The Flags on My Mail Route Went Up

The ice storm and the fire hall

There was one more winter that mattered, and I will tell it, because it is where I missed something.

In January of 2009 another ice storm came through, a worse one. The power went out across half the county for nine days. Trees came down across the roads, and most of the lines in the hollows were on the ground.

I worked those nine days with a chain saw in the back of the Jeep and a camp stove. I went house to house to the whole list. Dwight and Bonnie Kessler were my worry. Bonnie has trouble breathing, and her oxygen machine runs on electricity.

I got the two of them into the Jeep on the third night and took them to the fire hall in Steelville, which had a generator and cots. I thought I was saving the two people on my list who needed it most.

When I got there, the fire hall was already half full of people from my route.

Esther was there. Nell and Opal Wendell were there, in two chairs pushed side by side, arguing. Even Hank Dowling was there, standing in the corner with all three of his dogs, a man who in twelve years of my carrying his mail had never so much as said good morning.

I remember Esther looking at me across the cots, and Nell Wendell leaning over to say something in her ear. Esther nodded once.

I never did ask how Hank Dowling got himself to a fire hall eleven miles away with the roads blocked. I had decided I was the only thread, and I was not looking for any others.