Originally published at: These USPS mail carriers must prove they can repeatedly jump on and off a moving boat | Boing Boing
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I hope the people who put their mailbox far from the boat have a valid reason for doing so.
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Exactly - I’d be ‘if you want your mail delivered, you put your box on the end of your pier, facing the boat, otherwise IT AIN’T HAPPENING!’
Given other rules about mailboxes this seems very reasonable to me. Alternatively the post people ought to be allowed to behave like newspaper deliverers - just chuck it on the pier.
Seriously, though, this looks like a great service and it’s good to see traditions maintained.
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Works for deliveries, but what if you’ve got the flag up for outgoing mail the carrier needs to collect?
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As I said, the box needs to be at the end of the pier, facing the lake, or no collections either.
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It’s a fun tradition. They are almost all giant mansions. I think the Schwinn bike folks had one. I used to drive up from Chicago to camp there. Gets a bit crowded. Switched to New Glarus.
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I’ve had so many favorite mail carriers over the years, our mail person up here in Joshua Tree is wonderful person, gotta start searching for a Xmas gift for her…
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Harpoons?
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Interesting tradition, but aren’t there like a million better ways to do this without risking a kid drowning or being crushed against a pier? Like a mailbox that automatically drops mail into a hopper on the starboard side?
Whatever, I’m sure it’s not the dumbest thing happening on that lake.
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You should consider Blue Mounds or Yellowstone Lake, both fun campsites close to New Glarus.
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I took my boat up there a few weeks back. Beautiful. So crowded, but so beautiful.
The mansions are insane. Old money, lots of it. As for breweries, I’m a Sprecher kinda guy.
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Ok, time to send a bunch of post cards to that neighborhood?
Speaking of sporting post do yourself a favor and listen to this podcast:
Grand champion or complete failure. No in-between with this job.
Dangerous stuff. There’s a scene in The Sand Pebbles (1966) where Steve McQueen jumps onto the side of a US Navy river boat then hauls himself up the rest of the way. The projection he sets foot on (from a jump) is similar to the one seen girdling the boat in the USPS video, except the one that McQueen lands on is much, much narrower. Granted that McQueen didn’t have to run like a madman to accomplish the ‘feat’, but I’m surprised that the production heads allowed him to do it.
How about something along the lines of the old-style mail catcher that trains once used to grab hanging mailbags while on the run? For dropping off, follow the old-style lead and have someone throw a mailbag onto the recipient’s pier.
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The USPS still depends on boat deliveries to Stehekin at the far NW corner of Lake Chelan in Washington. There are no roads to the area. But they don’t need to jump - Stehekin has a post office.
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Ballistic rockets.
But then again that’s my default solution for pretty much everything.
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It’s probably safer!
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I want to see the procedure that they follow if the mail carrier flubs the jump. I’m guessing it’s something like launching a life preserver on a long rope with a small catapult…
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