Part 3: Post Office “Random thoughts”

 Part 3:  Post Office

“Random thoughts”

By Bob Templeton  7/24/12 H C Times

Again I hope Thomas Sowell does not mind.

I will never forget moving from the old building

into the new federal building. We worked all

Weekend moving, all on volunteered and unpaid time.

We got to work and Jerald Chandler was there and

had made the coffee. I don’t think JW had made coffee

in a coffee pot before. He had read the instructions

on the can that suggested one tablespoon of coffee for

each cup of water. I have seen asphalt that was not that

strong. Stanley Griffin showed him how to make it.

Speaking of Stanley, one day Jerrald motioned for me to

follow him. We went to the doorway of the swing room.

There sat Stanley, holding up a teaspoon and staring at it.

Jerald asked “Stanley what are you doing?” Stanley never

hesitated, “I am going to bend this spoon with my brain.”

A little while later I passed by the swing room and there

lay Stanley`s spoon, twisted like a pretzel…who knows.

When we were in the old building we had two indoor

drop slots it the window wall. The top was for letters

and the lower a little bigger was for small packages.

We would watch for someone we knew drop a letter in

it and when they put the second in the top slot I would

push their first out the lower slot. This would usually

go on for three or four times. Most folks when they

saw what had been done to them took it in good spirit.

Billie Holland liked to grab hands as customers reached

to recover their mail from the rental boxes. Funny,

they nearly all knew who it was and we would hear a

loud yell, “Billie Holland cut that out.” Billie Holland

and Stanley Griffin were always the office perpetual entertainment.

We never knew what was coming next.

My favorite and it happens to everyone who wears a uniform:

We were shopping and a lady on my route walks

up. “Mr. Templeton, I did not recognize you with your

clothes  on.” Meaning to say my uniform on she turned

Blood  red in the face and Frieda and I cackled. That was

a regular occurrence and was always funny. The expression,

when, they realized they had not said Street Clothes.

“Part 2 Post Office Random Thoughts”

I hope my favorite columnist Thomas Sowell does not mind my taking his random thoughts idea.  Really though I think he would not mind at all.

I will never forget the day the fellow from out of town, stopped me on Mayfield road, in front of Gilbert Johnson`s.  He asked me if I was the carrier with a boat for sale.  I told him I have a boat but not for sale.  He said that he was looking for the carrier who lives on Beeler Hill.  I informed him that we both live on Beeler Hill.  Then bless his heart, he said I am looking for the Clinton city carrier who has twin daughters.  Well sir, I told him I have twin daughters but so does the other carrier.  I like to have never convinced him that he wanted to see Jim Brummal and not me.

One day I ran into two different customers who were mad at the world and were taking it out on me.  It was early in the day and I let it eat on me most of the day.  I am sure I was not too friendly with the customers I came into contact with that morning.   Later it dawned on me that I had over three hundred families on my route and almost all of them the best people in the world.  Any carrier in the country would love to trade with me.  It just happened I ran into two of the very very few who were not pleasant people.  My day was way uphill from there on.

After I changed from carrier to maintenance I was often in the lobby and the first to see most people.  I was taught by my dad that I had a commitment to my employer and regardless of who they were or how I felt I should greet them pleasantly.  Many times I felt bad or had something bothering me and after I smiled and met a few people cheerfully I really felt that way.  I never underestimate a smile and kind word anymore.  It is great medicine.

I will never forget the time J D Barclay came in with a tale.  Now JD was one of the best rural carriers around.  Instead of leaving packages by the mail box he would take it to the door.  On this day it was raining, and the house had no porch.  He opened the front door to set the package in, so it would not get wet, or have to leave a note for it to be picked up at the PO.  When he opened the door their dog ran past him to the kitchen. He got on his knees trying to catch the dog.  Well that was when the owners walked in.  Lucky for him they knew him and thought it was hilarious.

This was when I was about twelve but was instrumental in me going to work for the Post Office.   I worked for John B Evans and every day when it was time for Little Henry Brazzell to cross the street on North Washington.  We went to the front and watched for him.  Henry read a pocket novel every day. If the volume of mail was not heavy he would read as he walked.  He would step off the curb and up the other and not miss a word. 

When I was smaller I would meet him for our mail and I will never forget how kind he was.  I worked at John B. Evans store with Pete Halteman and he helped me a lot.   Pete and Truman Allison had coffee together a lot and they talked me into applying for the job.

Published in The Hickman County Times 07/17/12 Vol 3 issue 29

Part 1 “Post Office Random Thoughts”

My favorite columnist, Thomas Sowell, has a column about once a month titled random thoughts so I thought I would list some Post Office random thought that stand out.

The first has to be about a lady who lived near the end of my mail route and was so sweet.  She would always have a big, I mean big, smile and a kind word.  She would put her letters on the box and I would pick them up for posting like I was supposed to do.  Well almost, I was supposed to only if I had a delivery but I picked up all I noticed from everyone.  Sometimes I would miss one while I was fingering mail for the next delivery but I managed to see most.

Often she would call the Post Office and ask to talk to me.  She would not tell the clerks what she wanted.  She would ask if I would bring her a book of stamps occasionally but more often she would tell me to be sure and knock on her carport door when I got there.  When she came to the door she would tell me she had a pie for me and I should stop by on my way home and pick it up.  She made the most amazing coconut pie with a four inch, toasted light brown, meringue.  They were delicious.  I noticed her car gone one day and remembered the last time that happened she was in the hospital.  Not wanting to leave mail if she was not home I knocked on the door.  When she answered I told her I was just concerned that her car was gone that time of the day.   She said, “Bobby I got down town the other day and I realized I was not safe to be on the highway. I called my son to come get my car and sell it.”  This was surely a first.  This wonderful lady was Tommy Bugg`s grandmother Mrs. Beulah Ashley.  I am so blessed that she was one of my friends as well as a favored customer. 

One of the funniest Post Office memories was the couple who worked at different offices in town.  One day he stopped me and asked me to watch his mail and if he got a letter from a certain town to “please” put it in the box at his work and not take it to the house.  Not too long after that his wife told me that if she got a letter from a man to put it in the box at her work and “please” do not deliver it to the house.  I never knew if I should have got them together and told them this so they could both get their mail at home.

There was the time we had a big ice storm but not as bad as the 2009 storm.   Ice covered everything.  I made it all day without falling.  That is until I got to the Baptist subdivision.  When I went to cross from Tap Featherstone`s to Doctor Barbers I fell.  I fell hard.  The street there was high in the center like the highways in Germany. This was to let rain water runoff and not pool.  Well I got up and took a step.  Bam I was down again.  I realized this street was not going to let me cross standing up so I crawled across dragging the mail bag.  I got up and sheepishly looked all around to see if anyone had seen this spectacle.

One time one of the carriers, not me that time, stepped off a porch into a rose bush.  I forgot if it was J. W. Chandler or Pete Halteman.  He should have been watching where he was going and not watching the female sun worshiper.   Laughing must have been my mistake for a few yrs later the tables turned.

I was carrying the down town loop and was crossing from Tip Johnson plumbing supply to Dobson corner.   The Mexican strawberry pickers were here picking berries.  I noticed one of the young ladies getting out a car ahead and to my right.  I was looking to see if I could make out the brand of the fantastic jeans she was wearing.  Smack, I walked into the store corner.  It gets dangerous out there.

Published in The Hickman County Times 07/17/12 Vol 3 issue 29

“The Y with Duane n Doc.”

Dr. Clarence Mills invited me to go to Mayfield to the Y with him once when we were having morning coffee.  I did and was hooked, joining right then.  We went on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Not much later and Duane Webb joined us.

We would have to go to Hardees first for breakfast.  Mine usually consisted of biscuits with white milk sausage gravy.  We really needed this to take on the calories for workout.

While I was able to go I could not do cardiac but spent thirty or forty minutes with weight machines as well as sit up table.  I felt better when I walked out the door.  My waist receded and my blood pressure and my ticker improved.  My lung function improved as well and I was told that that could not happen.

I knew they were both veterans because I would see them at American Legion dinners.  Now veterans do not usually talk military.  That is unless they are with vets and no civilians.  I found that Duane was a combat Marine and Doc was a paratrooper in the 82^nd Airborne.  I also found out he jumped into Normandy during the invasion.

We got to know most of those who trained when we did and it made it a lot more fun.  Doc was a stranger to no one.

Duane and Doc`s health got worse and they both had to quit.  I stayed with it until I had two eye surgeries and a pacemaker put in and then I just could not stay with it.  If Mayfield were a little closer I would go three or four times a day on most days.  The distance is just too far for the little that I could do.

Doc and I usually talked WILDcats basketball and once Duane started we adjusted for him.  Just a little though.  He did not care for basketball.  Duane and I found a common love for the classics and also followed some of the same newspaper columnist.

Duane was always correction our grammar him being a English and lit major.  Our grammar was bad enough but we doctored it a bit for Duane’s benefit.  He finally gave up on us exclaiming, “I give up, you two are impossible to help.”  Duane and I disagreed on how our favorite syndicated columnist pronounced his name.  I pronounced it as Sewel and he said it is like Lewis Sowell.  I did not argue the point, honest.  A few days later Sowell was on TV and Duane saw him and heard him pronounce his name.  The next morning he informed me that I was right.

We alternated, and Doc and I would tease Duane one day and Duane and I would aggravate Doc the next day.

If we could just have got CC Bugg to go with us I would have heard some tales and just had more fun with some great men who we owed a lot for what they went through in WW2.  God bless them.

I miss my friends but I am so glad I have the memories to hang on to.  Their generation gave so much for my generation of misfits and protesters and we squandered it.  I do believe that the generation behind mine is faith centered and more responsible for the most part.  They had better be.