Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home

Grant took over a new route for a short time and one day had to deliver some steel plates for target practice. The man who received them was friendly and enthusiastically showed Grant his rifle while discussing his plans to move to New Mexico and find solitude. Grant remembered how much he, too, once wanted to leave Blacksburg and how he ended up back there anyway. Working as a mail carrier gave Grant the solitude he sought, but it also forced an unexpected reckoning with his past and began a process of deconstructing and reconstructing himself and his life.

On his routes, Grant learned to carry several key items that kept him safe during the long, isolating drives. He had a logbook for recording all his delivery activity and how long it took, a first-aid kit for things like dog bites, and Gatorade and several snacks. He had a penlight for seeing into dark mailboxes, a host of stationery utensils like pencils and rubber bands, and a rain jacket for wetter days. Grant also kept winter gloves, zip ties and wire for mailboxes that wouldn’t close, and a headlamp for when the days started to get shorter. He also carried what he calls “the smell of the mail” (194). During election season, Grant also carried a pistol, fearing that someone might attack him while he was transporting ballots. He would occasionally play out fantasies in his mind of defending the ballots alongside President Obama. Finally, Grant carried the US flag on his uniform, which always reminded him of the wider purpose he was serving.

During the election, US citizens mailed in tens of millions of votes, and Grant bore witness to the sanctity with which his coworkers treated their responsibility to get those votes to the right place without tampering. On one occasion, a vote was improperly sealed, causing a coworker to panic about voter fraud and a thrown election. Grant considers how easily his coworkers put aside their politics to work together and wishes more Americans could do the same. He recalls one incident in which a man approached him at a gas station, desperate to get into his PO box and retrieve his concealed carry license. The man was worried that Biden’s government was preparing to take his guns away. Grant felt threatened and intimidated in the moment but managed to get the man to back away by reminding him of his position as a government official.

Near Christmas, Grant had to deliver a popcorn machine to an unfamiliar rural address. It was dark when he arrived in the area, and he initially drove past the farmhouse to which he was supposed to deliver. When he reached the end of the road, all he saw was an old smokehouse, and he started to become deeply afraid. Despite not being legally allowed to have a gun while working, Grant had one, and he pulled it out as he started driving back down the road. While he felt better, he knew he wasn’t really safer. He got back to the farmhouse, left his gun in his vehicle, and took the package to the door, where he was greeted by two men with rifles. Fear surged through Grant again, but the men then realized that he was just the mailman. 

Grant was grazed by a bullet once at a music festival, but gun violence affected him on a much more serious level when his father was shot during the Virginia Tech shooting. While his father survived, the incident traumatized him for the rest of his life and left Grant in perpetual fear as well. Grant carries a gun but wishes that he didn’t have to, and he wonders if the costs of gun ownership are worth the rewards.

On Christmas Eve, Grant delivered his last package to a rural area in Mount Tabor where he had never been but always wanted to explore. He ended up at the wrong house at first but was directed over to the cabin across the way. The woman there thanked him for coming on Christmas Eve and gave him a cookie, and Grant drove off into the darkness.