The Mailbox

Sometimes I feel like writing about things, unexpected things that happen in my life.  This week’s blog is one.  I live in the country off of a state highway.  My neighbor and I share a mailbox post that the previous owner ingeniously constructed to hold two mailboxes on a single post.  Saturday I ran a few errands and when I drove into the driveway I stopped to pick- up the mail.  Our mailbox was gone!  I saw huge tire tracks in the snow where our mailbox used to me.  The box now rested in the ditch about twenty feet from where it stood.  Black plastic parts of a vehicle were strewn in a path following the tire tracks in the snow.

There were footprints in the snow leading to our mailboxes.  Someone had checked it out but left the boxes where they were.  Soon our neighbor joined us and he showed me a business card from one of the local sheriff’s.  His wife noticed a car abandoned in the ditch and our mailbox and called the sheriff.  Apparently the car had an Iowa license plate and the driver took off.  My guess is that the driver was as drunk as a skunk.  The mailboxes rested on a 3 inch square post buried in the ground so to knock break through a solid piece of wood meant the car was traveling very fast.  By the tracks in the snow the only thing that stopped the car was the snow.

My neighbor wanted to repair the damage so we could have our mail delivered.  My solution was to notify the post office and have our mail held for us to pick up and address the problem in the spring.  My neighbor wanted that mailbox back up.  He agreed to make the repairs and prop it up; trying to break through frozen ground would be a folly.  My job was to google postal regulations on how to put up the mailboxes.

The temporary job is done, it’s not pretty, and it’s functional.  Living in the country has risks I never imagined but having a one acre wooded lot is worth it.