Story by Jon Stalnaker AKA The Studebaker Dude
When was the last time you got a personal letter in the mail? It’s been a while for me, but I’ve gotta tell you, I loved it when I got my mail this morning, and there amongst the bills, solicitations, and the bulk mail that was meant for the guy that moved out of this house over 5 years ago, I found a personal letter from my friend Jim Goodland.
Carlene and I are both retired postal workers, and so is Jim. As people who had the privilege to deliver mail long enough to get a retirement, we all know how our customers always expressed great joy when we delivered personal letters. Letter carriers today probably see this only occasionally, but before the creation of the internet and phones, which you can fit in your pocket, we saw it all the time. That made the job so much fun. Remember the song “Wait a Minute, Mr. Postman”? Getting a letter in the mail was a big deal back then.
Sometimes it got frustrating to work so hard to deliver all those circulars to customers, only to have them say, “I hate getting all this junk mail”. One day I was delivering what we called a full coverage (ads for every house on the route) when a customer said to me “do you have any extra of those sale ads?” From that day forward, through the rest of my career, I never minded this task because that ONE lady told me she wanted it; and that was enough for me.
Jim and I have more in common than just a postal retirement. Jim is also a Studebaker guy. His dad worked for Studebaker from the beginning of WWII till Studebaker shut down automobile production in the the United States.
He used to have a small truck that had a bumper sticker that said, “Bail Out Studebaker”. I saw it in the parking lot of the post office where I worked, but I had no idea whose truck it was. I took a picture of it and used it as filler in the Studebaker club newsletter I edited at the time. Years later, when Jim bought a Studebaker—a 1954 Commander—and got involved in the club, I finally met him and found out that he was the guy who owned that truck. I showed him the picture I had taken long ago, and we both got a giggle out of it. It just so happened that he was also a partner to Marianne MacDonald, the Dixon friend that I just wrote a story about at the beginning of October. I called her the “Make-it-happener.”
It’s incredible that as much as we had in common, it took us so long to meet. We’ve been great friends since then. I used to joke that I owned 2/3rds of the Studebakers in the town of Dixon. I had two and he had one, but we were the only Studebaker owners in town that were regularly driving them around.
Marianne threw a birthday party for his Studebaker in 2014. The car was 60 years old that year. The party coincided with Jim’s birthday. He was a little older than 60, but the car came off the assembly line on his birthday. Just in case you think I’m being less than totally honest about this, I have a picture of the cake.
Jim started slowing down physically and his beloved Commander was difficult to drive and work on, so he sold it. He immediately suffered from seller’s remorse, and Marianne could see it in his eyes that he was suffering about it. Marianne, being the ultimate make-it-happener, managed to buy back his car and ship it back to Dixon from Wyoming. I was so impressed with that deed that I wrote a story that was published in the magazine for the Studebaker Drivers Club, Turning Wheels. That was back in May of 2018.
Jim’s health made it impossible to keep the car, regardless of how much he wanted to, so it’s gone again. When Marianne visited us a few weeks ago, I asked her if Jim might like to read my stories that I have put in a book. She took them home, and his letter was a response to the books. He said, in part, “just read your booklet cover to cover… and it struck me how much it reminds me of Mark Twain, who also frequently mentioned old age. He wrote in a newspaper article that old age is a matter of mind over matter, if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”
Getting a personal letter was special enough, but his compliment was beautiful and heartfelt. While I may question whether I deserve such a comparison, I must admit it was nice to hear. Unfortunately, now I have to go out and buy bigger hats. People ask me, “What do I miss most about California?” The answer is simple: It’s all the special friends we left behind, like Jim.
