Rural Mail Box Program In May
The Annual Mail Box Improvement Program will be observed this year during the week of May 15 to 20.
The Department wishes to encourage patrons to provide suitable mail receptacles erected and maintained for easy and safe accessibility, presenting a neat appearance, and affording protection to the mail. Boxes that are not properly erected, or not maintained in good serviceable condition, retard the delivery of mail and expose it to the weather. Boxes which are no longer serviceable must be replaced.
Names of box owners should be inscribed on the side of box visible to the carrier as he approaches, or on the door if boxes are grouped. The box number may be inscribed on the box if desired. Boxes and supports should be kept painted.
Rural mail boxes tell tales. They are a kind of open advertisement of the type of folks that get their mail from that spot. Erect, shining, and clearly lettered--first-rate citizens. They keep their basement clean; don't let things pile up in their garage; have friends and entertain; dress neatly and pay their bills. It's plainly evident; their mail box indicates as much.
But take a leaning post with the mail box sitting sidewise, its door hanging open, and there's a slipshod somebody. They are the kind that leave the screen door up all winter, who let their children go to school with their hair uncombed. Their mail box says that about them.--Paul Thoren, Postmaster.