At 7:30 AM on February 1, a petite Viv Woodland arrived at her workstation at the main Post Office in Brattleboro to get her delivery readout for the day. She would deliver mail to 400 homes in town: 211 flats (magazines, advertising brochures, pamphlets), 577 letters and 110 packages (including a small heating stove weighing just under 70 pounds and a package from an Italian art store.)
Viv is one of Brattleboro’s nine “city carriers”. Each morning, as she has done for the past ten years, she arrives at her own “case”, a set of three 6’ high and long racks of mail slots that form a three-sided space, providing her with slots, one for each of the 400 addresses she delivers to.
Sometime before 4:00 AM, that morning’s delivery had arrived from the White River Junction, an automated distribution center. There, that day’s letters for Brattleboro had been automatically presorted in their proper delivery order for Viv’s route (and all the other carriers). The three “clerks”, colleagues of Viv’s, arrived at 4:00AM to sort all the "flats" along with all first and second class mail for each carrier into his or her area. Clerks have also stacked parcels for each carrier built in no particular order as each carrier would do that.
Like the other carriers in Brattleboro, Viv arrives at 7:30AM five days a week. After an hour or so, she has organized all of that day’s mail to her addresses into their delivery order. Viv and the other carriers then carry all that mail to their delivery trucks, in order of delivery. (As postal packages have risen dramatically since COVID, all mail delivery is now carried by vehicle, not the classic postperson with the day’s mail in a single satchel.) When Viv has delivered her first satchel loop, she walks back to her truck, moves ahead to the next of perhaps 17 stops for her day’s route and so forth.
Viv told me “I’ve delivered in this area for eight years: around Oak and High, up Western to Crosby, then out Spruce, up Chestnut Hill to Chase, end on Grove. I live in West Brattleboro but this feels more like my community. I know everyone by name on my route of 400 addresses. I probably speak to at least twenty people on any given day, see anywhere from 40-80 people a day to wave to and would recognize at least half of them if I saw them in town. Some are even staff members at my daughter Evelyn's Green Street School. Others are fellow members of my religious community at The Putney Quaker Meeting. Others are employees at downtown businesses as well as artisans whose work hangs in our home."
“I enjoy this very physical job largely because of all the people I meet every day, both my fellow-workers in the post office as well as all the people I meet on my route. I smile a lot in a workday.
“I also love being outdoors. I walk several miles each day, and that's pretty typical for street delivery here in town. I generally work five days a week, but we deliver mail six days a week, so I have a rotating day off.”
“My mood is affected by the weather too. I love the snow. It’s so beautiful – and then there’s Spring.... But ICE. That’s a problem: under foot, under wheel, falling from above. We carriers have to be VERY careful about ice on sidewalks, but thankfully we have guys on the town highway crew who look after us by removing that ice as best they can. And rain, too, is a real problem – you know – rain and paper? We’re out in all weather. We Just keep going.”
While interviewing Viv, I spotted a large poster in the cavernous main sorting room at the 150 year old Brattleboro Post Office: DOG BITE AWARENESS. Viv said, “Every carrier has a different attitude toward dogs but we have to be careful. We all know that dogs love their owners but they may not love us. We have to learn how the dogs on our routes feel about us.”
And there’s always the unexpected. "One day I was excited to have to deliver a package from Antarctica. I walked up onto the porch where a group of kids were gathered, anticipating their excited response to getting that package but their response was: “Oh yeah, that’s from our uncle.” But then there was the time in the Fall, 2022 when someone in California posted and Viv had to deliver a postcard written in 1921 that had long been misplaced and addressed to “Holland L. Smith, 24 Oak Street, Brattleboro, Vermont."
And what about Viv the person? She was born in 1980 and lived her early life in Lovettsville, Virginia (Pop 800), near Harpers Ferry and The Potomac River before going off to college. Her father is a retired middle/high school woodshop teacher; her mother, who has passed away, was a pediatric nurse and home-healthcare professional.
Viv’s daughter Evelyn is in third grade at The Green Street School in town. “My wife, Francesca Bourgault, has a few part-time jobs, one of which is the sound and lighting designer at The New England Youth Theater. " I enjoy taking my canoe and binoculars out on the Meadows to watch the birds in the summer and skating on the ice in the same location in the winter.”
"And I hope in this profile to show readers that we work hard for the public. We work hard to serve the role the Post Office plays in our democracy. One thing that I am proud to participate in as a letter carrier is the postal service mandate to provide "universal service." Everyone is entitled to mail delivery. Those with nothing and those with more than plenty should receive the same respectful service.
“The ‘establishment of post offices and post roads’ is in the constitution. Our daily work allows people to make use of the first amendment providing for free speech. We uphold that practice by delivering mail regardless of the sender's or receiver's beliefs, values, political affiliation, etc. You can see our participation in this democracy most clearly in the postal service's role during elections, as we handle not only all campaign materials with equal care, but ballots themselves, ensuring that all votes placed get to election officials to be fairly counted.”