Telling Postal Tales

Every letter carrier has stories. Stories about co-workers. Stories about routes. Stories about customers.

A group of international artists based in Los Angeles is putting together a collection of these stories and hopes to create a library of videos and podcasts. The brainchild of renowned artist Christian Moeller, professor and chairman of the Department of Design and Media Arts at the University of California—Los Angeles, and his former student and current research assistant Dasha Orlova, “Postal Tales” intends to tell the stories of letter carriers across the United States. They’ve already made two video posts and the results are beautiful.

If you have stories you would like to share or want to check out other carriers stories, please check out Postal Tales,

Special Delivery - Every Piece, Every Day

The Postal Service goes to great lengths to stick to their mantra, "Every piece, every day".

The Peach Springs, AZ, Post Office has walk-in freezers for food destined for delivery to the bottom of the Grand Canyon by mule train. A string of mules accompanied by a wrangler on horseback makes the 16-mile round trip into the Grand Canyon six days a week. But for the USPS contractor the journey is much longer, picking up mail at Peach Springs, Arizona, and trucking it along 60 miles of a desolate road maintained by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. The road ends at Hualapai Hilltop, where the eight mile trail to Supai begins. No vehicles are permitted. The mule train will take almost anything you can stick a stamp on. Express mail? They just tie it on the mule and turn him loose and he runs all the way down.

Another Unusual Delivery Method — boat delivery on the Detroit River in Michigan. The JW Westcott is a 45-foot contract mail boat out of Detroit that delivers mail to passing ships while they are underway. The JW Westcott has its own ZIP Code — 48222 which is the only floating zip code. The mail is delivered to the appropriate ships (mainly lake freighters) as they transit the Detroit River, utilizing ropes and buckets.

Mangum, OK. boasts the longest route. A rural carrier travels 182.75 miles daily and delivers to 248 boxes. Could you imagine driving 913.75 miles per week to do your route? That's 47,515 miles per year! That's just crazy!

After hearing about these strange routes, I'm thankful for my rather mundane route and commend those going above and beyond to reach every home in America every day!

NALC Healthy Rewards

The NALC Health Benefit plans offer an online health assessment with rewards! The health assessment is a set of questions that helps you understand how you can improve or maintain your health. After you complete the health assessment, you'll get a customized plan to help you address any health risks you've identified as well as selecting one of three different rewards. Depending on your plan you can choose from a fitness tracker, dental discounts, and a voucher to waive copays.

When you're ready to take your assessment and start working on a healthier you, click here.

This same site will give you access to healthy rewards discounts and tons of other useful helth information. It only takes a few moments to sign up and its free! What are you waiting for?

UPDATE: I selected to fitness tracker after doing my assessment and just got it via Priority Mail. It was a Fitbit Flex!