One of the great joys of working in the Story Shack—and there are many, I'm happy to report—is that I have the option of closing the doors for silence and solitude or throwing them open so I can hear the world go by outside. Yesterday, I needed a break from some intense deadlines and gave myself a couple of hours to work on a new story of my own (as opposed to something that actually brings money into our bank account:) I had the front door open as the mail truck made its afternoon rounds: mail truck accelerates, mail truck stops, mailbox squeaks open, mailbox whaps shut, mail truck accelerates, mail truck stops, mailbox squeaks open . . . What a wonderful sound. I mean, imagine the possibilities. Any whap of that box could mean Your check just arrived! You've won a vacation! Your mama finally remembered to mail you that recipe! Or best of all, You've got a package!! I completely relate to Miss Julie Andrews when she sings about those "brown paper packages tied up with strings" because those are absolutely "a few of my favorite things." When I was a child, brown paper packages were especially fabulous because, at our house, they weren't delivered by UPS (and FedEx hadn't been dreamed up yet). On those rare occasions when someone in the family received a package, our mailman and dear friend, Bub Kidd, would deliver it in his pickup truck. He would stop at your mailbox and blow his horn to let you know you had something too large for normal delivery. I can't begin to tell you how exciting the sound of Bub's truck horn was for me. I guess it had the same effect on me that a musical ice cream truck has on city kids, and I would always accompany Mama or Grandme to our mailbox (which was perched alongside Highway 25), in hopes that the package was for me. My all-time favorite delivery? It came from my Granny in Decatur—for my birthday, I think. Just seeing my name written on that brown paper was worth the price of admission. I ripped through it and opened a small packing box. Inside that was an even smaller square, white plastic box, and inside that was a velvet ring box. I opened it to find a little marquis sapphire ring with a tiny diamond chip on either side of the sapphire (my birthstone). OH MY GOODNESS!!! REAL JEWELRY!! A GROWNUP RING! THANK YOU, GRANNY! THANK YOU, THANK YOU! AND THANK YOU, BUB!! THANK YOU, THANK YOU!
[Mailbox image by Sarah Sturtevant @ Freerangestock.com]
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