There is something poignant about the things that disappear during our lifetimes.
I don’t care so much about the gadgets (the cordless phones, broken fax machines, and sad digital watches that end up in the nobody-wants-this-stuff-bin at the Goodwill). I’m thinking more about the friendly, personality-driven, neighborhood stuff that somehow looks different on every street.
Mailboxes, for example: I know that they’re not always the best-dressed item on the block. They start off straight and crisply painted, and before you know it the paint is peeling, the post is leaning a little to the side, and the little red flag is bent, chipped, or maybe even missing altogether.
They end up a little crooked…
But we all (well, most of us) have mailboxes, and I love the fact that they all tend to look a little different:
Maybe they have a jazzy red front door…
Or maybe they become part of the front yard garden…
And this one makes me think: if I were 5″ tall, I would live in a mailbox just like this one.
I’ve noticed recently that newer housing developments don’t have individual mailboxes. They have what I think of as the “Projects” version: faceless towers of identical metal boxes.
Maybe I should start a mailbox heritage society?
