I took this photo at the Plaza-Midwood post office.
What's going on here? I have no idea. That's your job. Write a little story to go with this photo and drop it in the comments.
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Photo in need of a story
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11 comments:
"Before his extended trip to the West Coast to see friends and family, Bob had two final chores before heading the airport: Clean out his fridge -- no repeat from LAST year's mess, thank you -- and mail his Christmas cards -- no more nagging from mom on that one. But he couldn't quite bring himself to throw out the perfectly good eggs he just got on Tuesday. Not with so many folks hurting and hungry, not with all of Charlotte a big walk-in fridge the past few days.
Problem solved."
Jeff, you should think about being a writer :)
Lookit here son, I say son, didn't ya receive my partial poached? That's a joke, son.
"Late arrivals for flying south for the winter"
In the beginning was the question: How did THIS happen?
Once upon a time, in the USA, folks penned words onto papers and sent them to friends via ponies, 'expressly' trained to carry news, notes, love and especially holiday greetings. Then came trains, planes, automobilies, and funny little read-white & blue carts. There also were, especially during the holiday season, neighborhood merry mailmen who rang twice, or three or four times if need be. Mrs. Jones would open the door and share cookies & steamy hot chocolate when she handed the carrier a stack of cards.
Today, there's cyber space--awash with words and images, tweets and twitters.
Thus, it seems to me that Tommy's photo holds these self-evident truths: (1) A great picture is at least worth a thousand words. However, (2) If you are even in a post office, you know egg-zactly that you can and should preserve the written word--even as you would post even the most intriging photo and solicit stories from strangers. Finally, the ultimate communications lesson: (3) The answer is never as important as asking a great question.
The end or the beginning? Which comes first the chicken or the egg? How did this happen?
FYI, I didn't know this until now, but Blogger limits each comment to 4,096 characters. Why 4,096, I don't know. Anyway, Ben McNeely emailed me his story because it was too long for the comment box, so I'm going to split it up. Here's Ben:
Johnny so wanted to be like the other kids in the neighborhood: Fun, tough, cool.
They were always playing pranks on people. Stealing bikes and hiding them from smaller kids. Knocking over produce displays outside the markets. Taking over the ball courts from the little kids who were practicing basketball.
Their ringleader was Harry Morris. He was a 7th grader, bigger than the other kids, so he bossed them around. They clamored for his attention because he was cool.
The other kids in the group would steal candy from the corner store and brought it back to him. The more candy you stole, the higher your stock rose with Harry.
Harry sneaked cigarettes from his dad's jacket pocket and smoked them. He kissed Chloe Simpson on the lips on the first day of school and was well on his way to first base, when the rest of them were too afraid to even look at a girl.
He played football. He didn't do his homework. He smarted back to teachers.
He was tough, cool and mean. And Johnny wanted to be just like him.
Johnny's mother told him not to fall into Harry's crowd, saying the usual stuff moms say about bad kids -- he comes from a bad home, he's a bad influence and will probably end up in jail by the time he's 18.
Johnny didn't care, though. He was just like the other kids that clamored for Harry's attention -- scrawny, lean and not-so-tough.
Worst yet, Johnny was the new kid on the block. He desperately wanted to belong. And Harry was his ticket into the neighborhood social scene.
Johnny gathered up the courage to approach the group one afternoon after school. They were hanging out outside the corner market. Harry had a carton of eggs in his hands.
"What are you guys up to?" Johnny asked, nervously.
"What's it to you?" Harry snorted back.
"Nothing, just wandering if I could tag along."
Harry started to shove Johnny away, but then he stopped and got a devilish look in his eye.
"Hey, you're the new kids, aren't you?" Harry said, with a smarmy smirk.
"Yeah," Johnny said. His heart skipped a beat. Harry knew who he was -- amazing!
"OK, new kid. Come with us."
From Ben McNeely, part 2:
Harry put his arm around Johnny and walked across the street, toward the post office.
"You wanna be cool?" Harry asked.
"Yeah," Johnny said.
"You wanna be a part of the gang here?"
"Yeah, I do." The words rushed out of Johnny's mouth at a pitch a little too high for a cool kid.
"OK, new kid. Take this carton of eggs and hide behind the mailbox. The next person that comes to the mail, jump out and egg them."
A lump formed in Johnny's throat. He'd never done anything like this before. He always was respectful to people and never threw anything at anyone.
"I ... I dunno if I can do this," Johnny stuttered, looking at open carton of eggs.
"Sure you can ... if you want to be cool, you'll do it," Harry said, threatening.
Harry shoved the eggs into Johnny's hands.
"Do it. We'll watch from around the corner."
Harry and the rest of the gang ran around the corner of the post office building and peeked their heads around.
Johnny timidly crouched behind the mailbox, and picked up an egg in his gloved hands.
I can do this, he thought, over and over. I can do this. He heard footsteps coming toward the mailbox. His heart beat faster, his breath shortened. This is it, he thought, just a few more steps.
The footsteps came closer and Johnny sprung out from behind the mailbox and let loose his projectile.
It landed square in the middle of the chest of a little old lady, carrying a package, wrapped up in brown paper. It had a girl's name on it and in scrawled-out, barely-legible handwriting, "Merry Christmas."
The egg splattered all over the woman's coat and the top of the package.
Johnny froze when he saw whom he attacked. His eyes grew wider. His jaw dropped. His face flushed with shame, but he couldn't move.
Oh my gosh! What have I done? he thought.
The little old lady stood shocked, wiping at the egg with a handkerchief. She looked at Johnny.
"Why did you do that? What a terrible thing!" she said.
Before Johnny could answer, Harry yelled "RUN!"
Johnny snapped out of his trance, turned to see the rest of the gang halfway across the street. His legs moved, but his mind was still blank.
Johnny ran across the street, all the way back to his house, up to his room, with tears streaming down his face, leaving the open carton of eggs next to the mailbox.
4 kilobytes is exactly 4,096 bytes and is the text element limit for XML, which might be why they use it. It may also have to do with how they set up their database to store comments. So while 4,096 might seem like an strange, arbitrary limit, it's the actual amount of bytes you end up with in "4k".
Which came first? The egg, chicken, or snail mail?
Random acts of kindness... look someone left some of the "New No-Lick, Forever Stamps."
Going retro takes time. We didn't ruin the system over night, we wont get back to what worked over night. Be patient. These Carrier Pigeon eggs are being educated by osmosis in the yolk, the problems with the current system. They'll be prodigy's I'm tellin ya, it''s a gift from God!
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