The Mailbox
by Wayne E. Hastings
S
o there was this real old man lived on a farm half way up the hill, musta
been 90 yrs old, Old and bent, 'walked with an old bent stick for a cane.
Across the road from his old farmstead hangin' on a branch of an ancient
tree was an old steel mailbox.
Well every year the traffic got heavier and faster until one day the
inevitable happened and the old man was hit by a speeding yuppie. He was the
last of his clan so the home place was sold off and his house and barn
raped of 100 years worth of treasures. Well one day when the ForSale sign was
comin' down that old branch mysteriously fell to the ground. I picked up that
old time mailbox, outlawed by some postoffices, gave her shot of primer and hung her
in front of my road. I printed 391 on her end with the rollup flag. Well I
guess the mail man liked her for not bein the sameold front loader as
everybody else had, for low and behold he started puttin' mail in her. Been
ten years since that old man died maybe 15.
She's a little rusty but like everything else around me she has
character. Shes old iron.
Wayne E. Hastings
B/1/501: Vietnam 1969-'70