The Scent of a Postman

(Originally published 3-14-14)

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Nigro family's local mail carrier was a fellow named Louie. Never without a cigar in his mouth as he made his appointed rounds, he was a memorable postman from a bygone era. His cigar was his calling card and how we—fortunate enough to be among his route—knew that the day’s mail had arrived.

In fact, our front door was typically unlocked during the waking hours, and Louie would enter the hallway leading to the upstairs apartment and place the mail on the bottom step. In his wake there was always that distinctive cigar bouquet. Occasionally, he would ask to use the toilet. Our family dog, Ginger, did not care much for company of any kind, especially mailmen, but Louie’s fearlessness won the day. As he delivered the mail, he could regularly be heard exclaiming, “Shut up!” to the loudly barking Ginger. Eventually, Ginger accepted Louie’s familiar cigar wafts and cries of “Shut up!” as par for the course. Louie the mailman was not an unwelcome intruder after all and received a tepid wag of the tail from her as he made his presence known.

Recently, I thought about Louie and our past open-door policy. The late 1970s were a high crime time in New York City, my Bronx neighborhood included. Yet, vestiges of the mentality from a more neighborly past endured. As a little kid, I do not ever remember using a key, because the door was always open. Neither Louie nor I needed one.

Back in the Louie the Mailman era, nobody could ever have envisioned the post office would one day be on the rocks. It seemed that post offices and mail carriers were eternal, and that generation after generation would covet taking the post office test for a job with security and good benefits. It is where my father plied his trade for a quarter of a century. But this tax season revealed once more why Louie and his vaunted employer face uncertain times. While I still mail tax returns to the IRS, I did not get the tax package in the mail, which once upon a time was the norm for everybody. Courtesy of technology, there is so much lost postal business in too many places to count. I fear the scent of a cigar-chomping postman may one day be only a smell memory. Fortunately, Louie retired to Florida in the early 1980s when the going was still good. I am sure he is delivering mail now—with his old aplomb and cigar in hand—somewhere beyond the Pearly Gates.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)