I think it’s natural, as we grow older, to reminisce about our childhood days. I know men my age who collect Roy Rogers, Coca-Cola, or Lionel trains. This is nostalgia. I am just as nostalgic about my childhood.
I collect things that I remember seeing around Vermont when I was a boy. Vermont’s landscape has changed a lot during my life. Rocky pastures, so common years ago, have all been bulldozed over, thereby removing any evidence of the glaciers. Perhaps the best example of this bulldozing is out Route 131 from Downers Four Corners to Ascutney: From Downers out three or so miles on the left is an old farm. This farm still has rocky pastures as it did 200 years ago. Try to imagine the entire area this way.
Directly across the road are beautiful, well-manicured fields, not a rock in sight. Now either the glacier stopped at the road or these fields fell victim to the bulldozer.
The photo with this article is an oversize, package mailbox. It has a topper with “Rex C. Doane.” I first met Rex about 1975. He was selling real estate and I was buying antiques.
In those days it wasn’t uncommon for the contents of the house to be included with the sale. Quite often the buyer wanted the house cleaned out. Rex had sold a house in Saxtons River furnished with antiques. I met Rex at the house. We made our first deal.
For many years thereafter Rex would call me when he had an estate or a house lot to sell. I got to know Rex over the years. He was a true Vermonter and gentleman.
Rex lived just outside of Londonderry. One day we were up overhead his garage when I spotted this mailbox. Rex appreciated my interest. Instead of selling it to me, he gave it to me.
I wanted Rex’s mailbox for the obvious nostalgic reasons, but more importantly, I wanted it as a remembrance of Rex. This is my Lionel train.
Up into the 1970s you used to see these old mailboxes along back roads. Often they were mounted on wooden posts. Usually it was farmers who had these large mailboxes. Farmers ordered large packages from Sears & Roebuck and other mail order companies. This is why they needed a large mailbox. I have heard them called, “Sears & Roebuck” mailboxes.
Lee Decatur told me a mailbox story that I will repeat here. Years before, Lee had bought one of these large mailboxes at an auction for 25 cents. He stored it at the family camp in Northwood, N.H. In September of 1969, Lee, who just moved to Chester, now needed the mailbox, so he contacted his brother Steve in Alton, N.H.
Steve mailed the mailbox from Alton, N.H., through the mail, as it was, no packaging. He wrote Lee’s Chester address on the outside of the door. Steve recalls the post lady putting the stamps on the inside of the door. It arrived in fine condition. What would the post office do today?
My neighbor on High Street was Mrs. Claussen. She was a nice lady who never caused any trouble. I used to shovel her long driveway.
One day I was walking up High Street when I saw a snake. I’ve always liked snakes so I picked it up. It calmed down after a couple minutes, so I put it in my jacket pocket. When I got to Mrs. Claussen’s, Henry said, “Let’s put it in her mailbox.” I never knew if she or the letter carrier opened the mailbox, but it must have been a pleasant surprise.
Speaking of mail, have you been to the Chester Post Office lately? One day last week there was a line almost out the door. Chester Post Office has been struggling lately with a shortage of help. I understand this. Kim Kendall went two weeks without any mail, picked up or delivered.
Others in Mountain View have had their mail deliveries two or three days late. I’ve mailed a couple bills from Chester that took two weeks to be delivered. Last week I mailed a letter from Bellows Falls instead of Chester. It was received in a timely fashion.
I do understand the difficulties with the supply chain and shortage of workers, but this is the United States government. Is this the best we can do? I hope not.
This week’s old saying was heard at the funeral of an unpopular man: “I came just to make sure he was dead.”