Story Weekend Theme: Mailboxes

What’s your mailbox story? Do you decorate yours for the holidays? Did you receive something extraordinary in yours once upon a time? Did a neighbor kid who doesn’t like you put something icky inside? The mailbox in the picture was painted for me by my stepdaughter, Brittany, (aka Pretty Handy Girl) as a surprise, back when I had my Bernese Mountain Dog, Bruin. Can’t wait to hear about your mailboxes!

If you’re new to Story Weekend, here’s how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you interpret it. Thanks to all of you who’ve been contributing. I’ve loved reading your (very short!) stories. As always, there are a few “rules”:

  • The story must be true.
  • Try to keep it under 100 words. Embrace the challenge! That’s about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it’s too long. I know how tough it is to “write tight” but I hope you’ll accept this as a challenge.
  • Avoid offensive language.

As usual, I’ll start it off with my own story.  

 

 

11 Comments

  1. Diane Chamberlain on September 2, 2011 at 5:32 pm

    Dad painted the mailbox for our summer house a crisp white and Mom asked me if I’d like to paint our names on it. Yes! I was ten and loved anything to do with a paintbrush . We shared our house with my grandparents, so I had two names to fit on the box: Lopresti and Chamberlain. I put them both on one line and the black letters grew tinier and tinier toward the end of the line, where they also drooped. I knew they looked bad, but Mom just let that goofy mailbox stand. Ugly mailbox. Great Mom.

  2. JoAn GODFREY on September 2, 2011 at 5:43 pm

    In our area, kids think it is lots of fun to drive down country roads and hit mailboxes with a baseball bat. A doctor I worked with, took a large mailbox and put a small mailbox inside. he filled the space with cement………. never lost another mailbox. I would love to see the kid that hit that one…………….lol

  3. snake on September 2, 2011 at 5:54 pm

    When i was a kid in warren township new jersey(rural area at time time). i had a very nosey neighbor who was always complaining about everything anyone did and constantly calling the cops for any reason. (even they were sick of her.)
    One day i was riding my horse down the road and he took a dump on the street in front of her house. she came out screaming that i needed to ‘scoop up that mess!’ i told her i’d come back with a shovel. which i did later just as she was leaving to go to the store. she yelled again “i better not see that mess in the street when i get back” and she didn’t because i filled her mailbox with all that nice fresh horse manure!

  4. Christina Wible on September 3, 2011 at 8:33 am

    Remembering the contents and context of a mailbox can be as good as leafing through a photo album of our lives. My first “box” was a slit in the front door where I received my nursing license. The second in an apartment where we lived so little time that I never got a letter. The third an apartment box where the teenager downstairs stole our mail. The fourth the farm box Barry and I put up together. The fifth where Barry’s death certificate arrived. The sixth with the cranky key in NYC. Finally, the seventh through which my life has passed for 34 years anticipating what next will fill my mailbox/life.

  5. Sheree Gillcrist on September 3, 2011 at 9:43 am

    The mailbox to me was more about the contents. I love receiving and sending hand written letters. A dying art so it seems.As a child my grandmother would write letters addressed to me( what joy) that smelled of baker’s yeast. She wrote as she spoke and always started each letter with’ Just sitting here on a Saturday afternoon..’. When I moved to Ireland and knew only one person in the whole country, the letters I received from my best gal pals were a lifeline . Ten pagers. The best kind of letter. Things we might never have said face to face was coloured by blue ink on the page of a writing tablet. Letters gave me time to contemplate my reply and weigh out my emotions. The instant world of email is not lost on me for sure but I keep each letter I receive as a gift of committment of the sender’s time and trust, to save and then savour at some point in the distance when I feel the need for connection to all that we are and have become. They are like a novel, only no one, not even the writer, knows the ending.

  6. Margo on September 4, 2011 at 10:59 am

    You could practically hear the ‘bam, bam, bam’ clear up on the hill every weekend when someone with an odd sense of humor would destroy our mailbox at the foot of the hill. Dad’s words ‘I’m off to repair the box again’ would resonate as usual. One day, dad surprised us all with a beautiful wood mailbox he had spent weeks building.
    Fearful that his creation would be ruined, we waited to see. Never again did the ‘mailbox destroyer’ touch our box…hopefully finding it beautiful too. Dad did good.

  7. Vikki Howell on September 4, 2011 at 11:29 am

    On our first family visit from UK to Florida we rented a house, and at the corner of our road was a house with a mail box in the form of a pig. Whenever we drove past the kids would shout Piggy Post box!! Over the years Piggy Post box has been talked about as part of our holiday stories. In 3 weeks time we are returning to Florida for the first time with no children (all grown up now) and are staying round the corner from Piggy Post box. 4 adults are now very excited to see if this memory of a wonderful family holiday is still there!!

  8. Kelly on September 4, 2011 at 12:57 pm

    I have wonderful memories of playing “mailbox” at my gramas when I was little. It was a little table with a drawer and it would be filled with papers, old letters, envelopes. My cousin and I would move it into the garden amongst the flowers and play out there for hours. Grama was an incredible gardener and when I think of that I can almost smell the sweet peas and the green of the dahlias. Wonder where that “mailbox” table went to?

  9. Jackie Giles on September 5, 2011 at 11:25 pm

    The most important mailbox in my life was really a mailbox but more a “mailroom”. The mail in question was delivered to my desk by my very efficient assistant. It came during a very busy day and I didn’t even open it until hours later. However, that box changed the course of my life. It held a diamond ring from the man I had been dating for 3 years and a paper that contained one important question: “Will you marry me?” I said yes and a year later moved from my home in IN to my new home in CA. Never once have I regretted that decision.

  10. Goofy mailboxes | Kigidi on November 3, 2011 at 3:34 pm

    […] Story Weekend Theme: Mailboxes | The Secret Life of Diane …Sep 2, 2011 … I knew they looked bad, but Mom just let that goofy mailbox stand. Ugly mailbox. Great Mom. Reply. JoAn GODFREY says: September 2, 2011 … […]

  11. Charmed1 on October 9, 2012 at 8:30 am

    Never known for my skills in the kitchen, I am still extended an invitation to our monthly euchre parties. Each couple brings a side dish. Let’s just state that my lasagna turned out not edible. The home where having the party placed it in the neighbor’s mailbox. All night long, it went from house to house on the cul de sac, mailbox to mailbox. Well..that first house? That is where it ended up…karma…appears raccoons didn’t want it either…not so pretty to clean up!!! Love my friends…

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