Once upon a time we had our names on our mail boxes and pickup trucks.
I miss both.
I’m not sure what changed in the last half-century to compel country folks to put only numbers, rather than names, on their rural mailboxes.
It’s a whole lot different from when I was a boy. Half the farms on our road had Daricraft milk producer signs out front. Nobody was ashamed of being a farmer or who they sold milk to.
Battered mailboxes on posts anchored in milk cans had both the resident’s name and box number lettered on the sides. Skillfully painted or simply scrawled, the names on the boxes aided mail carriers, DHIA milk testers, Watkins drummers and hosts of other folks who had important business with country folks.
Further, they were like mile markers on country roads, useful in both giving and following directions, such as “Turn left on the first road past the Hamilton place, go on past Lowell Farless’s, cross the creek (watch the intersection at the top of the hill) and keep goin’ on past Freddie Sweaney’s and the Jeffries places and you’ll see Mount Olive Cemetery on the right and the church just across the road.”
Clear as spring water if folks have names on their mail boxes. Not so clear if you’re a stranger in the neighborhood and mailboxes have nothing but numbers.
While some country folks still proudly display their names on mailboxes, placards or even carved logs, a good many don’t. As a result, I find myself wondering “Who lives there?” when I pass a really nice place, and I generally have no way of knowing. I’m confident that’s the idea.
I reckon some people who live out in the sticks do so because they don’t want to be found, and in today’s world I can’t say I blame ‘em.
Still, it’s a whole lot different today from when I was a boy.
Names and addresses on pickup trucks were just as handy as names on mailboxes.
I don’t know when the law changed – guess it was law – but I’m sure it was before I bought my first used pickup in 1977. Otherwise, I would have had my name on a blue 1968 Dodge. Dad would have seen to it.
Truck signs were a worthwhile sideline for Dad. Mentored by my mom’s dad – a Springfield sign painter for more than 50 years – Dad became a pro at lettering pickup trucks with the required signage. With a steady hand and good sense of spacing, he hand-lettered hundreds of new and used pickups over a span of dozens of Saturdays at the Chevrolet garage in Marshfield, Mo.
Dad provided new truck owners just what they needed – attractive lettering of all the law required, done quickly right there on the Chevy lot at a bargain price. I think he charged $3 a side. With a bottle of oven cleaner, he could also remove old signs without harming the truck paint.
Some folks may have thought the lettering marred the looks of a truck, but Dad’s signs were neat and distinctive. A few of ‘em are still around.
I liked seeing truck signs. I figured the sign on Dad’s 1948 Ford pickup served us well when I was a boy. Folks didn’t have to wonder who was hunting in the woods east of Hogeye or fishing below Potter’s Ford on the Pomme de Terre. The name and address behind the door assured them we were local folks — just Harold and his boys — and we would leave no gates open or trash piled up.
I never really understood the reluctance of pickup owners to have their names on the sides of their trucks. Didn’t they want any to know who owned their fancy wheels? Maybe not. I suppose the sign requirement changed as pickups became more like family cars, rather than work vehicles.
Hardly anyone has his name on a family truck today. I’m no different. I’ve never had a permanent sign on a personal pickup, but I did have Dad letter our Buffalo Reflex van in 1984.
Of course, everyone who saw that van with our distinctive Buffalo Reflex logo didn’t necessarily know the Reflex was a newspaper. While stopped at the visitor center at the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona I was approached by a couple who asked if we were a rock band.
I guess one of the down sides of truck signs is that we’re never anonymous. They make it awfully hard to slip into town unnoticed or stop at places we shouldn’t. But, that’s only a problem if you go places you shouldn’t, and you’re fooling yourself if you think nobody knows. Everyone around Buffalo knows my yellow Ranger. A sign wouldn’t make me any more obvious.
On the whole, though, I reckon the Ozarks is a different place today. Everyone doesn’t know everyone else’s pickup truck.
Mandatory or not, I still like seeing farm or ranch names on pickups. The same goes for names on rural mailboxes.
They just make it seem a friendlier world.
Even if it really isn’t.
Copyright 2024, James E. Hamilton; email [email protected]. Read more of his works in Ozarks RFD 2010-2015, available online from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or from the author.
