Mailboxes are such a part of the American scene, the country would be lost without them. Postmen (aka mailmen) don't come whistling up the drive, braving fierce weather and fiercer dogs to push your letters through a slot. No, you have to do the walking. And if you live in the country, it can be a very long walk to the end of your drive.
Sometimes, as on foggy mornings, mailboxes take on their own sinister life. From a distance, that could be anything looming up out of the mist.
But for such significant objects, mailboxes are remarkably fragile.The other day, I was driving through town and saw one hurled off its perch, lying ignominiously in the road. And later that day, I walked up our lane and saw.....
...this. Is this coincidence, or a new form of crime, namely mailbox vandalism? On the other hand, they are quite easy to clip with your car. But mailboxes should be treated gently and with respect, like snow leopards and giant pandas. Since their contents are surely a vanishing species, it won't be long before the mailboxes themselves end up in some dusty corner of the county museum, along with the telegraph machines and typewriters, "Look, dear, how quaintly people used to communicate in the old days!"
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