Ruskin, Nebraska

Leaving Red Cloud, we drove east on highway 136, the southernmost east west route running along edge of the state just above the Kansas border, it was getting late in the day and after wasting too much time doing photographically unproductive things like drinking some great sumatra coffee at Schnert's bakery in McCook, we found ourselves with little time to waste on the last leg of our journey from Red Cloud to Auburn where we were going to see Jackie's cousins and to attend Chase's graduation.  That said, we only had the time to stop for a few minutes in Beatrice, a place Jackie's cousins used to like to visit, and in Ruskin, because it had a nice sign.  Beatrice was too big to get a handle on in a short time, but Ruskin was just right.  There was so much more to see.  Wish I had a bit more time there, but there wasn't.  So much to regret, so much to be thankful for, so many reasons to return next spring, so much....

                                                                                                                   

Unfortunately, the recently published list of post offices to be closed in  2011 includes this beauty in Ruskin.  They know not what they do.  The threads of any semblance of unity in this country are unravelling as we speak and they want to save money by closing down post offices.  How about just ending one or two of the mindless wars we are presently involved in.

Addendum, 7/27/12:
As you might have noticed, the skies in the pictures vary.  The ones with the great clouds are from last year.  The ones with the harsh cloudless sky are this year.  I did get back!!!  Looking back at last years pictures, I didn't know how lucky I was in terms of sky and weather.  This year was good, but much harder.  Cloudless skies, overcast days, rain, many great, productive days.  When you are only there for a few weeks, you need to be lucky.  During our stay, and to an even more pronounced degree since we left, the temps are consistently in the high 90's and for the past 6 or 7 weeks from early mid June till now, there has been no rain.  Considered to be the worst drought in recent recorded history.  An  almost complete disaster throughout the midwest.

                                                                      Pablo

Cody Nebraska

Route 20 runs along the northern edge of the Sand Hills of Nebraska and I'm sure I would have stumbled across it sooner or later, but I had been thinking about Cody even before we left New York, because it was the central town featured in the October 1978 National Geographic article on the Sand Hills of Nebraska.  The edition caught my eye because on the cover was a picture of a gorilla holding an Olympus camera to his eye and snapping a self portrait of himself in a mirror and the article on the sand hills was just one of those serendipitous extras you tuck away for future reference .

          

          
  The cover and two illustrations from the 1978 edition of National Geographic.  Couldn't get the cover the right way, but you get the idea.                                                            

 This impresses me as an interesting, and not necessarily complimentary, editorial on the "art" of photography, which has been the cornerstone of the mag.  Sadly, I'm not sure I entirely disagree.  Maybe one day they will just have crews of monkeys with helmet mounted cameras running around, randomly clicking a button and filling 8 GB memory cards with enough images to satisfy their editors.  Which reminds me of a poem I wrote years ago while I was still amusing myself with poetry:

As if to deny their humanity,
 the materialists have been overheard to ask the question...

 Suppose you were to take an infinite number of monkeys,

 and place them in front of typewriters

 to strike randomly at the keys

 for an indefinite period of time,
 could one of them produce the great American novel,

 a sonnet, or at least some mediocre poetry?

 Why yes I could answer,

 I am that monkey!!!!!

But I digress...

Cody sounded and seemed like an interesting and authentic place, a real wild west ranching town, especially to someone who had hardly been further west than New Jersey before he became a hobo.  What turned out to be the biggest surprise of all, was that while I've been getting older, Cody has hardly changed at all since 1978, and probably for many years before that.  It looked just like the pictures in the article.   Funny though, not much was really open for business, and you didn't see anyone around, but the buildings were intact.  There was a working post office, a mechanic, and a few other signs of life, but we didn't get to hang around all that long to see what the night life was like.  Always like to think I'll see more next time around.

Couldn't leave without a picture of the post office, and speaking of other means of communication that appear to approaching irrelevance, you don't see many phone booths any more, and especially ones like this.  It was good to see, unfortunately I didn't have anyone to call.  You don't often get the opportunity to live out your dreams, and going to Cody was one of mine, among others, during my period of indentured servitude.  So I am fortunate to have been there and to report back.  

Pablo

American Post Offices...

There is only one branch of the US government which you have no reason to fear when one of their uniformed agents come to your door.  It is your friendly postal worker.   In our neighborhood,  it is Dave.  He tries hard and does his best to bring us Netflix, holiday greetings,  post cards from friends,  our newsletter from the Willa Cather Society, and other good cheer.  It is not his fault that the bulk of our mail is credit card applications, bills and assorted junk that some company or other thinks we might care about.  I'm sure if it was up to him, it would be nothing but birthday cards, thank you notes, and rebate checks.

Our postman Dave on Lark Street in Albany, NY.

I love the United States Post Office and have had a close working relationship with them since I was a stamp collecting boy.  In my weekly visits  to our little Hewlett, NY Post Office across from the train station, I would bug Mr. Brower, our postmaster for plate blocks of new issues which I might or might not get depending on his mood.  He could be grumpy at times and send you away with a scowl, or magnanimous and grant you your hearts delight.  On occasion,  he might even bestow on me the holy grail of rare issues, a plate block or two of postage due stamps.  It annoys me no end when people complain about the occasional  one or two cent increase in the cost of a postage stamp.  The service is a bargain at twice the price!!!

When I was living in Canada, the importance of the postal system was made clear.  In an effort to cut costs, the Canadian Postal System decided it would privatize and close down the post offices in many small and outlying rural communities (of which there are many in Canada).  There was a huge outcry by these farming/fishing towns stating that their only contact with the government, and in fact their only concrete affirmation of being Canadian was their post office.  Without that, they might as well be living anywhere.   I don't know how it played out, but I felt their pain.  It is now beginning to happen here.  Beware America!!!  "You don't know what you've got till it's gone."

Maybe it's my nostalgic connections, or the fact that a post office can offer a sense of place, especially when the building is an authentic part of the community (and not just a double wide with the USPS logo on it), but lately, I find myself taking more and more pictures of post offices.  The first one I took that caught my eye and started my interest was a little shack in Goodsprings, Nevada, a small, isolated old mining town about 25 or 30 miles south of Las Vegas that is still reasonably populated and undisturbed by time.

I was showing my southwest photos at "Art on Lark", an annual outdoor art festival in Albany, N.Y. including the photo below.  A woman stopped to admire it and said it was one of the best post office photos she has seen.  She said she works for the post office and likes to take pictures of them where ever she goes.  Given her affinity for the subject, it did my best to convince her to buy it, for her own sake because I knew she would regret it later, but alas, no sale.  Maybe she figured she could take it herself next time she is in Nevada.

Taken in 2004, it was the first, and so far the best in terms of representing the lost America of Walker Evans or Bernice Abbott that continues to drive me down the back roads and around the next bend to see what's there and occasionally surprises me with something like this.  Since I am still traveling, this project is a work in progress, so here is a representative sample of what I have come up with so far.

But just to say that today, 7/25/11,  I read a news article that due to their billions of dollars in losses, the post office will be closing 3500 post offices across the US, particularly the smaller (and usually more interesting) ones, so start mailing letters and go out and take a picture of your post office.  It may not be there next year, and you will regret it and all those jokes you made about "snail mail".

Actually this post office is kind of close to home, in Grafton, New York, and kind of looks like it was once a school house.

By all accounts, Jay Em, Wyoming has a population south of 50, so this might be all the post office they need, hope they can keep it.

Sparks, Nebraska.

Other than the church, this post office/general store is the only commercial building in town.  People come here for their mail, they stop, talk, have a cup of coffee, etc.  It is the glue that holds the town, indeed, the country together.  The unseen forces tearing at the fabric of our nation identity are the one's demonizing our sacred post office.  Once they succeed in destroying it by turning Americans against their friend, the postal worker, they have won!!!

Its not the "right to bear arms", its the post office that we have to protect.

The unknown post office.  Just known only by its zip code.  I guess I could look it up, but that would take away the mystery of this brave unheralded soldier on the front lines of the battle to keep people in touch and feeling part of America.

Rulo, Nebraska

Ruskin,  Nebraska

Harrisville,  New York

Angora,  Nebraska.  One of those slated for closure.

Rockport, Mass, The Pigeon Cove Office

Preston Hollow,  New York

Wauneta,  Nebraska

Arapahoe, Nebraska

Medusa, New York

New Bremen, New York

Stuyvesant Falls, New York

 Malden Bridge, New York.  

North Hoosick, New York.   Not too far from where we live.  This is one of the post offices that is slated for closure in the next round of down sizing.  I hear that it is the smallest post office (in physical size) that will be closing.  When I was taking the picture, someone told me that lots of people photograph this building.  That's good.  Everyone should take a picture of their post office so that when it is no longer there they will have a record of their old friend.

So we were driving along the Tamimami Trail through the everglades about an hour before sundown on our way to Punta Gorda and enjoying the vast emptiness of grass and sky that is the everglades when out of nowhere we saw it, what turned out to be the smallest post office in the United States in an area called Ochopee, Florida.  When you're not looking for anything, there it is.

Acadia, Florida

Lake Wales, Florida

Mussina, Iowa

Riverton, Nebraska

Rushville, Nebraska

Laurel, Long Island, New York

As if I needed a reminder of the way in which the post office holds together the fragile social fiber of our slowly disintegrating sense of connectedness amidst the "miracle" of this electronic age where communication has been reduced to a disembodied tweet of 29 words or less, while I was taking this photo in Laurel, I talked with 3 or 4 people who were curious about my photographic interest in some as "mundane" as their post office, found out something about them and their families, and spread the gospel of the messianic, overarching value of something they take for granted but shouldn't.  Take a picture of your friend and companion, your US post office so you will remember it when the fascists come wrapped in their flags an close down your last contact with the outside world.  To the left is Jackie, mailing a letter.

Almena, Kansas

Duncan, Nebraska

To the right of the picture is the postmistress who was just coming out to lower the flag as I was lining up this picture at almost 4:00.  She waited patiently as I took the picture and wondered what I was doing.  I explained my mission to try to take as many pictures as I could of interesting post offices so that some day someone will remember them and wonder what America was like back then.  She seemed pleased and I like to think that she saw her little outpost of the US government with new eyes.

Treynor, Iowa

Loretto, Kentucky

French Lick, Indiana, hometown of Larry Bird, and proud of it!!!

Spring Gap, Maryland

Bassett, Nebraska

Death Valley, California

Keeler, California,  a desolate, isolated town on a dried up lake bed on the west side of Death Valley.  For all intents and purposes something of a ghost town,  a relic from another era, but still meritorious enough to have its own post office.

Long Island, Kansas

We come from Long Island, NY so it was beholden on us to go out of out way to check out Long Island, Kansas.  It was overcast and there was not much there to see.  Furthermore, it is in the middle of vast grain fields.  Not an island at all.  The only person I saw in town was a woman crossing the street with a young child.  I stopped her to ask a few questions, but wouldn't you know it, she didn't speak english.  Happens to me all the time.

Seaside, Florida

Faux, but fantastic.  A recently constructed monument to the majesty of the US Post Office.  Obviously designed by someone with the same reverence for the institution as I have.  Luckily it was not left up to some lowest bid non governmental contractor, or it would have looked like the nondescript structure inflicted on Anamoose, North Dakota

I was reading an article recently on some web page or other, I now wish I could remember which,  exposing the fact that the post office in not at all as bankrupt as the government would have us believe.  Its just that other government departments are allowed to take money from the post offices general account to fund other government operations, like our wars, and building post offices in Iraq as part of out effort to reconstruct that country we destroyed.  But it is obviously easier to demonize the postal system and and our hard working postal workers, than to take a good hard look of the dysfunctional  government of which it is a part.  A slight of hand to distract us from the hard truth.

I have often said that when historians will one day chronicle the downfall and demise of the American empire, they will begin the account with 9/11 (although it could easily begin earlier), and I am now beginning to realize that the history will end with the closure of the last post office in the United States, that most truly American of all of our institutions. 

                                                                              

                                                                         Pablo