Strangers I Have Known

~ A blog by Melissa Kotler Schwartz

Strangers I Have Known

Tag Archives: Post Office

The Silverton Post Office

14 Tuesday Jun 2016

Posted by Melissa Kotler Schwartz in Blog Posts

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Bye, Car, Cincinnati, Cursed, Door, Enraged, ER, Exit, Fist, Good, Got Your Back, Gratuitous, Helping, Local, Man, melissakotlerschwartz, Package, Parking Lot, Post Office, Protect, Shirtless, Silverton, Someone, Stomped, Stopped, Stranger, Stranger Story, strangers, Take care, Thank You

Screen Shot 2016-06-11 at 12.33.28 PM.pngThis is the third or fourth time I’ve posted about the goings-on at a local post office in Cincinnati, but this time I’m reporting, not from the Roselawn post office, but from the Silverton one.

So here’s what happened. I ran in to drop off a package with a pre-printed return label. I dropped the package on the counter and headed toward the exit door. A heavy-set Asian man went out ahead of me and then kindly held the door, instead of letting it go in my face. “Thank you,” I said.

He nodded.

We then stopped in our tracks and watched wide-eyed as a young, shirtless man in his twenties cursed loudly and waved his fist in the air as he stomped down the sidewalk.

“Stay here,” the Asian man directed me as he watched the man, who appeared out of control. “Don’t go anywhere. You’re best here.” He spoke with a certainty and I listened to him.

“I work in the ER,” he said. “He’s on meth.”

“It’s sad,” I said.

He looked at me, “We live in a gratuitous society. No one wants to take responsibility for what they do anymore. Just blame someone else.”

I could tell that this man had seen a lot. He worked in the ER, after all, and no doubt heard many of the same “blame stories” day after day. We watched the enraged man walk farther and farther away.

After a few minutes, he turned to me. “I think we can go now,” he said, and we both walked toward our cars in the parking lot.

“Bye,” I said. “Take care.”

“You too,” he said.

I wanted to say to him, “Thanks for watching my back.” This was the second time I had met a stranger at a post office that “had my back.”

Yes, some people are so good, I said to myself. They’ll protect you and they don’t even know you. The meth man needs plenty of help, but the ER man—he should be commended for helping.

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Revisiting the Roselawn Post Office

03 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by Melissa Kotler Schwartz in listening

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Aurburn Hair, Black skirt, Clerk, counter, Cut you off, Door, Escape, Every Day, Here, Hurry, I've Got Your Back, Jump, Land, Large, Letters, Line, Long Story, Mail, Melissakoterschwartz, Moments, Myself, Others, Pile, Post Office, Reddi-wip, Safely, Snow, Speed, Stammers, Stands, Stilettos, Stranger, strangers, Style, Teenager, Thank You, Trust, Water, Wet, Year

snow-corsica_1809745i

Yes, it’s another stranger story from the Roselawn Post Office. Same place, different day, different year, different story.

I walk through drifts of snow and a slushy pool of water to the entrance of the post office, and take my place in line behind a man just out of the cusp of teen- hood. As the two of us, bored and fidgety, stare at the glass case of stamps between us and the counter, a sudden click clack of heels pulses past us. It is the sound of shoes on a mission.

The black stilettos belong to a woman in her late twenties with ringlets of long auburn hair and a too- short black skirt. I immediately decide I don’t trust her. Come on, who wears stilettos in the snow?

She approaches the counter without acknowledging us and stands at the ready, holding her five letters. That’s it, I say to myself and blurt out, “There’s a line here.”

“Oh,” she stammers. “I didn’t mean to cut you off, I just need to mail these.”

“Well, you never know,” I said. Too many people cut lines with no thought for others.

A postal clerk took her letters and she left in hurry, averting her eyes from us.

The almost-man teen turned to me and said, “I like your style.”

“Thank you,” I said and added, almost confessionally, “Well, if she had been a big mean man, I don’t think I would have said anything.”

He paused, then said, “I’ve got your back.”

This man I had just met “had my back.” Now it’s not every day that a stranger takes on having your back. This was a moment to bear witness to.

I like his style too, I thought. Suddenly, I imagined us in a Postal Fairy Tale, where the big mean man comes into the post office, tries to pull a fast one on the two of us and we go postal—me calling out the bad guy, the young man punching him out while the rest of the people in the post office cheer and clap in support of our teen hero.

Before the big mean man wakes up, the two of us escape through the back door of the post office and jump onto an awaiting wooden sled with bright red runners. We vanish down the hill at supersonic speed and land with a thud in a large pile of snow that looks good enough to eat, like Reddi-wip. (Of course we land safely, this is a fairy tale.)

We struggle to get up because we’re laughing so hard, astonished at our fantastical escape.

“See, I’ve got your back,” he says, grinning, and gives me a quick hug goodbye.

“I’ve got yours, too,” I say, hugging him back.

In the next scene he’s home and his mother is asking, “How’d did you get so wet?”

“Oh, Mom,” he says, “It’s a long story, but basically, I wiped out in the snow on my way back from the post office.”

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Post Office: Roselawn, Ohio, A Sunny August Afternoon after Lunch

20 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by Melissa Kotler Schwartz in Blog Posts

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Afternoon, Arm, August, Beauty, Bench, Best, Customer, Ear Clip, Finger, Girl, Grandma, Head, Lady, Listen, Lunch, Meet, melissakotlerschwartz, Ohio, Passports, Phone, Post Office, Postal Clerk, Ring, Roselawn, strangers, Sunny, Waiting, Wooden, World

Sometimes waiting in line has its benefits – it connects you to people in your community that you’d never meet. Today, I met a little girl named Vanessa and her grandmother.  While a man behind me huffed and puffed and shuffled his feet in frustration over the wait, Vanessa, Grandma and I decided to make the best of the situation and talk to each other.

I made a comment to Grandma that we had a long wait, “passports or something.”

She nodded her head. “I like your ring,” she said to me.

Then Vanessa wanted to look at my ring, too. She held my hand gently to get a good look at it. It was a touching moment, a little girl gazing at a stranger’s ring. And I have to say it made my afternoon. I’m not around little people enough and I can forget their innocent beauty.

“Vanessa, show the lady your ring,” her grandma said.

Vanessa put her right hand out in a graceful gesture. There was a lovely silver ring with a tiny heart on her right finger. “I love your silver ring,” I told her. She smiled at me proudly and her big brown eyes got bigger.

She ran over to the little wooden bench up near the counter. I’ve always liked the bench the Roselawn Post Office keeps there. I think it honors the little people of the world. She briefly listened to the conversation that was going on between the postal clerk and his customer and quickly tired of it.

She tapped her grandma’s arm and motioned for her phone. Then, she tapped her grandma’s arm again for her ear clip. She carried them both to the bench, where she placed the ear clip on her ear and tuned out the conversation between the clerk and the customer. She looked so grownup sitting on the bench with her legs crossed. Too bad, I thought, she’s missing out on the opportunity that the front row offers her – a glimpse into the everyday world of people taking care of their business.

I wonder, when she grows up, if there’ll still be a post office around where her children can sit on a little bench and listen.

Girl on Bench

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Melissa Kotler Schwartz

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