By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”
— inscription on the James Farley Post Office, New York’s main postal branch and a beloved historical monument. Named after the 53rd Postmaster General, the 8-acre facility was rebuilt in 1912. Its zip code is 10001.
The Post Office has failed me. It’s bad enough that I suffer rural delivery, sometimes seeming as though mail comes by mule, delivered days later than expected. Yesterday it didn’t come at all, which means — oh, woe! — I won’t have a Netflix movie for the weekend. On the other hand, it’s pretty amazing what this service accomplishes on a daily basis (660 million pieces of mail to as many as 142 million delivery points, all for less than fifty-cents per). Except during blizzards, I guess.
On Wednesday afternoon the news announced that a West Coast storm named, inexplicably, “Q,” dropped snow on Tucson, enough to shut down highways and close some schools. Video from a disrupted Southern Arizona golf tourney made the news, giving a heads up on projections that it would hit Missouri in the middle of the night. Local news announced heavy snow to the north and south but forecast a three-county band of ice running directly through the Pea Patch. Around here, that’s cause for alarm. Ice storms are the worst, shattering trees and downing power poles. Due diligence, I got a fresh canister of propane for the grill, made sure I had dry wood on the back porch and filled buckets with water in case we lost power to the well pump.