As the years pass, I find it difficult to believe I once unloaded trucks in sub-zero temperatures for the post office. This was back in Chicago during a series of winters so furious that the national media assured us we faced global cooling. A new ice age was a'coming. All the science agreed.
Here in greater Los Angeles, anything below 60 degrees is a sign of global cooling. At track practice last night I would run 880 repeats, then put on my jacket and stretch vigorously until time to go again. (Temperatures were in the 40s, but this is considered Hawaiian-shirt weather for a Midwestern winter.)
Speaking of Hawaiian shirts, my Teammates running the Honolulu Marathon will be feted tomorrow night at a San Gabriel Valley pizza parlor. (A humble but sincere gesture.) They are less than two weeks away from their event. I remember my excitement last year, preparing to go.
Now I've went.
So I'll wear my sea shell chain finishers medal and bask in the ever warmth of friends.
2 comments:
Not to mention, driving around picking up the corner boxes until 10PM! 20 below zero three weeks running. Before the wind chill factor.
Didn't I finally tip my truck over, running two wheels up on the center divider because it was so iced over I couldn't see where the curb was? I seem to remember being glad I was properly strapped into my seat - mostly because we'd been getting surprise inspections - as these little loose bits of mail and bags and labels dripped sideways onto my head. Giggling.
I think it was on Dempster. Everything always happened on Demptster.
Dempster was indeed the Bermuda Triangle of streets — at least for postal employees.
I was on Gross Point Road one night and had to climb up a nine foot drift, then use a snow shovel to dig down and find the mail box.
Only about 4 letters made it inside before the snow plows buried the box.
We'd come back to post office looking bedraggled and frozen like German P.O.W.'s at Stalingrad.
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