Box 89, You Bet!

Before home mail delivery to xxxx Park Ave. No. Renton or , even earlier, to xxxx 104th Ave. SE in King County, there was Kennydale Post Office where you went to pick up your own damn mail. Kennydale PO was on the lower part of 33rd No. just up the street from the Salon on Lake Washington Boulevard (which used to be a local store, the root from which 7-11's sprang, I'll bet). The PO building still is there , converted now into an apartment. We were box 89.

Mail came to the Postmaster twice a day and it was a quick stop for my dad on his way home from work to pick up both deliveries. Sometimes I'd check in when going by there on my paper route to see if the afternoon mail had been late and Pa had missed it. So we had a pretty unremarkable drama free system almost all the time. Unlike with several other of our institutions in those vintage times, I can't remember doing anything criminal, humilating or disgusting in or around the Post Office. Strictly business. Except when I suspected something was coming in the post for ME! Early on, this would be stuff from the cereal box top market operated out of Battle Creek, Michigan; you know, so many box tops from Wheaties or Cheerios and a quarter for a secret de-coder ring. Later, I blush to confess now, it might be a letter (the root from which e-mail sprang, I'll bet) from a girl. On these special days, or series of days, I monitored postal activity assiduously to assure I would get first dibs. Lots of times I'd jog down to the PO (maybe 3/4 of a mile) to meet the first delivery and do it again in the afternoon for the second. Besides fulfilling my anticipation I needed to protect myself from teasing (the root from which trash talk and "ball breaking" sprang, I'll bet).

Box 89 eventually came to pass and the small town/rural culture in Kennydale was thereby diminshed some (the roots from which our engulfment by the City of Renton sprang, I'll bet).