Mail Carriers Jump Through Hoops and Over Lakes

Lake Geneva residents have unique mail delivery

Mail carriers have to put up with a lot to get their job done: rain, sleet, gloom of night, angry dogs, etc.

But the postal workers in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, have one added worry: staying above water.

During the summer, approximately 60 residences along the lake receive their mail by boat. That's no surprise.

But what's unique about the delivery is that the boat never stops. A mail carrier—usually a teenager or college student looking for a summer job—has to leap off the front of the boat, run down the dock, dodge the outdoor furniture, shove the envelopes into a mailbox, and run back to the boat before it pulls away.

Oh, and he's got to jump off and on the boat accurately, lest he land in the lake below.

The boat's rather small, so the whole process has to take place in a matter of seconds, the AP reports.

The U.S. Postal Service has been delivering the mail this way at Lake Geneva since 1916. Nowadays, the mail is carried on a tour boat, which can carry up to 150 people at a time. So not only do the tourists get a nice view of the resort town, but they get a little excitement watching the mail carrier make the challenging delivery.

It might sound like a difficult job, but everyone gets a big kick out of it, from the audience to the residents to the jumpers themselves.

"It's something I've always dreamed of doing, and now I'm living the dream," 16-year-old Oliver Pringle of Barrington said, reports the AP.

So next time one of the Lake residents receives some soggy mail, they can blame the next door neighbor's exceptionally long dock.

Matt Bartosik is a Chicago native and a social media sovereign.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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