Editor,

How many of you, reading this article, receive your mail by a rural mail carrier?

I personally believe I have the best mail carrier of all.

One day, I casually began thinking about how my mail got to me. I was amazed. Think of it. Thousands of letters come to the Post Office every day. It has to be sorted and assigned to dozens of carriers on different routes and addresses. Then the carriers have to organize the mail according to the streets, or roads, in their area. Then they have to arrange the names and numbers to run consecutively. Then they have to plan a route of delivery that allows them to be on the side of the street that your mail box is on so they can take your mail out and insert the new mail. They have to figure side streets, dead end streets, one-way streets, etc., etc. Then, it becomes winter time and your carrier has to navigate icy streets and roads, the car windows are constantly down in freezing weather, while the carrier delivers your mail, takes yours out, closes the box and puts the flag down.

I hope you’ll agree with me, your mail carrier deserves a gratuity as much, or more, than any waiter in a fancy restaurant.

Larry Filkins, Claremore

There’s still good in the world ...

Editor,

A few months right when it was starting to get real cold I got a call from Jim Hall about a computer glitch he was having. Jim explained to me some of the symptoms that was going on with his computer and really it just would not even turn on. I told Jim that it was over my head but I would still take a look so we agreed to meet in Claremore. I forgot exactly what time we were to meet but Jim was running a little late so I called him to see where he was and he said he was at the truck stop filling his radiator up with water.

Jim has a old big van that he hauls his five children and his mother around in and come to find out about every eight miles he has to stop and get more water because his water pump was out. I questioned him a little further and found out his heater core had just gone out also.

Things have been very tight with the Hall family from a terrible legal battle that he won his five children back, but not before having to sell the family farm and really all they had, but his five wonderful children do not complain. Anything from the dollar store gets a reaction like it was from Saks Fith Avenue.

Anyway back to the van and freezing weather approaching, you see if you have no heater core you have no heat and Jim has one still in pull ups up to about 10 and with 5 kids and his mom there is a lot of going and with a water pump out there was a lot of stopping and filling up all the time.

This was just not going to fly with winter coming so I called my buddy Larry Banzet at Boomer Auto here in Claremore (who called the) local warehouse R & S Auto Parts to see what his cost would be. Larry told them that he was helping a needy family and R & S donated a water pump and a very expensive heater core which they rushed in to get this van back to the Hall family.

The computer went over to my friend, Clifford Bowen, a retired Tulsa Police officer of 25 years, (who) fixed it right up and had it running good as new.