Mr. Charlie Shaw was the Milstead mailman. He delivered mail on a rural route for fifty years or more. He drove his own car, I think. He knew everyone on his route. Our mailbox was Rt. One Box 45, Milstead, Alabama. I never heard of a route two. The mail was brought by train to Milstead Station, a depot on the Western Railroad of Alabama. The depot was four or five miles from the Little House. Time came when the train allegedly didn’t even stop—the mailbags were just thrown off!
The post office itself was in Ben Walker’s store, across the road from the depot. There was a postmaster for the Milstead Post Office. I think that the postmaster and mail delivery man, Mr. Shaw, were the only two employees, but they did an incredible job. My first and second grade teacher, Ms. Rossie Pierce, who had also taught my father, retired soon after I completed the second grade, and she became the Milstead post Mistress. Mr. Shaw delivered our mail at precisely the same time every day. We knew that at any time after 10:00 A.M., the mail would be available in the box up on the big road, and we could set out for it. In those days, The Montgomery Advertiser, a daily newspaper, was delivered via the postal service, so Mr. Shaw brought not only regular mail, but also the Montgomery Advertiser. Daddy read the Advertiser every day.
Mr. Shaw was quite a character, in his own right, and there were stories about him that we all enjoyed. For instance, on one occasion, when he arrived back home, Mrs. Shaw was very excited because she had killed a snake. When she started telling Mr. Shaw how big the snake was, and where she had found it, Mr. Shaw was reported to have said, “I’ll bet, by God, that you’ve killed my white oak runner.”
He retired after fifty years on the job. He received an award—from the postal service, I think—for fifty years of driving without a single accident. You know it: a few days later he had his first fender-bender.
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