Making Friends.doc

Being associated with Birthday Cards, Gifts, and letters from absent friends gave a letter carrier who served a single neighborhood for an extended period of time a unique relationship with the people he served that is rapidly getting lost in this age of Instant Messaging; a corporation that derives 20% of its income from un-addressed admail, (junk to most); and anonymous community mailbox service. I’ve had the privilege of serving successive generations of the same families.

Since children will be children wise customers introduced their new puppy to the mailman, often the day it arrived home and made sure that they got to know one another so that when the inevitable encounters took place the dog would know that this person belonged and should be trusted. Not every puppy is as terminally cute as Tucker, the tea cup Chihuahua pictured above; but much can be said for getting to know an old English mastiff before it outweighs its owner by more than double.

Some houses should come with instructions. More than once I’ve felt like Fog Horn Leg Horn watching out for the rope limit of some snarling hound. Imagine walking up to a house while the dog charges at you daily until its neck gets snapped back by the chain; then imagine that dog coming several extra yards and wondering if it’s going to stop this time. Someone had taken the knots and kinks out over the weekend. Then there was the Anglican Priest who seemed to believe in making me walk the straight and narrow between the hedge and his dog’s snapping teeth—that gate was indeed narrow.

Having someone let a dog you don’t know out the door to run up and nibble at your fingers can be disconcerting—until you learn that its daily routine is picking up its owner’s mail at the end of the driveway. At least the dog took the mail back to the house. Chapter and verse says you should not give a customer’s mail to them on the street unless you personally know them and never to minors. The first time you ignore this and watch a child run to the back of the house next door you learn quickly. One four-year-old decided he wanted to play postman and took his Mother’s mail, including the baby bonus, and delivered it around the Crescent.