Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
This reminds me of my Grandad, delivering mail on horseback. Later on, he used a Ford Model A and in the evening they would use the car battery to power the radio in the house for entertainment.
The local store/post office was similar to the one in the pics, all the old-timers gathered there and played checkers.
Thanks, and glad you liked the article. I'll have to look for a copy of The Smithsonian.
We used to make cars out of the wooden melon crates, then ride them down the hills.
The area around the front door and the gas pumps at the store was covered with crushed pop bottle caps, and it smelled like produce, gasoline, and Mail Pouch.
Our store keeper, Herb said if I would let him take out my two front teeth, he would give me a Hershey Bar...
He popped out the two loose teeth and I bled a little in the sink by the empty wooden pop crates.
He let me pick out the candy bar of my choice, but I couldn't bite on it...ha ha..
Put those teeth under the pillow and got a quarter...thought that was strange for two teeth...should have gotten two coins.
Those were great days to be a kid and grow up...
google into the net and see what a Mail Pouch sign will cost you...that's another wake-up call...ha ha
And National Geographic, in those days, always had a pic of a half naked african on the back pages...
Ha! I remember Life magazine had an article on nude photography, funny though, I only saw it once bringing it back from the post office, then it disappeared.
We still have a couple of Mail Pouch barns down here. Are there any up your way? I heard someone offered to paint one fellow's barn to get rid of the sign, he refused.
As kids, we could walk the mile or so to the store and pick up enough pop bottles out of the ditches to buy goodies, or gasoline for our machines... or cigarettes. The postmaster didn't even blink when we asked for Winstons and matches.
I saw a freshly painted Mail Pouch barn in Preston county last month, but I think the residents had done the art work...Mail Pouch did away with their painting crews years ago, to my knowledge.
My GP had a wonderful huge barn and that company would ask him from time to time to paint the add.
GM had the veto and it never got the moniker...that paint was a dry powder that was mixed with a chemical of sorts...
He would get a carton of Mail Pouch from them when they would visit.
My GM had all the out buildings painted white with green trim and Mail Pouch Black was not in the mix..
I remember those old ones coming in from the field work (and they shared each others hayings and harvest)...at noon, placing their ball of tobacco on a yard fence post and having the dinner...then drifting back to the horses, machinery and the field work, picking up that tobacco and placing it in their jaw and resuming their work day..never hurried, but they would labor from daylight until late evening...quiet conversation, perhaps a shy laugh.
My GP would pay with a silver dollar....I still have mine...about 30 of them in a draw string bag...priceless.
Dollar a day...thats was what a man was worth.
My wife's folks had horse delivery the 8 miles over 2 mountains from the physically nearest post office (six air miles). On the one mountain you still can't even get an ATV over the "road" the steep side of one of the gaps.
When she was young the mail came by road from the nearest by road PO - in a different state, 12 road miles away. Lot of confusion there.
Now it comes by road in the nearest PO by road in the same state - 21 road miles away.
(Not WV but it's a local call to Ridgeley from there so might as well be...)
We could get mail at the box in front of the house, or at the post office/store/gas station, depending which mailing address was used.
Right now, as it has been since phones were invented, it's a long distance call to the county seat, but a local call clear across the neighboring county.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
