The Mailman (1964)

[Music] Letters and parcels from cities and towns. to Abbott and Baker and Cooper and Dons. Red stamps and blue stamps, purples and pinks, a rainbow of colors in papers and inks, millions of letters and parcels a day, sorted and routed and sent on their way. But no matter how many it really is true, the one with your name is sure to find you. Dear Linda, how are you? And how do you like California? I wish Los Angeles wasn't so far from Pennsylvania. We miss you. As you can see, my lamb snowflake won a prize at the 4 club show. only second prize, but dad says that's more than he expected. I wish you would write soon and tell me what you're doing. And please send a picture of you in your new house. Love, Anne. Anne and Linda can still be friends even though they now live all the way across the country from each other. Their letters and mail of all kinds are handled swiftly and safely by the thousands of men and women who work for the United States Postal Service. Mailman Fred Nelson, who delivered the letter to Linda, began his duties while Linda and most everybody else in town were still asleep. Postal clerks had been at work even earlier. The clerk see to it that each carrier gets only the mail that belongs on his route. Now the mailman must sort the mail. He covers his route in just the same way each day, and the mail must be put in the right order. Letters are sorted first. The sorting case that he uses is a little like a map of his route, up one street and down another with a slot for every house or business address along the way. Mr. Nelson knows his route and the people on it very well. He's been their mailman for 6 years. Here's a letter to someone who's moved off his route. They notified Mr. Nelson of their new address. He wrote it down in his record book so he can readress their mail and send it along to them. There's another sort of mail that needs special attention. This is a registered letter. It may contain money or something else of value. The person who sent it paid to have it treated with extra care. Everyone who handles registered mail must sign for it. There's no registered mail for Mr. Nelson this morning, but he does have to pick up the key that will open all the locked boxes on his route. He'll turn the key in again at the end of his day's work. All the letter mail is in the right order. Now the mailman must sort the other mail he'll be delivering. Newspapers, magazines, advertisements, and small packages. It looks as though Mr. Nelson has more than he can carry in one load, but he knows he'll have help. Most of the mail is loaded into relay sacks. A male truck will take the sacks to locked storage boxes along his route. Mr. Nelson will pick them up later. He will start out with only the bundles for the first part of his route. They make a load that can easily be carried in his satchel. All this work has to be done before 8:30 when the mailmen begin their routes. [Music] It takes mailman Nelson an hour or so to deliver all the mail in his satchel. In that time, he's picked up several letters. He'll put them in a nearby collection box or take them back to the post office with him. In apartment buildings, a mailman uses his special key to unlock a whole bank of mailboxes at once. Each small box has a key which is kept by its owner, so the mail is safe. This isn't a regular collection box where letters can be dropped. It would be painted red, white, and blue if it were. It's one of the storage boxes where a truck dropped the bundled mail Mr. Nelson prepared back at the post office. He may stop at storage boxes to refill his satchel two or three times before he completes his day's deliveries. Mail routes like this, thousands of them all over the country, must be covered every day except Sunday all through the year. Mailmen work from early morning well into the afternoon, walking eight or nine miles on their route and delivering hundreds of pieces of mail. And almost everyone they deliver will have some bit of news that will make the day a little different for the person who gets it. The letter we saw delivered to Linda was the biggest event of the day for her. She couldn't wait to write back to her friend Anne. To be sure her letter would be delivered, she wrote plainly and used a correct address and a correct return address as well. Linda wasn't sure what the last number in the address meant, but she learned that the post office department had divided the whole country into areas and given numbers called zip codes to each area. The zip code number helps everyone who handles a letter see very quickly where it should go. The stamp that Linda puts on her letter will tell the postal service how she wants it sent. She learned that registered mail was for very important letters containing valuables and decided that her letter to Anne didn't have to be registered and there was no need for special delivery, which would mean the post office in Pennsylvania that received her letter would send it out by special messenger instead of waiting for a regular delivery. But she did want to send it air mail so it would go all the way across the country in one day instead of the three or 4 days a train might take to carry it by regular mail. Actually, her letter will travel by a lot of different means before it reaches Anne. By truck to the main post office, by helicopter from the post office to the airport, by jet all the way across the country to Philadelphia, by truck to the main post office there, by train to a town close to Anne's farm, and by truck to the post office in that town. And then once again, it will be up to a mailman to finish the job. Ben O' Conor is a rural delivery mailman. His route through Anne's farming neighborhood is very different from the one we saw Fred Nelson delivering, but he goes at his work in much the same way, reporting early in the morning and sorting his mail for delivery. He's usually on his way before 8. There aren't any collection boxes out here, and it's not so easy for folks on farms to get to the post office. So, a rural mailman has to be a sort of post office on wheels. On a rural route, most of the mailboxes are right along the side of the road. The flag on the mailbox is up. That's a signal to Ben Oconor to stop and see what's needed. What's needed can be almost anything. A rural mailman accepts parcels, sells stamps and money orders, and may be called on to deliver unusual types of mail. In this case, a shipment of baby chicks. There's only one thing in Ben Connor's load that's important to a girl whose best friend lives in California. Dear Anne, I can't tell you how nice it was getting a letter from you. And thanks for the picture, too. Next year you'll win first prize, I'll bet. I miss all of you way back there. I really do. Letters and parcels by car, train, and air. All of it urgent. Not a moment to spare. Good wishes and ads, greetings and bills. Another new baby moved in at the hills. Doctors and lawyers, merchants and all, bankers and builders, firms large and small, send off their letters and count on the mail for everything needed for work or for sale. And children and grown-ups in towns near and far can talk to each other wherever they are.