The 1800's

I had an endearing trip to the post office.  I was picking up the Book 'Em mail on a rainy day in full winter gear.  As I go through the line, there is a youngish, white, bro-ish looking person who has approached the clerk twice.  He is confused.  As I'm leaving the line, he says, "do you know how to do this?"

I pull over.

He is holding an envelope and a fill out form. "Yeah," I say.  "This is the 'to' area, where you put in the address that you are sending this to.  And this is the 'from' area, where you put in the address you are sending this from."  This is not enough.  He is not getting it.  Fortunately, I love giving directions and I love the mail, so I slow it down, and walk him through line by line.

It comes out that he is sending an absentee ballot express mail to New Jersey for 20 bucks.  He is committed.  He knows his vote is small but maybe necessary.

"You had a lot of mail there, so I figured you knew what to do," he says.  I tell him about Book 'Em and how my hunk of envelopes was a bunch of requests from prisoners asking for books.   It turns out that he used to live at Ft. Leavenworth in Kansas on base because of his dad.  There is a federal prison there that some high profile characters have passed through.  I've heard of it but I forget which people he named.

So we chat for a bit, and then we turn back to the form.  He is still puzzled.  I resume my direction lending, repeating when necessary, showing him how to identify where he lives and write it out.  I tell him that I had forgotten that some people are too young to know how to use the post office.

"Oh.  You can't be that much older than me," he says.

It turns out that I am in fact 9 years older than him, which makes him the same age as my little brother.  I didn't make this little brother age connection until a few days later, but it made me think about how long nine years are and about my little brother.  I wonder if he would have similar post office questions.

As my post office person begins to get the hang of the address thing, he says, " I feel like this is the 1800's."  "No," I respond immediately.  "More like the 1990's."

We start talking about voting.  I tell him that I am not sure if I will vote because I am like a "super radical abolitionist" and so I don't think I can vote for any of the people.  I actually say the words "super radical abolitionist."  He suggests that I vote for Obama because he thinks maybe Obama is closer to my views, and, "sometimes you have to go for the least worst."  I think this is solid advice, even though it hurts me to follow it.

We finish the form!  Hooray!  He thanks me, and sincerely hopes that I have a good day, but, well now it is evening.  So he sincerely hopes that I have a good evening.

I breeze out of there feeling hopeful.  I feel grateful for all the times.  All the times that I have been grounded by strangers.  How we have managed to share curiosity even though we mostly fit into these very separate boxes.  How there is still room for all of us.  How engaging with my perceived opposites has so often brought genuine and positive and unexpected results.  Thanks bro!  Thank you.