Snail Mail Versus Email

Back at the end of World War II, Post Office customers were called patrons, a first-class letter cost three cents and the local postal fleet consisted of two 1930s Ford vans. This was when the author of these memoirs started work as a mailman in his region of the United States. If anyone is qualified to compare email with snail mail, then he surely is.

The many amusing stories make this chronicle of the trials and tribulations of a mailman's life a joy to read: his encounters with fierce pooches, his confusing conversation with a minor bird, his dealings with the more eccentric patrons.

He comes over as a warm and feisty individual, a former trade union member, with a fine sense of social justice. He lets rip at how society's institutions treat the individual - from the Post Office management to insurance companies - they're all in his line of fire.

This entertaining and unique record of one man's life is related with a delightful sense of humor and in such a way that you can't help but feel you've met the author face to face.

I finished high school in 1940, and for a farm boy at that time college was never a choice. My dad had already passed on, and my future didn't look so good. I enlisted in the Army and took basic training at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey in the Signal Corp. From there I attended radio school at 16th. and Park, in Washington DC, CREI (Capital Radio Engineering Institute).

Upon completion, I was transferred to Camp Murphy, Florida, near Hobe Sound. There I completed military training in radar. This training was very helpful to me in working on televisions when they began to be popular.

After I started to work at the post office I opened a small television shop in my garage. I had a license and a business telephone for many years, I maintained the televisions in some of the hotels and motels, including Radium Springs Hotel and Motel, which was on the city route I carried for nineteen years before getting the rural route. I installed many TV antennas; I had a contract with Sears, and installed all they sold for many years. Sometimes I would ask some of my fellow carriers to help me.

My first wife, Mary, and I were married in 1945 and we enjoyed fifty-four good years before her passing. Now my present wife, Jayne, and I have been married for five years and we are sharing a good life together.