address.

I vaguely recall whipping up a snazzy stationery design on the computer, one with lots of festive 90s clip art. That Christmas, somewhere in a little sliver of southeastern Wisconsin, a handful of kids got a response from Santa Claus. (Maybe it ruined them for future years, where they didn't get a letter back...oops.) I don't remember what I wrote in those letters, but I remember my heart feeling fuller than usual that year. One letter was written in Spanish, and I did my best to decipher it and respond. I'm sure I butchered it. Another envelope contained a letter and a single yellow feather. I kept that feather tucked away in my top dresser drawer for years.

So when I hear stories about how the postal service is struggling, it hits home and makes my heart drop a little bit. And it makes me even sadder to hear people complain about the postal service, or poke fun at its employees. Those employees were, and still are, my family.

But of course, I'm biased. I will always have a beautiful, romanticized idea of the post office to hold in my heart - images of big wooden rolling carts loaded with heavy canvas bags, of inky fingertips and air mail stickers, and of seeing the inner workings of that world as a little girl. Those Saturdays spent "working" with dad made unintentional memories and sparked hours of creative play, with nothing more than rubber bands and a typewriter. Good, clean fun.

I'm pretty darn lucky.