My Mail/Male Man

I just realized I've been having a relationship with my mailman! We haven't spoken often and he may not be aware of it, but that makes no difference. Our association has outlasted my 17-year marriage and two serious relationships. Living at the same address for over 40 years, and having my mail delivered by the same man for all that time certainly qualifies as a strong bond. I don't know anything more about Stan but: he is steady and responsible, important traits for a relationship. It doesn't matter whether Stan is married. No betrayal here. I have seen him go from having a full head of hair to a grayer and sparser coiffure. He has been with me through my many hairstyles. The beehive was a very big production number for my hairdresser. Hair was sprayed so heavily, it would have held up in the eye of the meanest hurricane. We used to 'tease' our hair. What was that about? We had the Dorothy Hamill 'wedge' where no matter how you turned your head, your hair turned with you perfectly. At thirty, it was stylish to frost your hair an almost white color. The face would show your true age and there was never a concern about looking older than that. At my age, no woman would intentionally add white to her hair. There is no need for that. Nature is helping. While Stan's hair has turned gray, mine has miraculously turned red.

Stan delivered the mail while walking around tricycles and abandoned wooden blocks. He dealt with one barking dog that was later replaced by a variety of cats that never bothered him. If he saw teenagers at home when they should have been in school, he never told. When our house was broken into, Stan was one of the first I asked if he had seen anything different that day; he didn't. Stan must have seen some very interesting things over the years, of course at someone else's home, not mine. He never told.

Relationships change over time. Children move away, pets die, new friends and new names are added to the address. Those who were considered a 'significant other' at the time were added and later deleted when time proved them less than significant. When my friend Carol was experiencing financial problems, I invited her to be my roommate. I nicknamed her MIA because she was rarely home. Missing In Action. She stayed at her boyfriend's most of the time, the best kind of roommate. My relationship with Stan remained as true as ever.

The magazines poor Stan hauled up my long driveway ranged from Highlights for the children, Field and Stream for my husband and Better Homes and Gardens for me. I always succumbed to book offers where the first book was free; the others contingent on becoming a subscriber. Later, sold at garage sales were books about Aardvarks, Appetizers, Animals, Alaska, and Art. If the topic began with 'A' I might have had it. Don't ask me about Baking Bread, Brazil, Biology or Bears. Subsequent subscriptions were discontinued after receiving the free book, realizing I wasn't as interested in the topic as I once thought. Had Stan known, I think he would have appreciated that.

Neighbors have moved, some have died, new ones replacing them. Children have moved and returned, sometimes with children of their own. And Stan has seen it all. The stories he must have, glimpses of lives through the windows as he goes up the various walks to deliver his mail. While he used to deliver his mail on foot, these days he drives one of those small jeeps that allows him to pull up to a mailbox . Unfortunately, my mailbox is on my porch. If I see or hear him coming, I run down and get the mail, sparing him the effort of climbing one more driveway.

My trash mail has diminished considerably. Other than SCAN and Medicare information, there aren't many marketers seeking my business. I wonder if Stan has noticed that instead of Redbook, I now subscribe to AARP? When he delivers my social security check, is it possible that he too laments our relationship and the passage of time?

Would he take a Creative Writing course and write about me?