This site was
awarded a Times Pick by the Los Angeles Times
on June 1, 1998.Fort Wayne, Indiana by Linda Wright
A recent news report in our evening paper (The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel) was headlined, "Postal Worker Commits Crime". The crime had nothing to do with the work place, yet the person's occupation was named.
Why don't we read these teasers: CARPENTER RAMS BUS, or NURSE Steals COSMETICS, or V.P. MOLESTS CHILD? For some years now, it's been great sport to bash the unassuming postal worker. We are maligned in the press, and we are the butt of jokes by the four L's: Leno, Letterman (no pun intended), Liddy, and Limbaugh. "Going Postal" has entered the lexicon, and Mr. Liddy's daily reference to "snail mail" has grown tiresome.
Just who is this miscreant known familiarly as a postal worker? Well, many of us are teachers outside the classroom. We're pee wee and little league coaches. We're also writers and artists, pilots and volunteer firemen, dancers and jazz musicians, guitarists and pianists, choir members and ministers. We're your brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers. We're your next door neighbor. Let's take a look at what "Going Postal" means to a letter carrier, commonly referred to as your mailman.
It's starting while many of you are still in bed. It's standing for hours, sorting and sequencing letters from your friends and loved ones. It's walking five or six hours delivering those letters, in weather ranging from a 50 below zero wind chill to a heat index over one hundred degrees.
"Going Postal" is delivering cards written by a child's hand, addressed only to Grandma Smith on Parnell Avenue. or, a letter with a shaking hand, addressed only to: Mabel in the yellow and white house on St. Joe Boulevard. And, believe it or not, many times those letters get there! It's delivering Social Security checks to anxiously awaiting recipients, welfare checks to those unable or unwilling to work, and disability checks to the unfortunate. Many are delivered, door-to-door, in areas that you choose to avoid as "unsafe".
"Going Postal" is helping a lost motorist, pedestrians, children, and pets, find their way again. Its receiving stitches every year or so from Fido. Perhaps yours. You know, the one 'who wouldn't hurt a flea.' Then returning, with tepidity, the next day to deliver your mail again. It's saving lives each year, by rescuing patrons from burning homes and helping the elderly who have become so ill they cannot reach the phone. It's kind words to people who have been forgotten by their families.
"Going Postal" is creating and managing one of the largest food drives in the nation. Collecting millions of pounds each year, for our local food banks. It's scrapes, bumps, bruises, and torn clothes received by going up and down ice covered porches and steps to pick up outgoing mail at your door, even when there is no delivery so you won't have to walk to your local drop box.
It's moving mountains of letters daily, many times door-to-door and across the country, for less than the cost of a candy bar, with 99 percent on time, and to the correct address. Yes, what American, besides Messieurs Leno, Letterman, Liddy and Limbaugh, and our media editors, wouldn't be proud to be "Going Postal"? I know for one, I am.
Courtesy of The Summit City Mailbag, monthly publication of Summit City Branch No.116. NALC, Fort Wayne, IN. Any inquires can be sent to Zoostew@aol.com, or Thom Green, 2610 North Anthony Boulevard, Fort Wayne, IN 46805-3663.
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This site was
awarded a Times Pick by the Los Angeles Times
on June 1, 1998. |
