Free Beware of Cat by Vincent Wyckoff

AFTERNOON, A DAY-CARE teacher ran outside, stopped me on the sidewalk, and invited me in to greet her preschool class. Feeling a bit like I had suddenly walked into Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood, I entered to find seven or eight children sitting in a circle on the floor. They had made a post office out of a discarded appliance crate. A slot was cut in one wall to accept letters, and a small American flag topped the roof.
    After I showed them my uniform, and the key chain with the strange shaped key for opening collection boxes, one student was selected to show me the old leather purse they used as a mail satchel. The long strap hung low off the little girl’s shoulder as she demonstrated how she delivered handmade letters to the other children. Brightly colored, hand-drawn stamps adorned the envelopes, and it was apparent that a lot of work had gone into the writing of numbers and letters.
    “I see you’re learning your numbers and spelling,” I said to the class.
    Before I could continue, the little girl with the leather purse piped up, “P is for Penelope!”
    Her sudden outburst surprised me, and I smiled down at her. “That’s a beautiful name,” I said.
    She wrapped an arm around my leg and asked, “Mr. Mailman, do you deliver to my house?”
    Her perky voice and ringlets transformed Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood into a Shirley Temple movie. She looked up at me with big round eyes, determined that I was her carrier.
    “Well, that depends on where you live,” I said.
    She paused, thinking hard, and said, “I live in Minneapolis.”
    I couldn’t bear to disappoint those adoring eyes, so I said, “In that case, I think I do deliver to your house!”
    She jumped up and down and clapped her hands. Playing my role to the hilt, I returned after work with some USPS activity books, as well as an extra letter-carrier cap the children could use while delivering their mail. They didn’t need the whole uniform. With their imaginations, the old leather purse was as real as my mail satchel. But the cap could still somehow make it all official.

    JUST AS I’M READILY RECOGNIZED in my uniform, I know most of the cars that my patrons drive. I’m constantly hailed on the street with honks and waves. Total strangers spot my uniform and stop me to ask for directions. When Lorraine and her pals return from a garage sale expedition, they often pull over to show off the treasures they’ve collected.
    I enjoy this familiarity; it’s a small-town friendliness smack in the middle of the big city. On the other hand, it’s interesting to note that when I encounter these same people after hours, without my uniform, they hardly recognize me at all. At the neighborhood coffee shop, or the library, my greetings are often met with blank stares. I even attended a block party one night where everyone in attendance lived on my route. For several minutes I walked around unnoticed before a woman blurted out, “Oh, my God! I know you! You’re the mailman, aren’t you?”
    One time in the grocery store, my wife and I ran into Agnes and her husband Ed, a retired couple I had talked to many times while delivering mail. They ignored my greetings and avoided looking at me. The harder I tried, the more obvious it became that they didn’t recognize me. Finally, they hustled their cart down the aisle just to get away. I couldn’t let them run off thinking I was some kind of babbling lunatic, so I chased after them, explaining, “I’m your mailman, remember?”
    They stopped, took a closer look, and then nearly fell over themselves apologizing. After I introduced them to my wife, we couldn’t get away for the longest time. Now I usually don’t say anything unless a person recognizes me and says “hello” first. It’s just too awkward and difficult.

    SOME PEOPLE EXPECT MORE out of their letter carrier than the simple delivery of their mail.
    “Take this package for me, will you? Here’s five bucks for postage. Just leave the change in the