Hectic Holiday mailings!

As we all get caught up in the hustle and bustle of Holiday activity and spend more time than we would like to mailing out greetings cards and packages, spare a thought for the overworked postal clerk. And with the Rancho Santa Fe covenant rules barring home mail service, it is especially appropriate that silent—or vocal—thanks go out to the Rancho Santa Fe post office employees whose patience may quite possibly be as stretched as George Megrew's poem illustrates in his historic column.

In the 1955 January edition of the Rancho Santa Fe News, former Ranch postmaster, George Megrew, who served for 19 years, published the following verses titled Post Office Christmas which just about sums up the additional stresses and irritations brought on by the Holiday mailing frenzy. His snappy poem was part of his regular column, Rancho Recollections, that he contributed each month.

“At this season of the year I am reminded of the many Christmas mailings we carried out in our office,” wrote Megrew. “And as surely as Christmas came we each year read a little 'poem' that was published in the Postmaster's Advocate. It gives a very true and amusing account of what postal workers are put through during the two or three weeks preceding the holiday.”

Bundles to the left of me, bundles to the right of me;

I hate bundles bitterly—bundles hate the sight of me.

Bundles of peculiar shape, bound with stuff like ticker tape;

Bundles short and bundles tall, bundles hardly tied at all.

Packages with awkward scrawlings, packages with “Love from Rawlings”.

Packages with stamps not ample, packages I'd love to trample.

Boxes, boxes, all about, boxes thin and boxes stout,

Boxes weak and boxes stronger, boxes that can't last much longer.

Things about to fall apart—cookies, clothing, fruit and art,

Wrapped up in a frightful hurry, so the postal clerks can worry.

Bundles giving forth strange tinkles, bundles full of funny wrinkles;

Bundles firm and square and bricky, bundles soft and loose and sticky.

Packages that aren't tied, sir—outsides insides, insides outsides, sir;

Bundles bound with thread, the dopes, bundles bound with heavy ropes.

People at the window talking, people squawking, squawking, squawking.

People angry, people snarly, cries of, “Well I'll write to Farley.”

Women pushing, ladies shoving, folks with faces most unloving;

Shouts from fretful men named Jervis, “Didja ever see such service!”

People with the meanest faces sending gifts to far off places;

“Merry Christmas!” Take my tip, it

Ain't convincing; you can skip it!