October 10, 2014

Mailboxes

By Asa Gallagher – Camp Burgess Director

There is no school today anywhere on Cape Cod, at least for the public schools.  This gave me the chance to spend some time this morning with my 9 year old daughter Sophie.  As usual on days like this we started out with breakfast at Café Chew, best breakfast in Sandwich, and then we walked down Stowe Rd. along the edge of Triangle Pond, extending out from the entrance of Camp Burgess.  She asked me why all the mailboxes on the road are located on one side only.  We talked about the route a mail truck takes on this specific road, and then it dawned on me that I had never noticed this before.  I have walked the camp road a thousand times in my life.  I do it to relax and to stay active, but also to stay connected with the camp neighborhood and all the nuances that help create its unique identity.  And there it was, my little Sophie discovering a fact that seems so obvious, but stays hidden until a moment like that.  We went on to talk about different patterns in this neighborhood beyond delivery routes.  I’ve been waiting for her to be old enough to have strange conversations like this.  We talked about who lives where and how they ended up there, about where the coyotes tend to gather along the water in the fall, and how cars tend to drive way too fast on very specific sections of the road.  I was probably boring her to tears, but it’s all her fault – she brought up the mailboxes.