Whatsit Wednesday: Mailbox

When we first traveled to the Netherlands, on campaign back in the 1980’s, a lot of what we did for the campaign came down to distributing flyers to invite people to some preaching and singing. We walked all over cities in the Netherlands, up stairs in the big cities, in and out of small front yards in the less urbanized sections of the cities. We became quite practiced at shoving flyers into mailboxes. But we also had to become practiced at finding the mailboxes. 

In the Netherlands many front doors have a special flap put into the door through which mail is placed. These are easy to find. The ones in the old style even say “letters” or “brieven” on them. But some of these slots are much harder to find. They are simply vertical slots in the wall next to the front door. If a bush grows next to the door - as often is the case in a good Dutch front yard - then finding the slot is quite a challenge. 

For those without a slot in the door or wall, there are special mailboxes. Of course people who want to individualize their garden have special mailboxes: some looking like little houses on a stick, others presenting as modern marble-like columns and others a simple box. 

But often there would be a generic green box witha red lock on it. The lock was so that no one can steal your mail. These boxes were most often to be found at the beginning of the small front yard, making it possible to place the mail without having to walk up the yard to the door. 

When we first moved into our house in Belgium, we were accosted one day by the mailman on his bike. Our house is on the street. We do not have a front yard. Our mailbox was just inside a small open entranceway shielding our door from the rain and presenting a nice architectural arch. The postman announced that our mailbox was illegal. He had to be able to reach the box without getting off his bicycle or out of his car (if he came in a car). The box could not be too high or too low. Otherwise we would not get our mail. 

So our mailbox is on the outside wall at just the right height so that our postman can stop with his bike, put his feet on the ground and fish in his front basket for any mail that might be ours. Of course these days we do not get much real mail. Most of it is advertisements for the local stores. But the mailbox is legal and we are happy that our postman is happy. 

(If you look closely you can see the dog we have been dog sitting the last few weeks)