The Hoppy Mailman

Vacation

   We will be out of town until December 7th. It's off to San Jose Del Cabo, Mexico on a trip that was delayed from April because of the herniated disc in my neck. Stay tunned for a Mexico blog or two after we get back. I don't have no stinkin' laptop.

Thanksgiving

   Besides giving thanks for all the blessings in our lives, Thanksgiving is a day were we Americans try to stuff as much turkey into our stomachs as we possibly can. It's a time for families to gather together around the dinning room table and feast like there's no tomorrow. I always think of the Norman Rockwell painting where the mom is setting the turkey on the table and the family is eyeing it like they will never see another one again in their lifetime. Decisions are being made as to what piece of the turkey they want to devour first. Breast, leg, thigh, white meat, dark meat, we all have our favorite section of the bird. Notice that I said first, seconds are mandatory.

   But to me, the biggest thrill was when I was given the honor of carving the turkey for the first time. It was a passage to manhood. I watched my father for years gently slice the breast meat so that it came off in just the perfect dimensions and then stack them on a plate for everyone to salivate over. I'd think to myself, I could never do it that good. But then, after having the first slice jitters, you get into a groove and a smile comes over your face as you realize, it ain't so hard after all.

  We have been flocking over to Mary Ann and Richard Ziemba's house now for the last 8 years. Patty's sister always puts out the welcome mat for us and Richard is a great cook. We enjoy watching them do all the work. With the addition of their two children, Sydney (left between Patty and Mary Ann) and Leilani (right), and the grand matriarch, Rose Doyle, the family gathering is complete. They also invited their friend Chip (between Lani and Richard) over to join in the fellowship.

   But since someones birthday falls very close to Thanksgiving, the celebration isn't complete until the birthday cake is eaten. It's number 53 and I'm very thankful for that. Syd and I are licking the chocolate frosting off of the bottom of the candles. Why? Because we can. Waste not, want not is what we always say.

   So let's give thanks, eat, and then turn on the TV because the Denver Broncos are playing football this afternoon. It doesn't get any better than this. Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.

   He who is not strong before 20, handsome before 30, wise before 40, and rich before 50 - on such a man even beer is altogether lost.   -   German Proverb

Alt III

   I'll bet you thought I forgot about this beer ay? No, it's just time to bottle it. Some people keg their beers, but I prefer to bottle condition mine. Less equipment to mess with and I can keep a larger assortment of styles around in the cooler. So let's bottle.

   I know that it is time to bottle because the activity in the fermentation lock on top of the carboy is down to nothing. That tells me that the yeast has gobbled up all the available sugars and is now resting at the bottom of the carboy. As always, EVERYTHING has been sanitized and sterilized. The beer is in my white bottling bucket on the top shelf. To that beer, I have mixed in, while racking it, 1 cup of "priming" sugar that was boiled in 1 pint of water for 5 minutes. This way I don't have to prime each individual bottle, it's already mixed. This small amount of sugar will be fermented by the still living yeast and create the perfect amount of carbonation. Add too much sugar and you have exploding bottles. Been there, done that. It's no fun picking out slivers of glass from your ceiling.

   I have a plastic bottling cane that has a "tongue" at the base of it that opens and closes when I push down or pull up on it. I fill each bottle to the top and when I pull it out, it leaves the right amount of space in the bottle to carbonate it. This works great for both the 22 and 12 oz. bottles. If you don't leave enough space, it won't carbonate. Too much and again they may explode. You didn't know beer making could be this dangerous did you? Prohibition must have been a "blast".

   Now that the beer is in the bottles, let's crown them. I have a restored 1929 bottlecapper that I love. The new ones today are all plastic and just aren't as good, or at least that's my opinion. Just put them under the capper and push the handle down. Now I write on the cap, with a felt tip pen, what the name of the beer is. This one is named, Alt or Nothing or AON. I don't make labels, that's just too much work.

   Now comes the hard part. Waiting. I give them about 2 weeks in the bottle at a temperature of around 65 degrees before I pop a top. This usually gives it enough time to carbonate. All in all, I've put in about 8 hours of love and labor into the making of this beer. In a couple of weeks, we'll know how I did.

   I'd hate to be a teetotaler. Imagine getting up in the morning and knowing that's as good as you're going to feel all day.   -   Dean Martin

   

Kevin

   This is going to be part therapy and part blog. This morning, at around 6:30, we received a phone call from Jeanie Testerman telling us that Bruce's younger brother Kevin, was found dead in his bathroom. They left this morning for Miller, South Dakota. I don't have anymore details. I'd like to share some memories with you.

   Kev was in his mid 40's. This is him with his bride Deb. They have two sons from his first marriage, Tom and Paul. Kevin and I used to talk about how fortunate we were to have such great women in our lives, to replace that bad taste in our mouths from failed first marriages. Brides is a term we both used out of pride and respect. They were married shortly after us and attended our wedding.

   Kevin was the last member of the family to run the Testerman farm. Quiet and easy going, it took a lot to get him riled up. I can remember one pheasant season when everyone was getting in a tizzy because it was almost noon, and that's when you can start hunting. Kevin very calmly remarked that the rules state that you can start at noon, but that you don't HAVE to. He loved to hunt and fish, which is almost a prerequisite if you live in South Dakota. He mockingly threw rocks at me one day while we were fishing because he thought I had landed a carp. Turns out it was a 24" rainbow trout. When he saw what it was, he came running over and just started going on and on about what a great catch it was. I don't think I have ever heard him talk so much.

    I won't ever forget the year he let me take one of his Labradors to go pheasant hunting with. Just me and a dog. He just told me that I knew how to work Lex and to go get some birds. I guess he thought this city boy had some country sense to him, and I'm glad he did. I know I had a ball, and I think Lex had fun too.

   But with all his prowess with a rifle or a rod, he was absolutely phenomenal in the kitchen. To say this man could cook would be an understatement. It didn't make a difference if it was game, fowl, beef, or pig, he could make it into an epicurean delight. I will never be able to simmer a pot of northern beans and ham on my wood stove again without thinking of him. Thanks for the recipe.

   I will miss you Kevin Testerman, and I promise that the next time Patty and I do the two-step, we'll think of you. Thanks for the memories.

View II

   About a month ago I did an article entitled View. I wanted to show you the view from my office window, my postal vehicle. I thought it might be neat idea if I took a picture from the same place each month, just to show you the change of seasons. The trees have pretty much lost all of their leaves, and as you look west to the mountains, you can see a lot of cloud cover. That afternoon, we had a front roar through here with 50 mph winds, with rain turning to snow in the evening. This morning we woke up to around 2-3" of the white stuff which was a welcomed sight as we sure could use the moisture. We'll get back to you in a month or so with another update.

Veteran

   Yes, I am a veteran and proud of it. I enlisted in the United States Air Force at the tender age of 19 in February 1972 and received my honorable discharge in August 1977. I did not realize it at the time, but those 5 plus years shaped my life to the point, that I am forever thankful for today. I became a man.

   I did two tours of duty overseas during that time. One year was spent in Nakom Phanom, Thailand as a ground to air radio mechanic, and another year I was a DJ on the Armed Forces Radio & Television Service stationed in Sondrestrom, Greenland. Two years, as different as night and day, that I wouldn't trade for anything.

   While I was in Greenland, I was awarded this medal that I am most proud of. A US cargo plane had over shot the runway, crashed and burned. Sondy was a small base with less than 100 American servicemen stationed there, but in an instant, most of those personnel where able to get to the runway and help save 6 lives from that plane crash that was later classified as unsurvivable. It was a tragic day and one I will never forget.

   With that being said, I was a little hacked off yesterday when I had a customer who was annoyed that the post office was going to be closed today because her Visa payment was going to be late. That gnawed on me like a pit bull on a pork chop for the rest of the day. I hope she was the exception and not the rule. To think that our serviceman are willing to  make the ultimate sacrifice by putting their lives on the line to protect our freedom that we cherish so much, and that some people see Veteran's Day as an inconvenience, really makes me stop and wonder about our nation's character.

   So I would like to take this time to thank Doug, Cindy, Rick, Barbara, Dick, Brent, the 35 other veteran's in our post office, and any other vet who may read this. I salute you, I honor you. Thank you.

  Bart, a woman is like a beer. They look good, they smell good, and you'd step over your own mother just to get one   -   "Homer Simpson"   character from the TV show The Simpsons

   

Misconception

   Most people are of the belief that it is the Christmas season that puts a bend in our backs with the load of Christmas cards and packages, and to a point, that is true. But more to a fact, it's the four months leading up to it, that really kills us.

   As soon as school starts, and vacations are over with, the catalogs start to roll in, literally. To the right you see three rolling hampers full of bulk rate (Junk. You call it that, we call it income.)  mail that is ready to be distributed to the appropriate routes. The little rectangular shaped cards on top of the mail signifies what day of the week it's supposed to go out. Blue is for Monday, orange for Tuesday, everyday has a different color. These mailers know, that now that people are home, it's time for these potential buyers to start thinking about Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Some people in the more affluent part of Englewood called Cherry Hills, will get on average 15 catalogs a day. That's an average, which means some days they receive so much, that you can't get all that mail into a regular sized rural mailbox. It's amazing the amount of mail our Cherry Hills routes get. Having 15 feet of flats for them to put in their case is not unusual. Yes, with Christmas we get more parcels and first class letters. But since we don't get as much bulk rate mail for the two weeks prior to Christmas, it just seems to be a little easier not having to deal with all junk. OKAY, I said the J-word. 

   This is a picture of my case, route 13. All the mail has been put in and I'm ready to pull it down.  After pulling this mail down, I go out to the dock and pick up my letter mail. It has all been machined, in trays, and in delivery sequence. Over 90% of your mail now goes through a machine which sorts it all to where it's supposed to go. On this day I had about 6 feet of mail waiting for me. It's a little difficult to see in the picture, but if you squint real hard, you might be able to see pamphlets in all the slots with red lettering on them. Everyone on the route today received a menu from the New Dragon Cafe featuring Vietnamese cuisine. One of their specialties is broiled shrimp with lemon grass. Jumbo shrimp broiled to a golden brown with lemon grass and lightly seasoned. Served with soft rice wrappers, mint, lettuce, cucumber, rice noddles, and a homemade sauce. All for $9.95. How 'bout that?

   So Christmas time is a little like throwing a party. The party itself is a breeze compared with the effort you put in preparing for it. Merry Christmas.

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.   -   Henny Youngman

   

   

   

35

   No, that is not my IQ, although I am sure that you could find someone that would argue that point. It is not my age either. As a matter of fact it is my new waist size and I hate it.

   It all started back in March after I went through surgery for a herniated disc in my neck. On doctors orders, I was not allowed to do anything but walk. No lifting, bending, stooping, squatting, twisting, pushing, reaching, whatever, nothing but walking. That went on for 3 1/2 months and I did a lot of walking. Towards the end I was walking 3-5 miles a day, and loving it. Since the docs had taken a piece of bone off of the left side of my hip to fuse into my neck, pants were a little uncomfortable because they would go right across where the incision was made. Sweat pants on the other hand were quite comfortable, and so they were my fashion statement during that period.

   About a week before I was to go back to work, I decided I had better try on a pair of my work pants. No way, no how, not even close to fitting around my new found girth. I had discovered the curse of sweat pants, they don't let you know that you are getting bigger. Now since the Post Office doesn't consider sweat pants to be appropriate attire, I had to go out and buy some new pants and MLB (my lovely bride) let out few of my old ones. Thank you honey.

   Now that I've been back on the job for awhile, I've lost a little of what I had put on, but the old pants are still a scosh (sp?) snug. This all leads to 35. My old size was 34, after my surgery, it was more like 36 and today it's 35. Why do they not make men's pants in 35? They go from 34 to 36. It's like they figure that if you going to get bigger, you'd better put on 2 more inches if you want your pants to fit nice. What is it with 35? They make 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 ,33 ,34, why stop the odd numbers there? Do they do the same with woman's clothing?  If I wear my 36s, my belt makes them cinch up around my waist. For the 34s, I'd have to suck it in for 8 hours. 35 would be perfect. Is this an evil plot from the people that make suspenders? It's not funny.

   Anyway, that's where I'm at, a crossroads if you will. Do I just say screw it and go for the 36s or work my way down to the 34s? Maybe sweat pants are a man's 35.

Let us drink for the replenishment of our strength, not for our sorrow.   -   Cicero