Snow overnight gave way to freezing rain, then rain, then slush. The temperatures are again dropping. Ice is next. I wore clogs to get the mail and my feet got soaked but I didn't mind. The mailbox held some cool postcards and a grande sumo calendar, an always welcome present from Tokyo friend Keiko, who loves sumo and likes baseball, while I love baseball and like sumo.Out of nowhere came a letter, too, from a man who works for the US Postal Service and heads the Railway Mail Service Library, which seems to be housed in an old train station in Boyce, Virginia. He had happened on the mail art blog (www.littlemailbox.blogspot.com) and sent an invitation to drive down I-81 to visit the library. From the information he sent, it looks like a worthy, serious endeavor. I have to check it out online at www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org.
Did he know that I also write about trains? Over the holidays I was reading the wonderful All Aboard for Christmas, by Christopher Jennison. The book is filled with excellent photos and cool illustrations from the long-gone days when the US had a good rail system and going home for the holidays meant taking the train.
