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.

U.S. Post Office, Powell, MO

Just a nice little post office, an honest piece of America. No "developments" or "cul-de-sacs" here in Powell. No "metrosexuals" or poseurs or celebrity-mongers ever come here. No glamour at all. Perhaps the last truly honest face of any given town is its post office. Maybe that is why I love post offices. Other people love stamps. Other people love mail. What I remember of the post office of my childhood, far away from here, was being ledup some concrete steps into a temple-like building of gray granite, into a great hall all hung with smoke and painted glossy green, footsteps echoing, keys lightly jangling, counters too tall for me to see over. Down its hall were shut doors with panels of frosted glass, labeled "Private," with unmoving shadows behind them, and a flooded type of quiet, like the library, except that people were doing something even more private: getting and sending and stamping their mail, their boxes, their money orders. A great and quiet efficiency (any noisy activity confined to the docks out back) and reverence for the ideas of order and service. And say what you want about the country going to heck in a handbasket: that beautiful flag is part of my heart.

Joys of the Rural Mailbox

Having a rural mailbox was the deciding factor in me moving to the country 10 years ago. It's a Pandora's box of joy and mystery. Six days a week someone puts surprises in it. Never know what I'll get. Oh, some items aren't fun, but golly, I've unlatched my box--so much better than those mean little slots in the city--to find checks, postcards, packages, magazines, personal letters...and they just keep a-coming. Whether I'm good or bad, I get mail just the same. Everyone gets mail. It is a type of unconditional love. I love my mailbox as others love a pet. I have walked downhill to it in steaming hot sun, or in starlight, or heavy snow, either to pick up mail or-- this is really neat--put mail INTO my box, up the little red flag and have it taken away! Ten years later, I have not gotten over how great this is, and the only extra I could ever want is a mailing address that says "Rural Route," or, better, "Star Route." Maybe someday.

Yes, these boxes pose challenges. I have to step into the road to get my mail. Others have it worse and have to actually cross the road to their boxes. For me it's a long walk down and a steep one back up. Sometimes, if I've put the flag up, I use binoculars to check it. Mail gets baked, or soaked if the boxes rust or leak, or the latch gets iced shut or fails and the box hangs open like a mouth right on the highway where anybody could reach in (and sometimes, desperate people do), or kids in cars bash them with baseball bats. But I LOVE my mailbox. When the flag won't stay up I repair it (with duct tape). When it's warped I hammer it back into shape. I love all rural mailboxes. But my own I love with a passion that is unlike any other. Mine used to have morning glories twining up its post; divine; after 2002 and the cliff-blasting and road widening, no more. Still I love it just as much. Photo is of a box down the road with natural, native Tickseed Sunflower (Bidens aristosa) growing up on it right now. Prettier than mine. But so what.

Richwoods, MO P.O.

Tiny town on Highway A in Washington County. The Little Indian Creek conservation area of 4,000 wooded acres is nearby; it has campsites, trails, and a shooting range I wanted to check out. No shooting is allowed there on Mondays. Darn. Went into the P.O. to mail a package. The clerk and the one patron who was there asked who I was. I said, "I am Divine Bunbun, just passing through, checking out the conservation area," and they said, "Oh, the shooting range?"