Cool Country Mailboxes

Now, that's bass!

A mailbox is to a house what a vanity plate is to a car; a fun enhancement and form of self-expression. What do you love enough to put out in front of your house? But having a cool mailbox, either be watchful or live on a remote rural road, because you aren't country until your beloved roadside mailbox, even a plain one, has been bludgeoned by a carful of teenagers with baseball bats. This senseless and meaningless act happened to me years ago. The mailboxes of my neighbor and I are black, plain, just ordinary; they didn't even used to have numbers until a carrier complained; I stuck orange reflective tape on them, that's all. After the vandalism, the handyman, Angelo, cleverly built out of two-by-fours a protective frame for our mailboxes, and Angelo's design made such attacks impossible.

I love mailboxes; they're about hope. Everyone hopes for good mail. When I can safely stop the car on rural roads I get out and photograph creative boxes like these that make me smile.

Farm Heritage Days, Labadie, MO

The ad said, "Labadie Station Antique Tractor Farm Heritage Days, April 28 & 29, 2012. Antique and vintage tractors and implements of ALL makes, models and conditions to be displayed and demonstrated." Well, resistance was futile. These things, like old cars, make me happy; they were thoughtfully designed and made to last, pure love-letters of American engineering, and my dad built Case tractors on their assembly line. Sunday in the little town of Labadie I saw mostly FarmAlls, but some John Deeres and one Allis-Chalmers, and the gas-powered 8-inch diaphragm water pump (view it in action) and the 1870s freight wagon, plus I watched the blacksmith at his forge. What you see above is a 1953 FarmAll B, a two-seater. Also displayed were several FarmAll Cubs with single seats, and a stunning bright-yellow FarmAll, 1946. The bluegrass band was kickin' out some John Denver and Woody Guthrie despite the cloudy chilly day. The little girl was put in the 1957 FarmAll tractor seat by her grandaddy. Ain't she a punkin?