Saturday, January 19, 2008

The Postal Carrier's Motto


Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. ... the motto of the U.S. postal carrier never hit home like it did this morning.

My hubby called to me to come see around 5:20 this morning. He said, "It's snowing."

I thought sure, maybe a speck of snow among the thousands of raindrops. But I was surprised by a near blizzard of inch sized snow flakes falling heavy and wet. Driving to work in the dark was like being on the Enterprise, speeding through the stars in warp drive. When I crossed the bridge to Natchez the lights caught the heavy snow blowing straight down the Mississippi.

Everyone was excited as children. People who grow up with snow take the experience for granted. One of my coworkers called her mother and said, wake everybody up, it's snowing. Grown men called their wives with 'Honey, it's snowing', and walked around the post office calling out, 'it's getting heavier!'

On the receiving dock a young man of about 25 stood in awe of the floating, flying white stuff. I was taking a picture and he said, "I've only seen snow once before in Dallas. It's beautiful."

On my route there was a man, his little girl, and their dog having a snowball fight, running, laughing. She probably wasn't born the last time we had snow.

Some snow optimists didn't let the small amount of snow deter them from building snowmen.



It was a rare and unexpected gift.

2 comments:

Leah Braemel said...

*giggling* at your snow. The crawfish must have dug deep into the mud to avoid the cold that day. LOL at the tiny snowman - it's so sweet.

Wylie Kinson said...

Marley - I totally get the enthusiam. After living in Bermuda for 18 years, I was thrilled to see our first snow fall when we moved to Canada. We seem to be the only family in our neighborhood that goes out to play as soon as the snow arrives - building snowmen and snow forts and having a blast on the toboggin runs. Well, I've been back for three years now and as of this morning (while shoveling snow for the THIRD time this week - grrr) I can officially say "I'M SICK OF IT!!!!"