Two words sum up this winter for me: brutal and relentless.
A National Weather Service meteorologist has given Metro Detroit the number # 1 ranking in its “misery index.” Detroit has had 90.6 inches of snow so far this season; only 3 inches away from the all-time recorded total. We have had over 100 days of below freezing temperatures, and too many days of single-digit to subzero temps. Detroit has had its harshest winter since 1950. In a recent article, the Associated Press says that Detroit is experiencing the most extreme weather of any city in the country. And I deliver mail on foot, house to house, six days a week. That probably explains why I talk to my shoes. I may be somewhat delirious.
When I see the metal from my safety footwear grinding down to a nub, it helps me to appreciate the aches and pains of my knees, back, and hands. This human body is amazing, and even in my 50s I am in awe of how much punishment this shell of skin and bones can endure. My brother asked me last week how I do this job day in and day out with this harshest of weather conditions. My reply, “I don’t know how I do it. I ask myself that same question at the end of every day.” My fellow carriers and I delivered the U.S. mails every day this winter. We were given no snow days. We were given no administrative leave. We were expected to come to work and complete our assignments each and every day this winter. That is our job. That is our commitment to the American public. That is the mission I signed onto when taking my oath as a USPS letter carrier.
The trick to making it through these brutal days – for instance one day it was a high temperature of -7 degrees – is to play mental gymnastics with your psyche. You know, mind games. I bring a hot thermos of joe along with me and tell myself, “Get through the next 15 minutes and you get a slug of java.” Get through the next 15 minutes and I get to blow my nose. If I make it to noon I’ll find a bathroom and relieve myself! Little rewards with big mental payoffs.
The other fundamental element to getting through the worst of days is the response and respect I receive from my wonderful patrons. On this most hellish of days the Lynch girls, eight and 10, home from school because of the weather, greeted me at their door with a carafe of hot cocoa. “Mailman John, we want you to be warm so we made some hot chocolate for you.” It wasn’t the delicious drink that made me warm that moment. It was the sincere and caring sparkle in those little girls’ eyes that ignited a bundle of tinder in my soul and gave me the inspiration to deliver more mail that day. This winter has been brutal, the worst in a lifetime. But yet I still feel blessed to walk these streets, even in a foot of snow and ice. I have a job with benefits and a retirement package. I have health and life insurance and paid days off. I have a strong union that fights for all workers’ rights. I have a wife who retired as a letter carrier after 31 years of service and gives me deep spiritual support. I come home each day to a pantry filled with food and a bubbly cold libation to go along with it. When the snow is coming down one inch per hour and the wind is blowing at thirty miles per hour, this is my mantra; I am blessed. I am working, albeit not in the conditions I would choose, but nevertheless, I am working. I would be more stressed if my house payment was two months behind and my family could not afford to go to a doctor. I would be more stressed if a food bank was my option for putting nourishment on my table. And I would be completely overwhelmed if I was in a position of long term unemployment and my bare minimum of subsistence payments was terminated by the government. I am blessed to walk these wintry streets.
Mailman wonders how he made it through the winter