Although we don’t think about it much, a reader approaches nonfiction books with one of several expectations. There are subjects one KNOWS that one knows nothing about. A few years ago, because some friends had been there, I read a book on Paraguay. Not surprisingly, it was all news to me. (For the record, Paraguay is not, historically, a happy place.)
Like everyone else I guess, I have been dealing with the USPS all my life and thought I knew quite a lot about it. Boy was I wrong. There is a revelation in every chapter of Stephen Grant’s memoir and they are all the more striking because they were revelations to him, too!
Grant was a highly paid marketing consultant, a kind of consumer psychologist, a white collar “idea man” in early 2020 when COVID struck and he was laid off. He needed a job with health benefits for his family so, when an opening for a rural mail carrier appeared in his town, Blacksburg, Virginia, he took it.
There were physical and psychological exams, FBI background checks, an Academy, like the police academy, and he learned that the rules concerning mail and mailmen were strict and the P.O. has its own more or less secret police force: U. S. Postal Inspectors. Postal employees take their work very seriously, beginning with their Oath of Office--a “sacred trust” between him and the American people as earnest as wedding vows.
The work itself was harder than he thought it could be. Many carriers quit, some on the first day. The rural carrier sits in the front right seat, drives with his left foot, over time ruining his lower back, and reaches into the back seat for mail and packages, destroying his left shoulder. They hang on for the pension, which many live through in a state of pain. They must prepare for the freezing cold of winter and the heatstroke of summer, with the window down, and mud and rain when they need to “dismount.”
Grant’s pet peeve, I would say, was people buying online endless stuff they didn’t need and people who could have gone to curbside pickup for their desk or dog food. A parcel may weigh up to 70 pounds! And there are dogs—no joke, dogs attack mailmen all the time and the carriers have practiced methods and carry spray to keep themselves safe.
But there are joys. Over time, the carrier gets to know his customers, in person and by the mail they get—from sex toys to the London Review of Books, and they get to know him. Although some of his rural patrons were gun-toting maniacs, most of course, were friendly, gave him a cold glass of water or a hot coffee, and showed the gratitude they should.
Grant’s memoir is fluid in a personal, conversational tone and could be read with profit by literally everyone.
