Mailboxes and Country Roads
I was in my workshop for a while yesterday. It's been since Christmas that I've been there. I blame it on the fact that I live in Michigan, and its cold this time of year. It felt good to be in there even if it was just to get tools to mount the new mailbox. High school students whacked my old one with a baseball bat last Friday night.
Whacking mailboxes is a varsity sport out here. It is done by a team of two. There's the driver who careens down the road at highway speeds maneuvering the car close enough for the whacker to hang out the passenger window and take full swings at each mailbox down the line. Judging is done from the following car. Points are awarded for degree of difficulty, style and mailbox hang time. The highest and the lowest scores are thrown out to keep the Russian and French judges from skewing the results. The whacking is done after dark to add drama to the competition. There has to be a big competition coming up soon. They've been doing a lot of whacking lately. Mail box whacking is a spring sport. It should not be confused with mail box stuffing. Those competitions are held in the fall during hay rides. If you are lucky, it is merely stuffed with straw in the morning. If you are not, the straw was set on fire, or an M-80 firecracker was thrown in.
I am not sure what it is about mailboxes that attracts rural adolescent boys, but the attraction is strong, and it cannot be denied. You would think that they would avoid them as much as possible since they have just learned to drive, and often those mailboxes define the edge of the road.
I went to Home Depot to pick up my new mailbox. It's one of those polyethylene-moulded-all- in-one-piece unwhackable ones. You know, the stuff that they make the trash cans out of. The check out lady knew why I was getting it.
"Did a car wipe it out, or did the kids whack it?" She asked.
"It was the kids." I replied.
"Well, good luck with the new one." She added as she was counting out the change. "They lasso these unbreakable ones, and pull them down the street behind the car."
Oh joy! I can hardly wait.
Whacking mailboxes is a varsity sport out here. It is done by a team of two. There's the driver who careens down the road at highway speeds maneuvering the car close enough for the whacker to hang out the passenger window and take full swings at each mailbox down the line. Judging is done from the following car. Points are awarded for degree of difficulty, style and mailbox hang time. The highest and the lowest scores are thrown out to keep the Russian and French judges from skewing the results. The whacking is done after dark to add drama to the competition. There has to be a big competition coming up soon. They've been doing a lot of whacking lately. Mail box whacking is a spring sport. It should not be confused with mail box stuffing. Those competitions are held in the fall during hay rides. If you are lucky, it is merely stuffed with straw in the morning. If you are not, the straw was set on fire, or an M-80 firecracker was thrown in.
I am not sure what it is about mailboxes that attracts rural adolescent boys, but the attraction is strong, and it cannot be denied. You would think that they would avoid them as much as possible since they have just learned to drive, and often those mailboxes define the edge of the road.
I went to Home Depot to pick up my new mailbox. It's one of those polyethylene-moulded-all- in-one-piece unwhackable ones. You know, the stuff that they make the trash cans out of. The check out lady knew why I was getting it.
"Did a car wipe it out, or did the kids whack it?" She asked.
"It was the kids." I replied.
"Well, good luck with the new one." She added as she was counting out the change. "They lasso these unbreakable ones, and pull them down the street behind the car."
Oh joy! I can hardly wait.
posted by Greg the woodworker | 4:33 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home