CHANGE - 2017

The only person that LIKES change is a wet baby!! This line, from an unknown source, has at least brought a smile to the faces of my Post Office customers this past week!  ONE week ago we received notice that the USPS is CLOSING the Strawberry Post Office – the one with the ZIP code!  My contract indicates that either party – the USPS or myself – can cancel the contract with a 30 day written notice!  So my supervisor from MiWuk Post Office had little to no sleep the night before she appeared, sans appointment, to give me the news.  FORTUNATELY, that very morning as I was driving the car full of recycling down to East Sonora the words of Romans 8:28 popped into my head – “All things work together for good to those who love the Lord, and are called according to HIS purposes!”  So, whenever anyone asks if I “saw it coming” I have to say NO, but God did “prepare me!”

As my supervisor’s mouth dropped to the floor, I shouted to my husband: “Hey Tom, get your pencil and tape measure out so we can decided how to USE this space for a second bedroom/office!”  Maybe we can even figure a way to “take the step out” between the two sides of the building.  OUR pantry/closet was once the icehouse for the town and has a foot of insulation on all sides.  So I say that is my “step aerobics” up a step and then down a step getting to the office / Post Office.  Fortunately, we don’t have an historical preservation person or committee here in the mile-high hamlet of Strawberry, but a placque might still be appropriate.  We will have to do it quickly so we can invite Bobby Silva, the milk (former ice) man to the dedication!!  He has said that when he was a 14 yr old kid, he drove the ice truck to Strawberry and slid the ice down the chute into the “ICE HOUSE!”  He is now eighty something!!

My supervisor couldn’t believe “how well” I was handling this change.  Her office will be getting the customers of Long Barn and she will have ONE LESS employee to help her with that!  I don’t know if Pinecrest is getting any extra help to deal with the increase they will experience from this event since Pinecrest is where we are supposed to get our new PO box number.  Personally, I will just use the internet more for confirmations and find a way to pay bills without STAMPS.

We had considered closing the Post Office when Tom was sent to Sonora UMC to be the pastor, but didn’t want all the neighbors MAD at US.  So I was a REALTOR trying to make enough to cover the cost of having someone else do “my job” here in Strawberry.  That is until the crash in 2008…then I drove to Strawberry three or four times a week to do it myself and rented the one-bedroom apartment where we are living NOW to paying guests.  This way the USPS gets “THE BAD” and not me!!  But I still have to find a way to get to the Post Office in Pinecrest through the tourist traffic in the summer, and the ice and snow in the winter!!  The ONLY person who likes change is a wet baby!!