By Erika Kar
Sometimes things just seem to unexpectedly all come together. This is one of the small overlooked joys in life. For instance, you may have drawn your Aunt Edna’s name for the family’s Christmas gift exchange. Aunt Edna is very hard to shop for; her house is full to the ceiling with garage sale finds and late night shopping channel junk. If you ask Aunt Edna what she might like, she will just wave you off with a perfunctory “Peace on Earth” answer to which you may or may not mutter under your breath, “wouldn’t we all?”
But through the years you have heard Aunt Edna talk about a certain type of fruitcake that she loves and can never find anymore. She used to buy it and enjoy a slice every morning between Christmas and New Year’s along with her morning cup of watered-down Folger’s. And then lo and behold, one day while shopping at Hank’s Harvest Foods, what do you see on an end cap with his famous red price sticker? Aunt Edna’s favorite fruitcake! Just in time for you to buy a couple loaves to bring to the family gift exchange. This is what I mean about things unexpectedly coming together.
Just when I thought I’d have nothing to write about, two different and unrelated people gave me information about the same subject. Mailboxes. And not only lamenting the lack of a Mazama post office either.
Have you ever been driving in and around Mazama and noticed the different mailbox architecture and styles? There are some mailboxes that you take one look at and know that the second we get a big dump of snow, the mailbox will fall over and then be frozen into the berm until spring. Then there are the mailboxes that get turned just a degree every time the blower comes by, so by March they are fully facing the ditch and not the road. I bet the postman loves this.
Some mailboxes have been rigged up in an indestructible manner. We could experience the storm of the century, with mailbox carcasses littering the sides of the road, but these Thors of the mailbox universe would still be standing proud. Then there are the pretty mailboxes, creative mailboxes and colorful mailboxes. One of the very best belonged to Leif Johnson. It was made of cool old tractor parts and was colorful. It stood on the side of the highway for a long time. Just when I went to take a photo of it, I noticed it was gone. For a Mazama mailbox, it had a good run.
Edelweiss has a new bank of mailboxes that moved. The old location was too dangerous according to the Postal Service, and apparently they had been hit by a drunk driver. They also got a new and improved “Green Box” along with the new location. The Green Box, both original and new, had been built by Don Fitzpatrick in order for packages to be left when the roads were too snowy or icy to make it up into the Edelweiss hills. The new Green Box has a keypad lock and even sports a bulletin board for flyers and messages. In case you want to leave a message or bulletin, you can find the new set-up down by the Edelweiss Campground.
