The Downside

Lately, every visit with my parents seems to remind me that they are getting old.  They're not just getting old; they’re turning into old people.  I mean, they’re not decrepit.  But it’s just a fact of life -  there are more aches and pains, the gray strands of hair finally outnumber the non, and sometimes it's too cold to go out.  And then there are other moments that cause me to worry because, well, they’re on the downside of the hill. 

Like when I was home at Thanksgiving and I found my mom sitting at the computer without her pants on.  Mentally, I went through my Dr. Oz-certified Alzheimers’ checklist:  did she forget to put her pants on?  Does she know she’s not wearing pants?  Does she know how to put pants on?  Does she know what pants are?  I stated the obvious first, “Mom, you don’t have any pants on!”  Now, my mom's far from having dementia or Alzheimers so she was well aware of her pantsless outfit.  I forget why she didn't have pants on but I'm sure there was a reasonable explanation.  The explanation isn't important.  What’s important is that she knew she wasn't wearing pants.  So hooray, my mother isn't suffering from dementia.  But she is getting old and I’m starting to worry about the stuff that happens to parents when they turn into old people. 

I’m starting to worry about when they’re not here anymore. 

I’m starting to worry about being left behind. 

So, there’s all that.  Then there are all the family and friends who seem to be going through major life changes recently – engagements, babies, Facebook relationship status updates.  They’re all moving forward in their lives.  And here I am stuck in a rut in a holding pattern.  A rut pattern of my own making, I completely admit.  A rut pattern that I can’t seem to get out of. 

Everyone’s getting older, everyone’s moving forward, and me? 

I’m starting to worry about being left behind.

I’m starting to worry about never catching up. 

But most of all, I’m starting to worry that there won’t be anyone to worry about me when I’m on the downside of that hill and not wearing any pants.

The Postman Cometh, the Postman Go-eth

We are mothers and fathers. And sons and daughters. Who every day go about our lives with duty, honor and pride. And neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, nor the winds of change, nor a nation challenged, will stay us from the swift completion of our appointed rounds. Ever.

                                                                               -from a USPS tv commercial

People call it snail mail now.  In this age of instantaneous communication – texting, tweeting, Facebooking, Google Plus-ing – does anyone send a letter anymore?  When you can select online bill pay for every bill you have, do you write a check, put it in a envelope, lick stick a stamp in the right corner, drop it in a mailbox and go along your merry way?

I do.  But I am a mailman’s daughter. 

Mailman, postman, letter carrier, whatever you call them –  they are the men and women who deliver bills, holiday and birthday cards, wedding invitations, more bills, college acceptance letters, condolence cards, magazines, catalogs, and junk mail...oh so much junk mail.  And third class mail.  I know about third class mail because I am a mailman’s daughter.

The United States Postal Service (USPS) is going through some tough times.  It’s broke or getting there.  It’s closing post offices, cutting jobs, possibly cutting back to five day delivery.  The winds of change are blowing.  Oh, how they’re blowing.

My father has been a mailman for almost forty years – the last in a long line of mailmen in our family.  He is 67 years old and walks 8 miles, five days a week, carrying a 75 pound mailbag, to deliver the mail to his customers.  He’s a million mile man with the plaque to prove it.  Kevin Costner, eat your heart out, my dad is a stud.

His work ethic is beyond the pale.  Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor state emergencies keep him from going to work to deliver his mail.  In 1996, the East Coast experienced a fierce blizzard.  Pennsylvania declared a state of emergency – everything was shut down.  My dad walked from our house – through snow drifts – to his post office in the next town because he didn't believe my mother when she told him that everything was closed.  He didn't believe her because the post office, his post office, doesn't close; the mail always goes out, he always goes out.  Just not that day. 

A few years ago, while delivering mail, he tripped and fell on one of his customer's sidewalks.  The mail, along with him, went flying.  Later, he would find out that he broke several ribs.  But right then, after he lay on the ground for a few minutes in pain, he picked himself up and he picked up all those letters, cards, bills, and magazines so that they could get to their intended recipients.  Duty.  Honor.  Pride.  My dad has them in spades. 

He wasn’t the sort of dad who went to school events.  I don’t remember him going to concerts or teacher conferences or back-to-school nights.  But there was one thing he did every school year.  When the school telephone directories came out, he would flip through the pages and tell me which of my classmates lived on his route – Saulino, Herr, the Daniels twins, the Byrds, and on and on.  On more than one occasion, those very classmates came up to me to say, hey, your dad’s my mailman!  Joe the Mailman!  We love him! 

He loves his customers too.  As he walked those million miles, he saw the winds of change on his route.  He delivered the mail while his customers were experiencing vacations (he always held their mail until they returned), births, deaths, divorces, graduations, surgeries.  Whatever’s happening on his route, he usually knows about it. 

But times change.  Routes change.  And he…he is ready for change. 

This past week, my father came home and told my mom that he’s tired of walking.  Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night keeps my dad from delivering his mail.  But pain…pain has won out.  He is hurting – too many falls, too few visits to the doctor.  He’s tired of walking with the pain.  So, he’s going to walk away.

The retirement paperwork is being prepared.  There is a countdown.  Soon, Bent Road, Heacock Lane, Maple Avenue, Crescent Lane, Deaver Road, and Deaver Place will be but street names on a map.  Dinner conversations won’t include the words "pivots," "third class mail," "casing the route," or "the mail truck;" they will fade into memories and join names like Barry, Joe Davis, and the Sewerman brothers, along with the name of every single postmaster who has come and gone throughout my dad’s career - whether he could pronounce them or not.      

Joe the Mailman is retiring.  And his daughter could not be prouder. 

Now, go out, buy a book of stamps, and send a letter.  There’s a mailman waiting to deliver it.

______________________________________________________________

Check in with me in a few months to see how we’re surviving retirement.  Especially since Joe the Retired Mailman is under the crazy belief that he’s going to be spending a lot of time at my house.  

The First Time

The first time is so nerve-wracking.  There are a lot of unknowns – what if I don’t know what to do?  How long does it take?  Does weight matter?  Is it going to be dirty and smelly?  Well, okay, the smelly part doesn’t matter much to me.

On Saturday, I went to the landfill for the first time.  It was pretty awesome.  I haven’t had that much fun in a long time!  My dad and I loaded up our cars with all of the construction debris that’s been piled in my backyard since November when my brother installed my (beautiful) hardwood floors and made the journey to my county’s landfill. 

As we drove into the park-like facility, I nervously checked all the signs – do I go to the Convenience Center where they take household trash?  Do I go to the section where they take wood? (No!  Wood in this case is like, actual trees and stuff!)  I figured out that we had to go to the section where they take construction and demolition material (C&D waste).  Then came the next nerve-wracking moment - waiting to drive onto the scales so they could weigh my C&D waste-filled car.  There was a sign that instructed me to wait until the car in front of me proceeded off the scale.  That made me really nervous.  Like, what if I go too soon?  Will I screw up the guy in front of me?  Will the scale people yell at me?  It was the same nervousness that I sometimes experience going through the EZ Pass lanes at the toll plazas…that split second where you don’t know if you should go or not because the machine doesn’t say:  Thank You.  EZ Pass Paid.

I managed to get on the scale without incident.  The Silver Bullet weighed 2,960 pounds.  Impressive, I know.  I was directed to the C&D waste area and, yes, I panicked again because I didn’t know where to go.  I really need clear instructions.  There were four bays, numbered 4-7.  The scale lady handed me a ticket that had a big “1” on it.  What the heck did that mean?!  Was I supposed to go to Bay 1?  But there wasn’t a Bay 1.  Luckily, one of the friendly landfill men came up and explained what I already figured out – the scale people don’t explain things very well.  (The ticket had nothing to do with where you go…it was for something else entirely!)

Once I got it all figured out, the fun started.  You literally just throw all your trash or wood or whatever into a big garage-like building!  It took about an hour for my dad and I to load up our cars…it took about ten minutes for us to empty them!  The cars get weighed again on the way out – after unloading all the trash, the Silver Bullet weighed 2,740 pounds.  She lost 220 pounds in just ten minutes!  I wish I could lose weight in ten minutes…it’d definitely help the muffin top!  The best part – I only had to pay $7 for my entire load!  How can you beat that?    

Going to the landfill was a new, fun experience.  I can’t wait to go again!  I bet the second time will be even better!

Daddy's Girl

Even when I preferred to throw myself off a pier rather than have him hold me, I’ve always been a Daddy’s girl. 

I’m pretty lucky to have a pretty great dad, especially one who mows my lawn for free! 

Wishing all the dads out there, most especially mine, a Happy Father’s Day! 

Woman with Lawn Mower



My 1st lawn mower.
It lasted about five minutes.



What I’m going to say next might tick off some of my more feminist-minded friends:  I think some tasks are better left for the men in our lives.  Stuff like car repairs, washing the car, cooking, and, most of all, mowing the lawn.

Now, I’m a pretty forward thinking female.  I believe women can do it all and conquer it all.  I know tons of women who are smart, savvy, and capable of handling whatever life throws at them.  Women rock.  I am woman.  Hear me roar.  And all that jazz.

But then that woman buys a house and while it’s a nice little end-unit townhouse, it comes with some issues.  The biggest one being grass.  There’s grass in the front yard, the side yard, and the backyard.  And it grows.  And you have to cut that grass before the HOA sends you a warning in the mail that your knee-high grass poses a danger to the aesthetic beauty of your neighborhood.  So, what do you do?  Hire someone?  Wait for your dad to visit so he can cut it?  Or do you yell:  I am woman.  Hear me roar.  Let’s mow this lawn!  

Generally, I go for the second option.  My dad is my LawnBoy.  Look, I’m not making him do anything he doesn’t want to do.  He genuinely enjoys it.  If he didn’t, he wouldn’t go two doors down and mow my neighbor’s lawn either.  But since my dad is a mailman and has to work on Saturdays (what do you really think about six day delivery?); he only comes to visit me every six weeks.  Grass can do a lot of growing in six weeks.  That means the homeowner of aforementioned townhouse (that’s me) has to get out the lawn mower and do it…herself. 

My lawn was mowed two weeks ago (thanks, Dad!) but I had to do it again.  So, bright and early this morning, I got up and mowed my lawn.  If the world’s gonna end in a few hours, I want my lawn to look good!  Oh, and also, it made me feel less guilty for not going to running club this morning (I had a steak and a margarita at dinner, there was NO way I was waking up at 6:30 to go running!)

When I moved in, my dad gave me a lawn mower.  When we reminded him that it wasn’t 1946 and I needed something with a little more juice, he gave me an electric lawn mower.  So, every once in a while, I plug the contraption in and start mowing.  I don’t have much of a process – there’s lots of going back and forth….there are no neat, straight mowing lines on my lawn!  Once I got my front lawn cut, I went down and did my neighbor’s, because she did it for me once and well, I don’t want to be known as the neighbor who doesn’t return lawn-mowing favors!

(By the way, the entire time I was mowing the lawn, I was sweaty and annoyed and considering the possibility of just hiring a guy to do it for me.)  

After my neighbor’s lawn was done, I went back to my house to mow my backyard.  That’s when I saw my backyard neighbor mowing her lawn.  She made mowing her lawn look really good…she’s an Indian lady and she was wearing a sari.  She looked very serene.  I just looked sweaty and annoyed.  I’m seeing a sari in my future. 

When I was finished, my grass was beautifully trimmed and at required HOA height.  I’m safe for the next two weeks.  (If any of us are still here in two weeks!)   

I am woman with lawn mower.  Hear us roar. 

Happy Hendersons Go On Vacation

I just got back from a four day mini-vacation in Florida with my parents and brother.  Our family doesn’t exactly travel well together….two or three of us on a trip is okay but all four of us together is just asking for trouble.  There’s usually a little yelling, a few disagreements, a couple of accusations of favoritism, and at least one instance of someone storming off in anger.  We’ve been on a few memorable family vacations that would put even the Griswolds to shame.  Here are some highlights of our classic family vacations: 

Williamsburg, Virginia – I don’t remember too much about this trip except that it was really, really hot, my brother and I got those three-cornered colonial hats (I wonder where mine ended up?), and there was a huge fight about going to A Good Place to Eat because, well, I guess we didn’t think it was really a good place to eat. 

Washington, DC/Baltimore – If you’ve never visited the nation’s Capital, you should.  Just don’t do it in the middle of summer when it’s hot and humid and miserable because chances are, you’re going to be hot and sweaty and miserable.  Things were going well until we got to the Washington Monument.  Then my parents got into a fight and my dad left us on one of those sight-seeing buses to walk back to our hotel (he’s a mailman, he likes to walk.)  To add insult to injury, when we got back to the hotel, we were hot and sweaty and miserable and my dad was happy as a clam, swimming in the pool.  And I thought my mom was mad when he left us!  

Walt Disney World – Whenever I think that it’d be cool to go on vacation with one’s entire extended family, I remember our trip to Disney World.  Overall, it wasn’t that bad.  I mean, my dad only got mad and left us once but I can’t blame him…It’s a Small World is kind of an annoying ride.  We ate at this really good restaurant called Johnny Appleseed’s which must’ve been a good place to eat because we went there a lot.  But I learned a very important lesson on this trip:   when you’re nine, you should not buy the same pair of shorts as your cool teenage cousin.  Apparently, imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery for teenagers.  I still have those shorts though.

Caribbean Cruise – We knew this vacation was going to be rough when we arrived at the cruise terminal and our entire itinerary was changed.  Yet another important lesson:  never book a Caribbean cruise during hurricane season unless you’re prepared to spend nine days at sea and a Sunday in Bermuda.  Interesting factoid – nothing’s open in Bermuda on a Sunday.  As our ship docked and my mom shrieked hysterically about not wanting to be in Bermuda (I don’t know what she has against Bermuda…it’s a lovely place and the people wear nice shorts), my brother and I looked at each other and realized that our dad was on to something when he left us on all those other vacations.  So, we took off.  Dad quickly caught up and we ended up at the only place that was open on a Sunday – a bar.  Watching football in a bar in Bermuda on a Sunday…that’s called “making a memory” people. 

Just like all of our other vacations, our trip to Florida had its ups and downs and we weren’t always happy.  But in a few years, we’ll look back on this trip and laugh…just like we do when we remember that time Dad left us.  And that other time too.  

Happy Hendersons during
one of the happier moments
of our family vacation!