Ostomy Memories of Mailboxes

THERE WAS A DAY WHEN houses had mailboxes mounted next to the front door, and the mail delivery person walked up and plopped it right in there.  Today, notwithstanding that I live in a residential neighborhood in the middle of a fair-sized city, we have to have what used to be referred to as ‘rural mailboxes’ planted out at the road and the mail carrier putters up in a small specialty vehicle and shoves the mail in, then putters on down the street, stopping at each ugly blight of a mailbox along the way, stuck on 4x4 posts usually, carrying on with the postal creed:  "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."    Actually, I can’t recall ever having mail delivered during the gloom of night.  They are federal employees, after all, and thus protected.  But mail carriers have my respect for the job they do.  My complaint is with the ugliest sight on my street:  all those ugly mailbox posts stuck along the way, one for each house, one after another after another.  So I am doing what I’ve noticed some others have done.  I’ve planted two bushes alongside my mailbox, one on each side, and I am expecting them to grow up and turn my mailbox post into a lovely green shrub concealing a mailbox into which the mail carrier can conveniently reach to deposit my bills, notices, junk mail, and occasional item of interest.  As cartoonist Scott Adams once noted:  “I get mail, therefore I am.”  And I wonder if snail mail, the opposite of email, is known in France as escargot mail.  

It was always a challenge having a mailbox in the winter time living on a rural road. The snowplow would take it out every time!! People were always trying to fix them... but they weren't always pretty!! LOL

I love my mailbox and haven't had any issues with plows, there are however some pretty sad ones on my street, mine looks like a 1950's-1960's model. It's called the Mod Box.

No more links so here's the web address:

https://modboxusa.com/products/mid-century-modern-mailbox-modbox

Love it! I love all that cool retro stuff!

Links were the one thing I could do! I tried the new browse for pics and still get an error message after I choose a pic to post and make sure the file is small! Another plot perpetrated by the man to keep me down!

Good move planting some shrubs around the letterbox. My last couple of houses have had massive limestone blocks as letterboxes built into or on a fence surrounded by a garden, nothing is going to knock those monoliths down, the term "built like a brick shithouse" springs to mind!

I do like the fact that the USA postal service actually collects mail from residences when you put your little red flag up! Don't believe that's a service that's ever been on offer down here, we have to schlep down to the nearest post office/box if we have to post a letter, but then it's been a while since I've actually "escargoted" correspondence!

Have seen a few novelty letterboxes in the neighborhood, always good for a laugh.

Good morning, Jo. Love the mailboxes!!

Can you help Abe with his iPhone? Load a pic here?

Sorry Sal, I'm totally an "Android" gal!

I did find a pic of something similar to Abe's mod box though (even has room for flowers underneath!)

A nice crisp letter in an envelope is so much better to receive than an email. Not long ago, they delivered the mail twice a day in the UK. How do they deliver to houses with a gate and a fairly long way to the front door? In NYC once, in the early morning, I told a group of postmen having breakfast in a restaurant that I always wanted to be a postman. I had been painting the town red all night, and he was nice enough to explain how to go about it. Should have followed his advice!

That is a mod box just on a different stand!

Love it!

So cool!

Hello HenryM.

Thank you for  your interesting take on ‘mailboxes’.

These are not something that are generally used in the UK as most people have what are called ‘letterboxes’, which are not ‘boxes’  at all but are flaps set into the front door so that mail can be posted through and land on the floor on the other side.

I have a feeling that the type of mailboxes you refer to on the side of the road would be an open invitation for vandals to ‘vandalise’ them.

I have a story of my own to tell of the dangers of the UK-type letterboxes:

Many years ago, when I was dealing with ‘maladjusted’ young people, I overheard some of them discussing how they could get ‘revenge’ on those who had deemed to offend them in some way.

It seemed that the favourite ways of getting their ‘own-back’ was to either post fireworks or pour petrol through the letter boxes and set fire to them.

As a sensible precaution, from that day to this, the letterboxes on my front doors were exchanged for a mailbox attached to the outside wall.

Interesting times we live in!

Best wishes

Bill

That should turn into a link. I don't know the magic here though. I had an address in a post that I had to do a couple of times until it was highlighted as a link.

Now THAT'S a mailbox!!

Wow, am I blessed! My mailbox is on the side of my porch, one step out the front door. Our street is not one where boxes along the road can be done.

Our previous neighborhood did have roadside mailboxes, so out the front door and down two sets of stone steps to the road I'd go.... Except in the winter, as that side of the house faced North and was a luge run from November through March. So one of us who was arriving home via car would get the mail.

I live in the country. The problem we have is sometimes someone will drive down the road smashing mailboxes. It really messes them up so they have to be replaced. It looks like they use a baseball bat. It has not happened lately. Some people put steel posts beside their boxes.

The evolution of the mailbox in the city (here in the US): Started as either the slot in the door or the letterbox hanging on the outside wall beside the door. Postman walked the route delivering mail. Evolved into the mailboxes along the road, especially in subdivisions, where it was quicker for the mailman to drive up, deliver, drive to the next, and so on. I have now seen neighborhoods where there is a single multi-box on the corner (looks like an apartment complex mailbox), and instead of walking out to the road for your mail, you now have to walk out to the sidewalk and down to the end of the block in order to get your mail. Reason: Yep, you guessed it - faster and more efficient for the mailman.