Vegan Momma

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The community I grew up in was a quiet, sleepy neighborhood nothing exciting happened. My family loved that!

During the warmer months, in the evenings, we could hear our chickens making soft clucking sounds as they settled in for the night. We usually could hear the crickets chirping and occasionally you would hear a hoot owl. My brother was afraid of those owls. For the life of me I don’t know why.

I remember one evening there was a loud bang and what sounded like metal being scraped across blacktop. My father rushed outside only to find out that our mailbox and the neighbors had been totaled.

The man who had totaled the mailboxes, another neighbor, apologized profusely. He was pretty embarrassed and after saying his “I’m so sorry” He headed on home. My father mentioned later that Mr. H had been drinking.

Our mailboxes were right next to the street. The mailman didn’t come up the driveway. I grew up in a rural community remember each neighbor had at least three acres of land and all the houses set far back from the main road.

The other two neighbors, whose mailboxes had been totaled, joined my father on the street. They gathered around their mailboxes and talked about what they were going to do. After the excitement died down everyone went back to their houses.

It was obvious they couldn’t fix them so the hunt for a sturdier residential mailboxes began. I remember being excited since this meant we would be going to “the mall” the next day. My parents did most of their home shopping at a large department store that was connected to the mall.

The next day my parents went to the big department store. They catered to business & consumers so they had a selection of commercial mailboxes also. Not wanting to make the a similar mistake my father choose a steel mailbox. The one he purchase before was flimsy. Sure it did a good job holding mail but that was about it. I guess dad didn’t want to take any chances if Mr. H decided to pull this stunt again. I guess that would also explain why he moved the mailbox even further off the road.

Do you know what? Mr. H did run into another mailbox a few years later but ours was not harmed. Occasionally I’ll remind my father about that story and I still tease my brother about the hoot owls. Hey what are sisters for?