Postal Memories & Postal Movies

In writing about my visit to the Postal Museum with GoofGirl, I forgot the most important and interesting thing. 

When I went back to College after delivering the mail all summer I made up fantastic tales of the doings at the post office.

Kicking it back and forth with my friend David Schneider, we start sketching out a movie centering around corruption at the post office. We didn't get very far with it, just had some fun.

Fast forward five years. I was driving cross-country with a friend who was relocating to LA. My plan was to stay with Dave (who was making his way as a screen-writer) for a few days in LA while I waited for my then girlfriend - now the long-suffering MamaGoof - to fly out to LA. From the Grand Canyon I gave Dave a call (this was before cellphones became ubiquitous). I was telling him my planned ETA and he responded, "Sure, but can you come in that afternoon instead of that night?"

"Sure, we can always leave Vegas earlier. But, why?"

"Your movie is opening."

"What? Huh?"

"Remember our movie about corruption at the post office, will we wrote it, it was made, and it's opening that night."

Well okay then.

In fairness, the movie Address Unknown - which was a great boys adventure - was only vaguely linked to the ideas we had kicked around years before. But there was a corrupt postmaster, so it was sort of our story. Dave and his co-author Drew were kind enough to introduce me around as the original inspiration.

(The trailer is here - I don't know why it has Dutch subtitles.)

So, there it was. I was at the Hollywood opening night of MY movie. Many have had the dream. I lived it - thanks to a summer job at the post office.