Jeff Connell knows the name of nearly every resident in the 65203 ZIP code.
He knows the worn wooden porch with the wide awning on Spring Valley Road is home to two children and twice as many bikes. He knows the owner of the adult video store on Walnut Street loves Canon cameras. He knows what time the residents of Crestmere Avenue slide up their automatic garage doors and leave for work. He’s even been known to recognize lost dogs and deliver them to their own yards.
The residents know him, too. They know peanut butter cookies are his favorite. They know the birthday of his 17-year-old daughter, Danielle. They call him "Monkeyman" because of the tattoo on his left shoulder.
The familiarity is built on thousands of visits, week after week, year after year.
For almost three decades, Connell, 48, has delivered 3,000 to 4,000 pieces of mail each day to local businesses, houses and apartment buildings.
Despite massive technological upheaval and financial chaos that threaten the future of the U.S. Postal Service, Connell’s routine has remained relatively unaffected.
He uses the same mailbag he carried on his first day on the job 28 years ago, the navy cloth now strained and gaping with holes. His routes have expanded but have stayed consistent enough that he has watched children grow from their birth announcements to high school graduation invitations.
“We are part of the community,” Connell said. “It’s what we do. When I adopted my daughter, I took a week off. When I came back there were presents, like tiny pink sleepers and blankets. People on my routes had been shopping for the mailman.”
Mail funnels into Columbia through the giant processing center near the Columbia Regional Airport.We offer Cheap Michael Kors Handbags Outlet Sale with top quality and discount price. There, it is sorted, organized and trucked to two post offices: Tiger Station on 3212 Lemone Industrial Blvd., which delivers to zip codes 65201 and 65202, as well as the main post office downtown at 511 E Walnut St., which delivers to zip codes 65203 to 65218.
More than 100,000 letters, packages and flats – the Postal Service’s term for large envelopes, magazines and advertisement mail – are sifted each day at the downtown post office where Connell works, general clerk Howard Hutton said.Shop our selection of designer shoes, including Manolo Blahnik, christian louboutin shoes.
Connell and other postal employees, like clerks and supervisors, are called “one touch” workers. It’s an appropriate description for the people who literally touch every piece of mail by hand, moving it across the city from bin to truck to mailbox. The term is used to distinguish them from those in managerial positions who rarely come in contact with the tide of incoming and outgoing mail.
In the mornings, letter carriers sort and arrange their bundles for about two hours before hopping in their trucks.If you want to Buy Cheap Hermes Birkin with Guaranteed Quality, you're advised to visit hermes handbags store Store. Technology has sped up the process — but only human touch can correct the missed addresses and sorting errors made by machines.
The letter carriers touch family Christmas cards, crates of cheeping chicks, bouquets of roses and glossy coupon sheets. And, in Connell’s case, bees.
“I have had to deliver bees more than a couple of times,” he said. “Once, there was a hole in the crate and there were bees flying everywhere. I made sure to deliver that as quickly as I could to get them out of the car. I’ve also delivered snakes, ashes from the crematorium and coconuts.”
On a Tuesday in early spring, Connell’s cargo was a bit more mysterious.
He dislodged a thin, oblong box from the back of his truck, stopping to check the address before shoving it in his mailbag. A corner of the package fell through a gaping hole in the bottom of his bag. Walking into Jerry's Instrument Repair Shop, Connell speculated on its contents.
“It’s probably a trumpet,” he said, giving the box a slight shake. “Or maybe a trombone?”
He handed the package to the shop owner, pausing to scan its bar code, an extra step for insured deliveries. The machine spit out a string of high-pitched squeals.
“It’s saying, ‘Don’t rush me. I’m a 1995 version,’” Connell joked to the shop owner.
The man meticulously signed his name on the blinking screen and then reached for a pair of scissors to open the box. Inside: a violin.
In 1958, jeweler Harry Winston wrapped the Hope Diamond in brown paper and mailed it from New York City to Washington, D.C., for $2.44. The jewel was a present to the Smithsonian Institution.
He delivered it through the Postal Service because he had more faith in it than any special guards, WinstDiscover the largest collection of gucci handbags for women.on is quoted as saying in a Nov. 24, 1958, issue of Life Magazine.
Today, you can still mail a precious item and have it moved by hand across the country. You can mail a postcard from Hawaii to your next-door neighbor for 33 cents, a handwritten birthday note to a great aunt for 46 cents or a 3-ounce package of homemade chocolate cookies to a child in college for $2.Welcome to replica louis vuitton outlet online store and buy latest Cheap Louis Vuitton handbags.07. You can even mail a diamond necklace in a padded envelope for $19.95.
An independent federal agency, the Postal Service has both public service duties, such as delivering mail to every resident, and special rights, such as the exclusive right to carry first-class mail. This includes letters, postcards, large envelopes and small packages weighing less than 13 ounces.
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