Mailbox Issues

Last August someone drove down my street at 3 in the morning and smashed mailboxes. I woke up when I heard the noise but I was too out of it to get up. The next morning I check my mailbox. It had a dent in the side but the thing was old, ugly, and sturdy. My neighbor had a plastic mailbox and pieces of it were in my driveway. On my way to work, I drove down Walnut and Teideman and saw almost every mailbox had a dent, broken door or some kind of damage.

I was lucky. I bought a brand new mailbox a few days earlier because the door on my old, ugly, sturdy one wouldn’t stay closed. I had it setup and ready to go out on the post but I got busy with something else and didn’t put it up.

After the “incident,” my neighbor and I put up new mailboxes. Fast-forward to Memorial Day 2010.

I just got back from Smith Rock really late the night before and was headed out to Troutdale. Andrea’s brother Jay was getting back from his mission that day so I thought I would go over early to see if I could help out. The Riding girls put me to work right away. A little later, I checked my phone and had a missed call from my roommate Joe. When I called him back, I got the news. No more mailbox!

About a half hour after I left, a lady traveling down Walnut hit both my mailbox and my neighbor’s (On the same post). Then went across my driveway, over a railroad tie (Where I think she caught air), popped out of the ditch to hit the fire hydrant, and totaled a van about to back out of my other neighbor’s driveway.

These are the new posts but you can get an idea of where she traveled.

My road has a 30mph speed limit. Wouldn’t you think if you hit a mailbox, you would hit the brakes? She must have been flying down the road. Two mailboxes, a bus stop sign, a railroad tie, a ditch, and a fire hydrant didn’t stop her.

You can see the bent bus stop sign that used to be next to the mailboxes and no damage to the railroad tie.

 

My mailbox ended up in the neighbor’s yard dented but still functional. The railroad tie moved but had no damage. (That thing is tough) The fire hydrant was knocked over and into the ditch. Surprisingly no water was shooting out like in the movies. It’s already been replaced.

That dirt mark with the rocks is where I think she landed after catching some air.

 

Joe came home about 30 min after it all happened. He was there to see 3 fireman struggle to pull the lady out of the car and give the police officer my phone number since I own the property she invaded. Kyle (my other roommate) came home while I was talking to Joe on the phone and was extremely disappointed his car wasn’t there. He normally parks in front of the railroad tie and his car would have been totaled. No new car for Kyle.

Kyle had some scrap 4x4’s from a job so I took a couple of those, pieced them together to make a new post. With that, a post hole digger borrowed from my dad, and a lot of screws, I got it all back together.