A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE By Audrey B. Unruh
“Mailboxes’
I was sent the following letter awhile back, by my son-in-law, and I just had to share it with you. See if you can relate!
A mailbox is a necessary evil, at least for me. Normally, a mailbox is something of a set-it-and-forget-it thing. 1 check it each day for bills, magazines, the occasional card, and the even less occasional letter. However, my relationship with my mailbox has been a constant struggle; it seems to be a target of aggression for my neighbors.
My mailbox is a basic black galvanized-steel box of traditional style, mounted on a 4’x4′ cedar post. When I moved into my house, the post was simply and securely stuck in a post-hole in the ground. One day, after coming home from work, I noticed that the post was leaning significantly and that the post-hole had been stretched out someone had backed their car into the mailbox. My wife and I filled the hole with some dirt and straightened the post, but the instability of the installation was never satisfactory to me. We finally got serious some months later and filled the hole with Quickrete, after which (two days later) we were alerted by a loud snap as we watched our across-the-street-neighbor back her SUV into the newly concreted post. We had a new post installed and reQuickreted. I topped it with the old mailbox and sent the neighbor the bill.
Some months later, my wife and I came home from work only to find that the mailbox itself was bent severely, sort of leaning to one side. We were on our way out to dinner that particular night, so we didn’t really make any immediate repairs or adjustments to the box; however, upon returning home about an hour later, someone had made an attempt to reconfigure the box into a reasonable facsimile of it’s proper shape- The neighbor? The mystery may never be solved. We have limped along in this sad state of mailbox configuration until yesterday.
Therefore, yesterday, I bought a new mailbox, applied our house address numbers, and replaced the previous mailbox by mounting the new gleaming, basic black galvanized-steel box of traditional style, on the existing post. The box looks great and I’m sure my mail carrier will thank me someday!
As for the future of this box, I can only document its precarious life in this log. Tune in for further updates.
Sound like something you might have experienced? Till next week, watch those mailboxes, or whatever is across the street from you, when you’re backing out!
