Sky Toys and the Global Positioning System

Lumberton, North Carolina. 1986.

Today is a field trip for my third grade class to the Robeson County Planetarium.

The planetarium is one of the most fascinating buildings that I have ever been inside in my young life. As we sit in our theater styled chairs, the lights go out and the domed ceiling becomes the night sky. A narrator tells stories behind the history of the constellations. The Egyptian Pyramids, Greek and Roman gods appear overhead as we hear what the ancients thought about the heavens. I crane my neck, looking all around the ceiling and trying to take in everything that is going on. But it is too much.



When the program ends, the lights come back up and the man who runs the planetarium gives us a talk about Halley’s comet. It only comes by Earth once every 75 years, and this is the year. I really would like to see the comet. The lights dim slightly and he explains to us how to find it in the night sky, using a flashlight and pointing to certain grouping of stars that appear on the ceiling. He has lost me, though, and I feel the frustration welling in the back of my throat.

“So now, this may very well be a once in a lifetime chance for you to see the comet,” the man says. “Does everyone understand how to find it in the sky?”

All of my classmates shout, “Yeeeessss!”

I alone say, “Noooooo!”

“Does everyone promise me that they will go out on the first night it is clear and take a look at Halley’s comet?” the man asks.

“Yeeeesss!” the class responds.

“Nooooo!” I say at the same time.

The man either does not hear me or chooses to ignore my response.

In looking up at the night sky, I never do see what I know to be Halley’s comet. I later learn that 1986 was the worst viewing of the comet in thousands of years for people in the northern hemisphere, due to its positioning with the sun. It is difficult to spot with the naked eye in 1986. The next time it comes around, if I am still alive, will be in the year 2061, when I am 84 years old.

Western Carolina University. Spring Semester, 1996.

My favorite college course that I ever take at Western Carolina University is Astronomy 101. I enroll for honors credit, and I also take the night lab, which means it is a four credit course.

As part of the honors extra assignment, I have to write a research paper. The professor lets me compose a short story on an asteroid striking the earth. After I submit it, he tells me it is a “good read” and gives me an “A” for the course.

During the night lab, we set up enormous and expensive telescopes, and I see some pretty amazing stuff- the moon up close, Venus, the Orion star nebula, and the remnants of a supernova to name a few things. I also learn some constellations. As part of our assignments, we have to track the setting sun on the horizon each week throughout the semester. I go to a hill just above Graham Infirmary and watch some beautiful sunsets against the Great Smoky Mountains. My drawings of those mountains and where the sun disappears behind them each week is not the greatest work of art, however.

Unlike the fascination but then frustration that I felt at the planetarium, the class ignites a curiosity in me about the stars and the universe. If I could major in astronomy , I would. There is no such degree, however. What is more, after the basic 101 course, astronomy becomes the study of physics. The astronomy professor has a Ph.D. in physics, and his graduate student assistant, Ben, is a nice guy pursuing a degree in physics. I do not have the mind to comprehend the mathematical concepts of that subject.

Still, I always think back with fondness on that time in my life, the professor, the assistant, and a girl whom I knew in the class, Amy.

“Stop referring to what you are talking about as those three stars that form a triangle!” Ben tells Amy during the night lab. “Any three stars form a triangle!”

Amy and I laugh.

Wilmington, North Carolina. 2004.

I have just rented a place at Carolina Beach, one row back from the ocean. On the balcony outside, I can see many stars out over the water as I listen to the sound of the waves… I think I want to buy a telescope to get a better look at the celestial objects just outside my door.

After a trip to a hobby store and a $350 payment, I am the proud owner of an Orion refractor telescope with a German equatorial mount.

The scope is strong enough for me to see the color bands of Jupiter, along with four of that planet’s moons. I can also clearly see the rings of Saturn. The Orion nebula is a beautiful sight in my scope as well.



***

“Aaaahhhh!”

I hear the woman’s shriek and look up from my eyepiece. One of my neighbors in the beachfront condominium across the street sees me as she climbs the exterior stairs.

It takes me a moment to realize that she is shrieking at me. I am on the balcony in the complete darkness, and evidently, she believes that I am spying on her with my telescope.

I have been able to observe some ships out on the horizon with my instrument, but even if I wanted to be a “Peeping Tom,” her place is way too close for the telescope to be useful. From hers and other’s reactions, I learn that people are often leery of a single fellow, living alone, when they see that I own a telescope.

August 2005.

Some things have happened with my job that are beyond my control, and I have to move away from the beach. Unknown to me, I will not live in a place conducive to setting up a telescope for another eight years. I disassemble it, along with the equatorial mount, and pack it away at my parents’ house.

Tallahassee, Florida. November 2010.

I am winded and sweaty from having just run a 5k about as hard as I can go. One of my friends ran the race with me. She has recently become interested in the sport and trains for marathons. She crossed the finish line well ahead of me.

3.1 miles is not enough exercise for her, though, and she asks if I am interested in running longer.

“Sure,” I respond. She is cute and smarter than me, and I enjoy her company.

We proceed to run another five miles after the race is over and everyone has cleared out. Eight miles is the most that I have run since high school when I was on the cross country team, and I am pleased that I keep up with her pretty well.
During the run, she seems to know precisely how far we have gone and where to stop for the total of eight miles.

I ask her about that.

On her wrist, no larger than a watch, is a Global Positioning System device. Designed specifically for runners, I suppose, it lets her know exactly where she is on the planet and keeps track of the mileage she covers.



It is a rather amazing device. I have seen the Christmas television commercials for the “Garmin,” a GPS system for cars, and GPS navigators were built into some of the vehicles at the dealerships where I worked, but this is the first one I have come across for individuals to wear on their wrists.

She looks at me a little strangely. Perhaps the wristwatch GPS has been around for a while and I am behind the times.

Miami, Florida. June 2012.

I just bought a Garmin GPS to help me locate some apartment complexes in Miami, where I will move later this month to start a new job. My cell phone rings, and I see it is the lady I am replacing here in Miami calling me. I need to talk with her and set up place to meet. Sitting at a stop sign at a busy intersection is not where I should take her call, though. I glance behind me. There are no cars, so I will simply back off the road onto the grass. I answer the phone.

“Hey April, can you hold on a minute? I’m going to back off the road so we can talk.”

As I move the car in reverse, I hear an awful crunching sound. My Garmin guided me to this street, but it could not warn me about a low concrete pole protecting a fire hydrant.

Sure enough, I get out of my car to find the rear tail light is busted and the bumper is crushed inward. The pole was below my line of sight, which irritates me. I had no chance. It was just bad luck that I got the call right at that moment.

As much as I do not want to acknowledge it, this incident feels like an omen of what is to come in Miami.

The GPS will prove very valuable too me in navigating this city, though printed maps give me a better feel for exactly where I am and where other things are in relation to me.

Live Oak, Florida. Present Day.

The anxiety and stresses of my experience in Miami are behind me, now.

I rent a house with a fairly large backyard here in Suwannee County. For the first time in eight years, I can use my telescope again. Mom and Dad bring it from North Carolina, and to my pleasant surprise, no parts are missing when I assemble it.

The Orion nebula, along with the colorful bands of Jupiter, are back for me to view. I use a red lens flashlight to study my star charts in the backyard.

***

Browsing the internet, looking for some possible new eyepieces for the scope, I stumble across something called “The Celestron Personal Planetarium Sky Scout.” After watching a video on how the device works, I am sold. I order it immediately.

When it arrives a few days later, it is even better than what I hoped for. The Sky Scout uses a GPS system to identify my location on the globe. Once that is locked, I can point it at any object in the sky and it will tell me what I am looking at, often through audio narration. What is more, I can punch in the object that I want to observe, and arrows will light up on the device to guide me to where the object is in the sky.



It has made my backyard astronomy experience much more enjoyable. Often I do not use the telescope at all, as the Sky Scout can educate me about plenty of things in the night sky visible to the naked eye.

“Have the knowledge of a professional astronomer in the palm of your hand,” is one of the advertising slogans. It is true. The device brings back memories of some of the things that I learned in Astronomy 101.

I am a bit of a Luddite. I admit that. But I also have to acknowledge that GPS systems can be pretty cool. The Sky Scout in particular has given me access to a lot of information that I never would have been able to figure out on my own.

A Day at the Post Office, Part 4

Alexandria, Virginia. October 2006

5:30 pm

One good thing about route 52 is that I have carried it before.

I remember this set of four doors in a cul-de-sac, all of them red, each to a very nice townhome.

These four addresses receive lots of mail on a daily basis, but one home in particular gets lots of clothing catalogues and magazines. The mail slot is very small.



As the sun begins to set, I slide and shove the catalogues, one by one, through the slot.

Suddenly the door opens, and there stands a young woman, probably slightly older than me, with dirty blonde hair pulled back from a pretty white face. She is barefoot, wearing gym shorts and a t-shirt.

“I thought I would save you the trouble of putting all that through the slot,” she says.

“Oh, thanks,” I say.

The woman has a remarkable figure, and it is obvious that she is wearing no bra. Similar to the European lady whom I encountered earlier, she has just seared herself permanently into my brain.

I can feel my face begin to heat up, to turn red. I hand her the stack of mail, which she holds against her stomach. She sees my embarrassment and cocks her head to the side with a quizzical expression. Then she understands, and a cute little smile forms on her face.

I think I am in love.

“Is that everything?” she asks.

“Yes ma’am. I believe so.”

“Thank you,” she says.

As she moves to close the door, she deliberately arches her back and sticks out her chest, smiling at the power that she knows she has over me.

The door shuts, and I hang my head for a moment. “Why do women do that?” I think to myself. I feel a pain in my stomach, a loneliness that pierces through the physical discomfort of the job.

As I walk back to the LLV, I find myself muttering, “I really wish you would not do that. You are very beautiful and I would be very good to you, but please don’t tease me unless you are serious. If you are not serious, then I wish you would just leave me alone.”

She has made quite the impression on me. For the rest of my time with the Post Office, I will ask each morning for the opportunity to carry route 52, and I will get to carry it multiple more times. I always look for her and even knock on her door when I have a stack of magazines for the address. But she never answers, and I do not see her again.

***

When I lived in Las Vegas and applied to take the Postal exams, first in California, and then in DC as those openings popped up on the internet, I envisioned the job of mail carrier to be a rather leisurely one, with pleasant walks outside. I would get off work at a reasonable hour and have time to write. It did not occur to me that I would have to wear a head lamp on a daily basis.

The sun has gone down, now. Before I gather the mail from the back of the LLV for the next block of homes, I turn on the light of the head lamp and put the band around my head. Both the metal parts and the elastic are a bit grimy from the previous days’ sweat. It is not long before I feel the batteries begin to heat up in the center of my forehead. At least I can see the addresses on the mail, though.



10:00 pm

My cell phone rings. It is Gary, the evening shift supervisor. Raj has long since gone home.

“Marshburn, where are you at?”

“I’ve got some cluster boxes left on the final leg of route 52,” I answer.

“Do you think you’ll be back to the station in the next half hour?” he asks.

“In the next half hour? No, sir. This last bunch will take me at least an hour to deliver. It’s a lot of townhomes.”

“All right,” Gary says. “I’m sending Melvin out to you. Where exactly are you at now?”

I give him the location. Unlike Raj, Gary is a former mail carrier. I get the sense that he would rather return to mail carrying. The stress of being a mid-level supervisor, of being chewed on from both ends, is not making him happy. He was once one of the guys, but now he has to deal with the carrier union as if he is an adversary.

Melvin is one of my favorite people at the station. He and I were hired at the same time. Melvin has a cool and friendly personality, and is much better adjusted to this job than I am, I think. He is an African-American with a short, stocky build. Individuals with these types of physiques- thick legs and thick arms- seem to be among the best mail carriers, male or female and regardless of race.

The last part of route 52 is a maze of expensive townhouses. The mail for these homes is delivered to a set of cluster boxes that set at various locations. It is part of the sorting game to figure out which mail tray goes with each box, and then to find where that box is hiding.

I use my master key to unlock the box I am at now, and with the aid of my head lamp, I distribute a tray and packages.

These townhomes are interesting. They are very nice. One of the residents told me that that each sells for at least $600,000. But only railroad tracks divide them from the projects. It is strange to me that someone would pay that much money just to live a few feet away from project housing and, ostensibly, a high crime rate. Also, Reagan International Airport is very close by, and the sound from planes taking off and landing is substantial.

Melvin pulls up in his Post Office mini-van.

I give him half of my remaining mail. What takes some time, though, is that I then have to go and unlock each of the remaining cluster boxes on the route, as I have the only key. After driving around all the roads to accomplish this, I return to the spot where Melvin first pulled up. After we are done, I will have to drive around again and lock all the boxes that Melvin worked.

At one point, he and I are working at boxes within a few feet of each other. A train barrels down the tracks, blowing its horn incessantly. The noise is incredible, rattling windows and my ear drums. It takes a few minutes for the train to get by.

After the commotion has passed, Melvin and I exchange looks.

“Man, that train was off the chain!” Melvin exclaims.

“Can you believe people pay $600,000 to live like this?” I ask.

Melvin shakes his head, the light on his own head lamp flashing back and forth.

11:00 pm

Melvin and I pull back into the station and back our vehicles into the appropriate spots. I take the load of outgoing mail inside.

“Thanks for the help, Melvin,” I say.

“No problem, man,” he answers. “I know you would do the same for me.”

“Yes, I would. But you never seem to need it.”

Inside the station, Gary is waiting for me. The place is very quiet again under the bright fluorescent lights. No one else is here except for a few of the night shift mail clerks at work, putting unsorted mail tubs at the various routes. Finally, my day is done and I can go home.

“Marshburn, you missed carrying out a guy’s mail today,” Gary says.

My heart sinks. “What?”

“He’s had his mail on hold for a couple of weeks, and today it was supposed to go out. He called here this evening, asking about it.”

I see that Gary has a tub with the mail setting beside him.

“I’m sorry. I did not know. Can’t it go out tomorrow?” I ask.

Gary shakes his head. “Post Office says it has to go today.”

I sigh, resigning myself to the fact that I have to go out on the street again.

Gary sees the expression on my face. He thinks for a moment.

“Go on home, Marshburn. I’ll take it out.”

“Are you sure?” I ask.

“Yeah. Go on home.”

Exhaustion and hunger keep me from arguing with him.

11:30 pm

I do not want to eat fast food again for my late dinner. Those are the only restaurants open at this time of night.

Beside my apartment complex is a buffet restaurant. Though not a chain, it is very similar to Golden Corral or Ryan’s. If it is still open when I get off work, I have learned to go in and load up. I get the Styrofoam “To-Go” trays, four or five of them, and pile each one with as much food as it can hold. The restaurant charges me by the pound.

I key into my apartment and head straight for the refrigerator. Without taking off any part of my uniform, I grab one of the to-go trays from inside. I do not bother to warm it up. The grease has congealed to white globs on the roast beef, but I do not care. I sit down in my recliner and eat and eat. Meat, potatoes, vegetables.

Eventually, there is enough of a bottom on my stomach that I can stand up, take off my uniform and step into the shower to wash off the dirt from the day.

After the shower, I go back to the refrigerator eat some more from the trays, this time warming it up in my microwave first. It is well after midnight when I collapse on my bed.

Like a ceiling fan on high speed that has just been turned off, I keep spinning in my sleep, gradually winding down. I dream of sorting mail for most of the night.

6:30 am

My radio alarm clock goes off.

I awake to annoying DJ chatter and a strange, metallic taste in my mouth. I shake off the dreams of sorting mail to realize that I have another day of the real thing ahead of me.

7:30 am

I clock in and begin walking down the long, concrete floor.

Dillon, the other morning supervisor, is coming toward me.

“Marshburn, I have you putting up and carrying route 63 today. You will also need to carry part of route 12.”

“Is route 52 available?” I ask.

Dillon gives me a steady look. “No, I’ve got 52 covered.”

As I take my position at the sorting bins for route 63, I hear Rodney on route 15 sing out:

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life! So let’s make this the best day of the rest of your life! Yesterday was the future, tomorrow is the past, so let’s get to it!”

In addition to Rodney’s chant, I am thinking of some lines by Stephen King from his work, Storm of the Century. In it, a mysterious character, Andre Linoge, speaks to one of the residents of a small island town in Maine. Linoge is later revealed to most likely be the Biblical demon, “Legion.”

“That is what Hell is all about- repetition.” Linoge tells him. “I think in our hearts, most of us know that… Remember what I said, Robbie. Hell is repetition.”

As I sort the mail on route 63, I think about the woman I saw yesterday on Route 52. I have fantasies about seeing her again, asking her out and even marrying her. The pain of this existence is overbearing, though, and I am glad that I do not have a family.

No, even with her, I do not think that I want to bring children into this world.

A Day at the Post Office, Part 3

Alexandria, Virginia. October 2006

2:45pm

Raj wanted me to call in around 2:30 to let him know where I was on route 71.

I have my cell phone in the LLV with me, and I dial the station.

“Alexandria Memorial Annex,” Raj says. I recognize his Indian or Pakistani accent.

“Raj, it’s Nathan Marshburn. I’m calling in to update you.”

“Where are you?” Raj asks. “I’ve got half of route 52 sitting on the floor waiting.”

“Sir, looking at what is left in my truck, I have to say that I am about one third of the way done with the route.”

“One third to go or one third done?”

“One third done. About two thirds of the mail for the route is still in my truck.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Marshburn. Everyone on the overtime list is still out on the street. Ken, Francois and Kevin will probably come back first, but I have other mail routes they need to carry. I need to you to go faster, Mr. Marshburn. I have no help to send you.”

Though I have never served in the military or been in combat, the feeling in my stomach is probably a hint of what a soldier must experience when he is deep in the bush with the enemy and needs a load of napalm dropped on the tree line. He radios in his position, only to be told no fast movers are available.

The thing is, I have to ask for the "air strike" on a daily basis. It has gotten old to my supervisors, my coworkers, and me. I have become numb to what the floor manager tells me as far as assistance. I respond like I am on the radio in combat. “Roger that.”

“You are on your own, sir,” Raj says.

I punch the end call button on my phone. As usual, there are miles to go before I sleep.

Also, I have yet to eat anything today.

Rarely in my life have I been able to force myself to get up early enough to grab breakfast, and it has never happened on this job. I am not a morning person. I will almost always trade food for sleep, and I sleep as long as I can in the mornings before having to report to work.

At the Post Office, we are allotted one half hour for lunch, which is ridiculous. The only thing that I can eat in a half hour is greasy fast food, and getting in and out of even those restaurants is a challenge in the crowded DC area. There are rarely restaurants along my mail route. I have to break off, fight the traffic and the clock to get to a McDonalds or Subway. It is also very much in my head that the time I spend eating is more time I will have to spend on the street later, after night has fallen.

I need an energy boost, though, so I take my LLV off the designated route and drive to the nearest fast food restaurant that I know of- Burger King. There, I wolf down some cheeseburgers and a fruit punch drink before getting back on the street. My lunch is not nearly enough calories, and neither is it healthy calories. I am on a miniature “Supersize Me” diet.

4:30 pm

The next addresses are businesses that get tubs of mail. It looks like I will need to use the hand truck and wheel in the plastic tubs. I open the back of the LLV and pull out the red painted heavy duty hand truck. It has two wheels that are inflatable and actually have treads on them, just like small tires.

It takes me about fifteen minutes to walk the block with my hand truck. I carry out about as much mail as I carry in. It is also my job to collect the outgoing mail and drive it back to the station at the end of the day.

As I load up the hand truck and slide down the back door, I see a woman standing on the sidewalk, glaring at me.

She is in her 40s, and I cannot be sure if her brownish red hair is dyed or natural. Rather thick glasses set on the end of her nose, giving her a bit of the schoolmarm look. Her most noticeable features, however, are her white, bare knees. She has on these brown, high heeled shoes with brownish-grey stockings that come up to her knee caps before folding over slightly. Her skirt is a little short, allowing me to see the knees. It is not a look that I am used to for a woman.

“Excuse, me?” she asks. “Do you know what time it is?”

“It’s about 4:45, ma’am,” I answer.

“Yes. It is almost five o’clock, and we are just now getting our mail. There is no time to go through and read it before the end of the business day.”

“Yes ma’am?”

“This is a law firm,” she says. “We receive many important documents, and we have deadlines to file things. It is important that we get our mail early enough to respond. This late in the day is not acceptable.”

“You have the option to send and receive things via Express Mail, ma’am. That guarantees delivery by noon the next day in most cases.”

“The regular mail used to come in the morning,” she says. “Now it is getting here later and later in the day.”

After a few months, I now have a much better understanding of the term, “Going Postal.” At my current rate of delivery, I am going to be on the street until close to midnight. There is no time to deal with this woman.

I move to the driver’s side of my truck. “Well, I’m sorry, ma’am. I can give you the phone number to my supervisor if you would like to talk to him about it.”

“Yeah, and I could spit in the wind, too!” she yells at me.

I watch her for a moment as she turns her back and walks away.

5:00pm

It is the beginning of rush hour, though traffic is always pretty heavy here. There is a group of small shops and then some larger businesses that I need to get the mail to, and parking is tight on these particular streets. I see an opening next to the curb and squeeze in. As I get out of the truck, there is an Asian lady in the car in front of me with her window down and waving.

“You’re going to have to back up,” she says. “I can’t get out.”

I look at the distance between the front of my LLV and her back bumper. It is a good three feet.

“Lady, you’ve got room to get out. I’ve got a lot of mail to deliver. I’m sorry.”

Paying her no more attention other than to note her look of confusion at my response, I walk to the back of my truck and figure out the next load. First will be a four story building with deliveries on each floor. I break out the hand truck again.

Once inside the building, I take the elevator to the top floor. One of the stops is to another law firm.

I leave the hand truck setting at the front door and pick up a couple of their tubs of mail with my hands.

Inside, it appears that some sort of celebration is going on. Young men and women, about my age, have popped a bottle of champagne. There is a nice cake with white icing as well.

The women are fit and attractive, like the girls I saw in college. It bothers me that they do not even look at me, though, as I pass by in my Post Office uniform, carrying their load of heavy mail. The guys, in their white collars and neck ties ignore me, too.

I could just set the mail down and walk out. But the feeling of resentment and also a desire to be a part of their group causes me to enter the room with the cake and champagne.

“Excuse me,” I say, “where would you like this?”

The women do not even bother to look up. One of the guys, who appears to be my age, glances at me. “Just set it down outside,” he says, and turns away.

You are not smarter than me, I think as I set the mail down outside their door. I could do what you do. I deserve to be a part of your group.

5:20pm

I return to my LLV with the hand truck. To my satisfaction, I see that the Asian lady and her car are gone. Apparently, she did have enough room to get out.

Parked in her place, though, is another Post Office LLV. Kenny, one of the regular route guys whose name is on the overtime list is waiting for me.

“Hey, man!” I say.

“I’ve got the second half of route 52 for you,” he says. “They wanted to send it out so you didn’t have to make the trip back to the station.”

“Okay, thanks,” I respond. It is not the first time that they have worked it this way.

Kenny helps me move the mail from his truck to mine, and so I do not bother to ask if he is going to help me deliver it.

He leaves without saying much else to me.

So now, I have half of route 52 in my truck, and a substantial remaining portion of route 71.

Raj’s accented “You are on your own, sir!” echoes in my head as I take a moment to watch the sun beginning to set behind the buildings of Old Town Alexandria.

Night comes much sooner this time of year.

To be continued…

A Day at the Post Office, Part 2

Alexandria, Virginia. October 2006.

I ring the doorbell. This house has an item of registered mail that requires signature for delivery.

No one answers.

Typically, I would keep moving. Registered mail is different, though. If I lose a piece of registered mail, I could lose my job. People ship high value items via registered mail. Everyone who touches it has to sign first, like a chain of custody log for the confiscated cocaine in a drug dealer’s trial.

I do not want to carry a piece of registered mail with me back to the station. I want to get rid of it now, so I ring the doorbell again.

Finally, the door opens, and I am startled.

There stands a beautiful, red headed woman, completely naked except for a tiny white towel wrapped around her.

She sees my facial expression and gives me a small, knowing smile.

“Uh… I have some mail that you have to sign for ma’am,” I say.

“Oh, thank you,” she says. “I have to apologize. I was in the bath when you rang.”

She speaks with a foreign accent- European, but I am not sure from what country.

I hold out the paper and pen for her to sign. She takes the pen and leans over, giving me an up close view of almost the entirety of her two breasts. It is an image that is immediately seared into my brain for the rest of my life.

She is watching my reaction. “I apologize for me,” she says.

There is a sexual ease to her, the way she moves and speaks. Her skin looks soft and smooth, and she seems to be quite comfortable with her naked body.

I cannot manage to say anything, and she takes pleasure in that. In another instant, the door has closed and I am left to return to the toil of the day.

Some of the other carriers at the Post Office make jokes about the women they are stopping in to see along their routes. I think that is all they are- jokes. For me, it is simply a fantasy. Even if I was invited by a woman, there is no time for that. I could never finish the mail route. I have to call the office for help on a daily basis as it is.

Many of the small letter envelopes are pre-sorted by machine. In the mornings, I pick up the plastic trays for these letters on my way out to load the truck. Again, it would be helpful to put rubber bands around the letters for each house, so that it is easier to sort when I am out on the street. This is not the way the Post Office wants it done, though. I am instructed not to touch the individual letters in these machine sorted trays until I have started my route.

There is a precise method to delivering the mail on the street that the Post Office wants me to use. Almost all of the routes in Old Town are walking routes. I park the LLV (long life vehicle) at the corner of designated block, or at least as close as I can get to that corner. I open the back of the LLV, and hopefully I have loaded the mail correctly so that the trays and parcels that I need first are right there in order. Parcels and packages go in the satchel that I wear on my shoulder. Next, I look at the trays of mail that I personally sorted this morning. These are primarily flats, or large envelopes and magazines. I balance the flats on the underside of my left forearm, also using my stomach as necessary to keep them from falling. Now, I look into the tray of machine sorted letters and find where the break is for the next block (Often, I make a mistake in this regard and either grab too many or too few of the letters). These are to be held in the left hand. I close the door and lock up the truck.

I begin walking the block. The idea is that as I make deliveries on the block, it will all be in order and will guide me around the block, back to the LLV when I have distributed all the mail in my hand, on my arm, and in my satchel. As I walk toward a house, I should be fingering through the letters in my left hand for those that go to that house. I pull them and place them on my forearm on top of the corresponding flats. Then I finger the flats for that house and fold them over the letters. Hopefully, I have done this by the time I reach the house. I put the mail through the slot and move toward the next address, repeating the sorting process for that house.

Maybe it is just me, but there are a number of things that slow me down, even if I do park in the right spot and grab the right amount of mail, in order.

People in Old Town receive lots of mail. Many houses get stacks of magazines on a daily basis. The mail for a given block is often too much for me to carry in one load. I have to pass out everything I can carry, and then come back to the LLV for two and three loads, when the Post Office has calculated the time needed to carry this block is for one trip. The packages and parcels are very often too many, too large, and too awkwardly shaped to all fit in my satchel.

Old Town Alexandria is one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the whole country. I deliver mail to Senator John McCain, Governor Mark Warner, and General Colin Powell. At the same time, I also deliver mail to housing projects, usually very close and within plain window view of the nice homes. One postal worker has told me that a certain housing project here has more diagnosed cases of AIDS per household than anywhere in the United States- though I do not know his source of information.

The disparity in the amount of mail between rich and poor amazes me, too. There are addresses in the projects that never get mail, it seems. Sometimes old men or women are standing or sitting outside waiting for me.

“You got my check today?” they ask.

Sometimes I do have it, sometimes I do not. They are not happy when I do not have it and they think there has to be some mistake.

The Post Office has taken into account this disparity in mail volume, though. Routes that have housing projects on them are considerably longer (more addresses) than those on the affluent streets. I generally prefer carrying mail in the projects if given the choice. I would rather walk longer with less mail in my arms. Also, the people in the projects look at me and talk to me as if they respect my occupation. This is not true in the rich neighborhoods. I am becoming very class conscious in this job. Also, if I tell the truth, many of the women in the projects are just as physically beautiful to me as the women I see getting into Mercedes and living in the fancy townhouses of Alexandria. These women in the projects often give me warm smiles. The other ladies give me smug smiles if they look at me at all.

The mail slots in the townhouses are very old and very small, for the most part. They were not built for sliding large amounts of magazines through them. I fold the magazines over and do the best I can, but often I have to stand at a door for a while, putting magazines through the tiny slots one at a time, tearing the covers against the sharp metal corners. Again, the Post Office has calculated that I should be able to put all mail through the slot in one motion and keep moving…

Dogs. All the stereotypes that you have heard about dogs and mailmen are true. It is a puzzling thing.

A dog is frequently waiting behind the door for me, like they can sense when I am there. The vicious snarling is really something to hear. Sometimes I will just stand at a door, listening to the dog on the other side foam at the mouth, literally ramming parts of its body against the door. When I stick the mail through the slot, I have to be careful not to put any part of a finger through as well. That is what the dog wants. The mail gets torn to shreds as they snatch it from my hands with their teeth through the door slot.

I like dogs, and dogs almost always like me. Something happens when I am wearing the Post Office uniform, though. I become the enemy. They look at me dead in the eyes through windows of a house, snarling and trying to bite through the glass. There is no question that they would attack me if given the chance.

I walk down the street in one neighborhood. A big, black Labrador retriever is being held on a leash by a young woman. Labs have some of the best temperaments of any breed in the world. I have never met one that was not friendly.

Despite the time crunch of the day, I want to greet the dog. It is a stress reliever.

“Is it okay if I pet your dog?” I ask the lady.

“Sure,” she says. “He does not bite. He’s very friendly.”

I reach down and let the dog smell my hand. He stands quietly while I pet him on this throat and chest. I give his ears a squeeze.

After a few moments, I stand back up.

“Thank you,” I say to her, and am about to continue walking. The look in the dog’s eye changes. Suddenly he snarls and lunges straight at my crotch. The woman pulls back on the leash just as his jaws snap an inch from my zipper.

“Whoa! What the hell is wrong with him?” I yell.

The woman is shocked herself, but she says, “There’s nothing wrong with him.”

She looks at me as if I was the one who did something wrong as she holds tight against the leash.

Maybe it is the smell of the mail and how it gets on the uniform. Maybe it is because mailmen are always moving so quickly from door to door and into the dogs’ territory that annoys the animals. At any rate, I learn not to mess with them when I am in a Post Office uniform.

To be continued…

A Day at the Post Office, Part 1

Alexandria, Virginia. October, 2006.

(Names have been changed)

7:30 am

I clock in and begin walking down the concrete floor, looking for a supervisor to give me my assignment for the day.

I pass by Rodney’s station on route 15. He is already there, sorting the crates of mail and putting it up in trays.

An athletic looking African-American, Rodney is an avid Washington Redskins fan. He flashes a smile as I pass and sings out his familiar song, loud enough for the entire station to hear:

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life! So let’s make this the best day of the rest of your life! Yesterday was the past, tomorrow is the future, so let’s get to it!”

Every single morning he does this. Half the time, he gets the words mixed up. He will sing out: “Today is the first day of the rest of your life! So let’s make this the best day of the rest of your life! Yesterday is the future, tomorrow was the past, so let’s get to it!”

I am glad he does it, but it is too early in the morning to laugh or smile much.

Raj, one of the floor supervisors, comes from either Pakistan or India. He is a hard worker and is trying to do his best. None of the mail carriers, and I literally mean none, like management. His is a lonely job, constantly clashing with the mail carrier union. Still, there is no heavy lifting to what he does. He does not have to go out on the street. Raj sees me and walks up.

“Marshburn, I have you on route 71 today. You need to put up that route. I want you to finish that as soon as you can and call back in around 2:00. I will need you to do half of route 52 today as well.”

“Yes, sir,” I say.

He walks away. I smile to myself, half of me wanting to laugh, the other half trying to fight off waves of despair. I have never done route 71 before. So far, I have not been able to put up the mail and deliver an entire route before 9 pm. What he just gave me is an impossible work load to get done before midnight.

8:00 am

I stand on a rubber mat on the concrete floor, surrounded on three sides by metal sorting trays that go about a foot over my head. In the opening behind me is a cart with boxes of unsorted mail. The trays are marked with the streets and houses of route 71. When I pick up a piece of mail, I look at the address, and then find the appropriate slot on the metal trays to insert it. There are bigger slots in the trays for businesses.



To get a route all to myself, I have to work here for about three years. As it is now, I come in each day and get an assignment based on which of the regular carriers called in sick or is on vacation. After Halloween and through Christmas, though, no one is allowed to take vacation time.

I hear Raj’s voice behind me. I turn and see that he is talking with another utility mail carrier just like me who is only now arriving at work.

He tells Raj that he was late because there was a car accident. Richard, the carrier who gave me street training here at the station when I first began working, is passing by pushing a cart of mail. He interjects:

“Nascar says go high and push on through the smoke.”

Raj and the other mail carrier give Richard blank and confused looks, respectively. But I get it.

11:00 am

“Hey Professor, you’re still here?”

I recognize the Puerto Rican accent of George or Jorge. I turn and force a smile.

“Yep, still putting up this mail,” I respond.

He moves on without further comment. There is not much to say. We are supposed to be on the street delivering the mail by 10:30 am. I just cannot get it all sorted that fast, though.

George is funny guy. He stands about 6’5” or 6’6”. The managers dislike him for some reason, and it is no secret that they are trying to get him fired. George primarily does express mail runs in the morning. Those are the letters and packages that have to be delivered before 12 noon. George has one of the shortest routes in the station because of this. He comes back after the morning express mail runs, puts up his route and then heads out.

I have worked his route before. There is more mail than others because it is almost entirely businesses, but there are fewer addresses, which makes it go faster. Often when I walk past George’s station, it looks like he is loafing, carrying on and laughing, bouncing back and forth between English and Spanish.

I like George. It is good to hear laughter in this place, which everyone refers to as “The Rock.” Its real name is Alexandria Memorial Annex, and it is one of the busiest mail stations in the entire country. Managers or supervisors get chewed up and spit out here, or so I have been told. They change out about every six months.

***

When I got hired by the Post Office for the Washington, DC region, I made a stupid move. I had the highest score on the postal exam, and they asked me where I wanted to go. Having no idea that there was a big difference in difficulty of assignments, I told them, “It doesn’t matter. Just stick me where you need the most people.”

Before actually reporting to “The Rock” in May, I went through a week of general training with other new hires. Our class instructor asked each of us where we were assigned.

“Arlington,” one guy said.

“Oh, I know Beth Williams out there,” our instructor responded. “She is a great manager. Tell her I said hello.”

“Springfield,” another person said.

“Talk to Bob Shelton out there. He’ll make life easy for you," the instructor said to him.

“Falls Church.”

“Fairfax.”

And so it went. When it was my turn, I said “Alexandria Memorial.”

The instructor paused for a moment and her eyes got a little big.

“Jesus will watch over you along with all of his angels,” she said.

***

“Marshburn, it is past 11 and you are still here. What’s the problem?” Raj asks.

“No excuses, sir,” I say. “I am going as fast as I can.”

Raj watches me for a couple of minutes as I continue to put up the mail. As I work, I am waiting to hear if he can offer any suggestions on how to go faster. None are forthcoming. Eventually, I look over my shoulder and he is gone.

Finally, around 11:30, I finish putting all the mail in the metal trays. Now it is time to take the mail down and stack it in plastic trays to be loaded into the truck, in the order it will be delivered.

Putting rubber bands around all the mail for the different addresses helps when I am out on the street. For whatever reason, though, this is forbidden. I will get in trouble if caught doing it. Perhaps it is the cost of rubber bands. I have heard from other carriers, though, that management just wants us on the street as soon as possible. Putting rubber bands on the mail is more time at the station.

It is about 11:45 when I finish taking down the mail for route 71 and have it loaded up on a push cart. There is a separate push cart for the parcels. I pull both toward the elevators down to the ground level and the trucks. I see that I am the last carrier leaving the station, and there are about 100 routes here. The place is depressingly quiet, and again I fight off the waves of anxiety. I have literally been left behind.

My arms have always been skinny, but I notice that they look even thinner now as I push the carts. Despite eating a buffet every chance that I get, I am down to about 140 lbs.

Correctly loading the LLV (long life vehicle) is an important part of the process, too. Not having worked the route before, I have to trust that the metal trays were oriented correctly to the way the route will work on the street. The parcels go in one part of the truck. I have trays of flats (magazines and large envelopes) and trays of letters that I carefully stack in what I hope is the right order for delivery.



My bar code scanner is hooked to my belt, and I have the master key to the cluster boxes on the route. I climb into the driver’s seat of the LLV, fasten my orange seatbelt, crank the engine and head out to the streets of Old Town Alexandria.

It is just after 12:00pm, when most other mail carriers are taking their half hour lunch break.

To be continued…