The Swift Completion of His Appointed Rounds
I made a promise in my latest column. Just click on that word and it’ll take you right to that piece and yes, young ones, I know you think everyone already knows all about this but it just isn't so. Think of that poor soul who called the tech support hotline to say that that handy “cup holder” on his computer was broken and yup he was referring to the D-drive port that pops out when you push the button. Over these last few months I have been dragging to this site thousands and thousands of die-hard, and in some cases, older newspaper readers for whom all this web stuff is still pretty new.
The column was about our former mailman now retired and I said I would tell another story about him here so let me do that now:
I heard someone call my name at the local nursery and I didn’t even have to lift my eyes from the geraniums to know who it was. “Hello MRS. MAROTTA!” boomed this voice, alive with mischief.
“Joe!” I yelled from my spot 30 feet away.
“How’s business?”
“Here today and gone tomorrow!” he cackled.
Joe now works part time now as a sometime pall-bearer and general funeral home associate, and I guess I this is the place to say that though I’m calling him Joe, really that’s not his name. You never who’s going to feel shy about having his name spread all over the galaxy so I thought I’d just christen him anew here.
Anyway, after we’d made our purchases and left the nursery we continued talking out in the parking lot. There was lot to go over since his nephew taught at the same high school where I too taught way back in the days of platform shoe and feathery hair. Plus we had to dissect the news of the neighborhood that he once so expertly stitched together as for year after year he executed the swift completion of his appointed rounds.
We must have lingered a good 20 minutes before partying anyway and every time I see him I think afterwards of the story my friend Mary told me once about the day he helped her when she was new to our neighborhood and didn’t really know anyone. She had thrown her back out and when her eight-month-old woke up suddenly sick to his stomach she realized that with her muscles spasming the way they were doing she couldn't even lift him from his crib. It was then that she spotted Joe just passing under her second-story window and so called to him. He slung that bag down and came inside, changed the baby and called Mary’s husband at work to say that she needed him home now. It was a bold act of kindness all right and for year after when that baby grew into a boy three and five and six and eight he would often say to Mary with endearing eager earnestness “Mum! You never have to worry. If something goes wrong. I’ll just go find Joe!”
And that’s the story of Joe who I hope I see again soon, at the plant store or outside some church in a black suit; walking down the street or just plain anywhere. And if my kitty disappears again as she did the time I told about in that column, well I might have to go find him myself.
