The Mail: Pete

This continues a series on the real mail I've recently received and the person behind the parcel.

The contents, carefully highlighted and date stamped

Once a quarter, I receive a #10 envelope in the mail with the characteristic handwriting I have known all my life. The return address on this quarter's envelope didn't even have the return address, just the city name and the ZIP+4: 18505-4022. There is only one person that addresses mail so cryptically, and that would be my father.

My dad is a Virgo like me, a helper with a soft heart and a weird sense of humor. I was the firstborn of three daughters, and rumor has it, my dad was convinced I was a boy in utero. I probably would have been Pete the Third, but he gave me that X chromosome. As a kid, I spent a lot of time with my dad going for rides in the car to learn about the interstate highway system and license plates; riding bikes along the Lackawanna River; helping him to mow lawns; balancing his checkbook with him (not even joking); hanging out at the bowling alley to play pinball; playing catch in the backyard; going to minor league baseball games; and numerous other ordinary things that dads and daughters do together. When my friends would come over, my dad loved to bust their chops, but he would do anything for them. They all still love Pete to this day. A few said they wished my dad was their dad.

My dad's first butterfly survey.
He was a good sport.

Pete is now enjoying a well-earned retirement after a 25-year career with the Scranton Fire Department. Prior to that, he worked for a bank in a number of different roles, but he felt that a union job would help him provide for his family, which it did, although many cost-saving measures were instituted, like one-ply toilet paper (a hot commodity today); shopping at Kmart when my friends were going to the brand new downtown mall; and refusing to get touch-tone telephone service because it cost $1/month until the phone company forced him to. "That's $12/year times 20 years," he exclaimed. No doubt, this helped pay for my expensive college education.

My dad likes to collect things. For a while, it was aluminum cans and scrap metal, but now that he, my mom, and my youngest sister have moved into a new home, he's been collecting things for his refurbished garage/man cave, like road signs, license plates, and other vintage metal memorabilia. He also collects things to send to me, which brings me to the #10 envelope and its contents.

The dateline reads "Palmless Pandemic Sunday," and he goes on to tell me about some things he's been doing around his estate, that his buddy will be retiring from the used car business soon, and that he's also scrapped enough to pay for gas to come to visit me this summer—that is when we are able to travel again. He enclosed a few newspaper clippings: one quoting a Kent State professor of public health, a letter to the editor about how pasta dinners are going to be everyone's go-to fundraiser once quarantine is over, and one featuring my friend Sr. Lisa, who brought students from Florida to Scranton for a service trip. He might be one of the last people who reads the paper cover to cover every day. He also enclosed a check: "Go buy yourself an ice cream cone!" This was something his grandmother would say to him and he continues that tradition.

A very iconic Pete pose.

In concluding this post, I leave you with my father's traditional valediction: "Take it eetz!"

If you're scratching your head, just imagine an old Italian dude in a pizza shop saying this to you as take your pizza out the door. That's where he got it from, after all.