I work in a small warehouse where I spend part of the day shipping out various widgets. Among the carriers we use is the US Postal Service. Not a name synonymous with quality or service. And if you’re anything like me you fully expect government employees to be largely disgruntled, rude, entitled, on paid vacation half the year, etc. And yet the postman that comes to get our outgoing mail almost every day (when not on those sweet, sweet paid holidays) is positively cheerful. He’s got a genuine smile that radiates warmth and is always listening to some radio station that plays ‘90s top 40. I love a good spin through “Semi-Charmed Life” as much as the next guy, and that song was on his radio the other day when he grabbed the outbound packages.
The Third Eye Blind tune in question is an upbeat rock number that is a sing-along classic about the perils of meth addiction. I’m unsure how many people know this fact based on how happy the track seems to make people, myself included. There’s a strange juxtaposition of lyrical theme and musical content that somehow works. Quite well, actually. I genuinely think it’s a work of art, if not transcendently genius or anything like that. See, what’s good about it is that it transmutes the raw material of suffering into something beautiful. In this case maybe not something as lofty as beauty, as much as fun and “good cheer,” as we used to say in the old Anglophonic world.
I bring this song up to use it as a metaphor for the fine gentleman driving the postal truck. I don’t really know much of anything about him personally. Come to think of it, I’ve never even asked his name. One of those faux pas that has passed the point of any tactful recovery. We should know each other’s name at this point. Perhaps I’ll request it of him.
He’s a sort of average looking fellow in most regards. Salt and pepper hair trending mostly toward salt, a few inches shy of 6 feet tall, an aquiline profile. But then that smile. I can’t tell how old he is because of it. The youthful vigor of it and the strange joyfulness present in our exchange of pleasantries masks any accurate estimation on my part. Somewhere between forty-eight and sixty-two.
All that aside, I am tempted to flights of fancy in writing this little piece in which I might speculate as to what terrible experiences he has undergone and yet has risen above the ashes, a triumphant and friendly phoenix bumping alt-rock jams from his government-issue jalopy. That way I could really drive home my Third Eye Blind metaphor. But I want to avoid over-romanticizing things here and do my best to avoid sentimentality, since if there’s any lesson to be had in this portrait it’s a prosaic one.
So, I’ll tell you the one thing I know about him for certain: he works a shitty job. Being a postal worker is a notorious soul-killing slog, attested to by the works of Mr. Bukowski, as well as the horrible infamous tragedy that birthed for us the darkly comical phrase “going postal”. But you know what? He’s always got that smile and friendly word for me when he shows up and it always brightens me up. Every time.
I want to say something vulnerable here about who I used to be. The postman doesn’t strike me as the sharpest knife in the drawer. My arrogant younger self would have subtly put him down for that. What a terrible and prideful mistake. IQ is no measurement of the heart. And that’s what matters most. Good people are more necessary than smart ones if we want any world worth living in.
My point is that I’m given to rumination over my supposed shoddy lot in life, an entirely adolescent exercise in unwarranted self-pity. I’ve got it good, all things considered. I make a habit of practicing thankfulness for this nowadays to overcome my childish tendencies. Again, I’ll dodge speculation on this man’s past or present life, but one thing’s for sure: in spite of a crap job he’s always set on treating me kindly.
A decade ago when I was firmly that snobbish former self that I mentioned I would have thought very little of this man. Today, I admire him greatly. As we used to say as kids or may jokingly quip now, “I want to be like him when I grow up.”
See, my aspirations these days, strange as it may sound, consist largely of humility and peacefulness and kindness and good cheer (isn’t it a lovely phrase?).
The mail guy embodies these qualities for me, even if I’m doing a fair bit of projecting them onto him. Leaving as much sentimentality behind as I can muster now, what I take away is this:
Even if we are doing something in life less than ideal, there’s always the opportunity to shine a light into the life of others. All it takes is a smile and some friendly chat about the weather when you’re out picking up the mail.
I hope I can learn to be more like the Happy Postman.
Thanks Brady for pausing and writing on this fine example of what can blossom from serendipity. You noted an age erasing smile and that leads to an essay. WorthWatson