Spitball Army

I will travel out of my way to go to the Irondale post office here in Birmingham.  It’s easy to get in and out of, and the three regular clerks there are usually agreeable.  And, after my run-in at the 1st Avenue North post office last year, I hardly even drive down that street.

Yesterday, I dropped off some mail at the P.O. and asked the nice lady if any new commemoratives had been issued yet this year.

“Yes!”  She sounded almost as excited as I was.  I’ve been collecting stamps since I was a little kid.  I dig a beautifully-crafted postage stamp, and thrill when it heads out of the house on an envelope, on its way to brighten someone else’s day.  That really sounds smarmy, corny, and naive (nobody looks at the stamp as they rip the envelope open!), but that’s the way it is.

“Have you seen the new Alaska stamp?”

“No, let’s see it!”  I had expected nothing until late in the month, to be honest.

She rifled through her drawer and withdrew a file folder.  Opening it, she picked up a sheet of the Alaska stamp and gently laid it in front of me.  She straightened the sheet so the sides of it lay at perfect right angles to the front edge of the counter, touching it ever so lightly with the tips of her fingers.  She beamed.  “Isn’t it pretty?”

It was a great-looking stamp.  “It’s a great-looking stamp,” I said.

Her smile widened.  “And look there, there’s a dog sled!”  She pointed to the photographic image of a dog team being trailed by an Iditarod musher.  “And see who that is driving the team?” she asked me.

“I see him.  Who is it?”

She practically jumped up and down, with a giggle.  “It’s the First Dude, Todd Palin!”  We both laughed.  Don, the clerk at the adjacent window, coughed, and kept on working.

If this is “going postal,” I thought, I’ll definitely be visiting here even more often in the future.

Then I bought several of the Alaska stamps.