The Altadena Post Office burned down too. Pretty much the entire population of Altadena has to go to the main Post Office in Pasadena to pick up their mail, because even if their house is still standing, the whole town is still circled with yellow “POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS” tape so nobody can get home to their mailboxes. Even if they could, the mail trucks aren’t allowed in either.
So I got in the long line snaking along the sidewalk in front of the Post Office, and the nice older man in front of me gave me the lowdown. You stand in this line to check in at the table with your driver’s license and they take down your address. Then you wait in the friendly mob spilling out into the parking lot until you hear them call your address, and you come forward and pick up your rubber-banded pile of mail. Packages will take longer because apparently they are just piling up on the floor inside and it’s taking them longer to process. Eventually you will get a “ready for pickup” slip and then you can pick up your package.
The nice man’s cranky wife looked up at the Post Office flagpole and said, “Look at that! That is just a disgrace!” The American flag and the black POW-MIA flag were flying at half mast, someone said it was to commemorate President Carter’s recent death. The American flag was pretty faded and a bit tattered, and black flag was actually shredding. “Can’t they have a little respect?” she said. “What, are they out of money or something?!” I made a meek little comment about how maybe it got kind of dirty from smoke, but that didn’t satisfy her one bit. When she got to the front of the line, she said to the startled Post Office clerk, “Look UP! Can’t you do something about that?” The staff consulted among themselves about who would actually be authorized to solve this problem (none of them, clearly), and the woman scowled and walked away.
What an amazing course in human nature I suddenly find myself enrolled in! When people seem to be misbehaving, the sociologist and author Brené Brown has taught me to chant to myself, “Everybody is doing the best they can, everybody is doing the best they can…” As I stood behind this woman, inching toward the front of the line together, I tried so hard to understand. The physical state of the flag in front of the Pasadena Post Office doesn’t matter to me one tiny bit. She took it as a huge insult. Earlier I had heard her snapping at her baggy-shorts-clad husband that he really needed to get out and buy himself some pants, so at a minimum she was probably tired, and afraid, and maybe even hungry. Maybe she is just a naturally cranky person. Then it occurred to me that maybe if you just don’t much like the government anyway, and suddenly you find yourself almost completely dependent on it to solve all of your brand new problems, maybe you think, “Well, the least they can do is make sure the damned flag looks good!” Maybe seeing a bright, beautiful, clean American flag snapping in the wind might cheer you up and make you feel a little more confident that things might be okay after all. And I tried to send a little blessing in her direction.
After I gave the clerk my address, I went over to sit on the curb to wait for my address to be called. I looked over and saw the most blindingly white sneakers on the feet standing next to me. After hearing my address called and retrieving my mail, I just had to walk over and ask: “Excuse me, but I have a ridiculous question. Do your sneakers always look that great, or did you just buy them at Target?”
He smiled. “Walmart!” And then he let me take that picture.
[Note: If this is the first fire-related post you have read, you might go back to read Fire Journal for some context. Fire-related posts will be in reverse chronological order starting with that one.]