Day 12/365 Our New Deal Post Office

This is where I end up when I close off an email with "leaving to go ship".
This is the Rocky Mount Post Office, built by FDR's New Deal WPA
program in the 1930s. Inside there is a beautiful old mural that has been restored and cleaned to the original colors (yes I will get a photo one of these days). ***Addendum -7-26-08 - No, I won't get a photo of the inside and the mural. Turns out trying to do that upsets Homeland Security. ***

Just inside the front door is the old style dark wooden original architecture, with the newer glass doors added into that. Within the last year, I've switched to online postage, and it is more efficient, saves me time, uses barcoded labels that speed up shipping time, etc etc. But I miss standing in line at the post office and hearing all the local gossip, talking to my postal clerks (who are the best in the entire postal system), and seeing some of the local characters around Rocky Mount, who all seem to congregate at the post office.

Ebay has literally kept this post office alive - I once heard an estimate that maybe half of the business passing though here is due to ebay sellers.

I sometimes wonder if ebay realizes the extent to which they have become incorporated into people's livelihoods, not just on a individual level, but even to the USPS or office supply stores.

Tomorrow is another book sale day and it's box day on top of that, meaning I can buy as many books as I can stuff into a box, for $1-2.00 per box. Yes, we are taking the van and yes, we have added air to the tires. Wish us luck.

Day 2/365 The Bright House on Court Street

Today's photo is of our house - we've lived here 11+ years and this is the first picture I've taken of the front of it. The trees have gotten out of hand, so it's starting to look like Boo Radley lives here.

This is our third historic house (the first one was an 1875 Victorian gable that started out as a log house with a loft, then was built around that, the second was a 1900 Arts and Crafts that was hands-down our favorite house). This one - well, it's an experience.

It was built in 1858, by a man named Samuel Bright, on land that was originally an apple orchard in the 1700s. Samuel was the village tanner/saddler, and built our house for his daughter and her new husband. The couple lived here for two years before the Civil War exploded, and the husband went off to war, while his bride moved back in with her parents next door. Poor Samuel had just that year (1860) started another house (across the street from us) for his other daughter, and her new husband. He was a doctor, and left immediately with the local company to serve as medic in the war. He and his wife were still living with Samuel while their house was being built, so that daughter remained with her parents, and the house, with its one wall, just waited four years till the war was over. So Samuel ended up with one empty house (ours), a one-wall house (across the street) and both of his daughters back home with him and his wife and remaining 7 children.

One hundred and forty three years later, there are no more Bright's in town, and the three houses have gone through several owners, but otherwise they look pretty much as they did at the end of 1865. Our house still has the original window panes (and the original drafty windows), the five fireplaces, the American chesnut tree trunks that were used to built the main supports and walls, the solid worn plank oak flooring, and the wide woodwork and 8 foot tall pocket doors. Samuel's daughter would have no trouble recognizing her bedrooms, or her sitting parlor, but would miss the outdoor separate kitchen that stood where our garage stands now, as well as the barn that took up most of the backyard, and the lane that ran along the back to allow access for the horses. The last cherry tree from their orchard died 10 years ago, the apple trees are long gone, but the walnut tree is still there, and bearing bumper crops every year.

Samuel's house still stands next door (built in 1798), and the second house he built stands across the street, listed in the historic registry for being the home of Dr. Thomas Greer, the son-in-law medic who came home from the Civil War, to his one-wall house and his patient father-in-law.