Thrills in the Hills

By Ursula B.G. Kilner, Salisbury

One of the exciting and unpredictable things about living on an RFD route is winter. Will our mailbox, which we have so carefully positioned according to postal and local government instructions, survive upright through each year's snowstorms? Of late—that is, for the past three years—we have won the game of Russian roulette. We did not have that much snow, so our handsome box withstood the season of the ubiquitous plow. This year we have not been so lucky.

Our mailbox is "in accordance with the design required by the Postmaster General," as impressed on the metal box in raised letters. When we first moved here in 1955 we were requested to move the box that was then in place in front of the house, opposite our front-front door, to the side of the driveway. We did so gladly as we planned, in time, to install a stockade fence to run parallel to the road (our house has a center made of a schoolhouse built in 1743—and schoolhouses of that era were built not far from the road).

We managed to get through a year with that post and box. Then, as the winters got snowier, we had three posts and boxes wiped out by the snowplow. What to do? Bright idea! We had a wooden platform base put under the box with a small hole to fit a round metal base, which we attached to a town post that guarded our small brook. Surely the plow would not wipe out the town's guard post. That ploy worked, except the box was easily removed (only two screws held it in place). Alas, the box was stolen three times. Twice we got it back—once from a bank of the Blackberry River, the second time from a Smith Hill snowbank. The third time the box was stolen it stayed stolen. So we went back to using our own post four years ago, and for three years the rural delivery box stayed put.

Eight or nine years ago, our neighbors gave up after losing their mailbox to the snowplow several times and got a PO box at the post office in Salisbury. However, our neighbors went to work daily in Lakeville and so drove right by the post office, while for us it is a special 9-mile round trip.

I guess we got complacent, as we did not have much in the way of snowfall for a few years. But this year's storms have invigorated the snowplow to wild action and the latest heavy snow inspired the plow to wipe out, severing the post and denting the recently pristine box.

After some complaining on my part, the town sent a crew to put the box back, but the shattered remains of the old post were frozen and its base of concrete was too heavy for one man to lift. From somewhere a steam shovel arrived—overkill. It was too big to do the job, so shovels in several pairs of willing hands got the broken post with its necklace of concrete and ice lifted out of the snowbank. A new pressure-treated post, supplied by yours truly, was installed and the mailbox replaced for rural delivery once again.

My city friends ask wonderingly several times a year by post and phone whatever we do in the country. After all these years my answer stays the same: we hang in there, enjoy the seasons, love our dogs and cats, watch and feed the birds (and, inadvertently, other wildlife—like squirrels), and write our experiences for The Voice.

P.S. — In the time since I sent this article to The Voice (two weeks ago), the snowplow has yet again hit our mailbox …