My father sent this along.
The back story is that over the years he has waged a battle with people bludgeoning the mailbox into submission. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, mailbox baseball was a frequently practised sport and my parents were going through several mailboxes a year. (Maybe it's because their box is at a bend in the road so it's especially easy to whack.)
The best story is from the mid 1970s when the then-local pharmacy called up and asked if my parents were missing their mailbox? Indeed, it was gone. The owner of the pharmacy had arrived in the morning to find mailbox, pole and concrete base parked on the front steps. Since the owner knew two people who had the same street number, he called my parents first, figuring if it wasn't them, it was the other household.
After that, my father took the cross-bar from an old swing set, dug a six-foot deep hole, sank the bar into sackcrete, covered it up with dirt and then piled up rocks on either side of the pole. He then took two pieces of metal, cut them and wrapped the metal fore and aft on the box. (Next time I go down, I will photograph the box and link back to this post.)
But he thinks that using a Tidy Cat pail is pretty good: 'It's airtight!,' he said to me last night.
+
Meanwhile, here's the new set-up in his office, with his old Mac G3 (under the desk) and his brand-new iMac.
What you can't see is his other Mac, the iMac that looks like a spaceship. That one is on a large table behind his back as he took this photo. (I like his set-up because he can swivel around from one table to the other.) He has them all linked together by ethernet and uses each one in turn. I think it's pretty cool, given that he is 83. His tinkering with the computers may drive my mother nuts but it keeps him busy.
Now, if there were a way to corral all those wires under the desk — Pixel the cat, though, isn't interested in them so I guess it's not an issue.
I realise that my G4 is SEVEN years old. That's frightening. When I do have to get a new computer, I probably will get what he got but I am not ready to make that leap — first, I don't have the money; second, I don't want the hassle. Besides, where would I put all my beanie babies (that currently live on top of the monitor supposedly to keep the cats off it)? And, how would I be able to have both computers accessible since there are still things on the G4 I would want to use?
3 comments:
First of all, the Mac issue. You would simply network the two computers together like your father has and use both. 8>)
I may be jinxing us but I hope not. We haven't had mailbox destruction in many years. The last time it happened we had a series of bashings that went on over more than a week - four in all. I told the post office to hold my mail for a couple of days. I carefully bashed the dent out of my large box then crammed it full of firewood. Two mornings later, there were smashed boxes on our road up to mine which had a tiny dent then no more destruction. We wondered how long the iron rod vibrated after hitting that solid box. The men were caught later in the week on the other side of the lake. I never heard what happened but the post office took them to court. They are lucky they weren't shot as one neighbor would have had a stakeout had he not been out of town.
Our mailbox slides into a brick post in the yard of the neighbor across the street. The dear imps came in a truck and backed into the posts and knocked them over in the dead of night. I don't get this idea of fun at all. I am not amused.
Your father is an inventive and determined hombre.
Pseudo -- I have sent my father your bit about stuffing your mailbox with firewood -- brilliant (as well as funny). I would think the person's arm would have gotten a bit of whiplash.
And Grandmère, yes, he is though he wouldn't necessarily call it as such; for him, I think creating an indestructable mailbox was a challenge.
The box also has a little golf ball on the side that drops when the door has been opened, so that from the house my father can see if the mail has arrived (it is a bit of a long driveway).
Post a Comment