Mailbox and Prickly Pear

I like mailboxes. I was a mail carrier for 9 years and I can't remember liking or noticing mailboxes before that -- so perhaps that was an influence.

I saw many different kinds of mailboxes when I was a mail carrier. When I first started, I remember delivering the mail along a route and coming to a house where I just absolutely could not find the mailbox. After 2 or 3 minutes of searching for it, I turned around to leave. And there was the mailbox -- nailed to a tree.