I was listening to NPR this evening and heard this fascinating story about folks wanting to have their mail stamped with the word Fidelity. To do that, they have been mailing their letters to the Post Master of a really small town in Illinois called Fidelity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidelity,_Illinois) asking her to stamp their letters and send them to whatever address they wanted them to go.
Valentine Day is coming up people in love have been pulling this trick for the amusement of those lucky ones that these letters were meant for.
Terry Gross interviewed the Post Master who read out a few messages that she had received. One of them touched me. It was from a widow whose husband passed away after 64 years of marriage last year. She wanted to commemorate his death anniversary by putting this letter with a post office stamped “Fidelity” on his grave. When asked if she does not get tired of doing this, as this is not part of her job, the lady postmaster remarked, “ are you getting bored listening to this? When it is so easy to make some one’s day so why not?”
She said she even puts stamp from her own pocket if someone forgot to mail her the stamp. This is from a woman who lives in a small town in the middle of nowhere with a population of 104, 30 families and which has a poverty rate of 29%.
I had a somewhat interesting experience with the US Postal service 6 years back. I was going for my evening classes at Kennesaw State University. I ran to the parking lot of Gwinnett Place Mall, kept the packet that I had on the roof of my car so that I could open the door. Got in and drove off without realizing that the packet was left sitting on the roof.
I got home late after school and realized my packet was missing and went looking for it at the parking lot. My roommate called me to let me know that some one delivered a packet with my name on it. He said he was a postman at a local Post Office and saw me lose this packet at the mall and came running after me but I sped away. He found my address on the top of the envelope and decided to deliver it.
He left no name or which post office he worked for, so I wrote a thank you note to the “ guy who delivered my packet from the Gwinnet Place Mall” and sent it to not one but two post offices. I do not know if that gentleman received the expression of my gratitude but I still enjoy talking about it.
Hats off to these guys who strengthen our hope in humanity, in universal brotherhood and in our future!
...and then I think to myself, what a wonderful World!
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