One of the happiest memories I have is being a little kid, running outside to greet the mailman. At the time, I was living with m grandparents, who were getting on in years and were finally starting to slow down a bit. I was five years old, and any kind of physical activity I could do I probably should have done. Besides, I wanted to be helpful, so about 11:30 every morning that I didn’t go to church with my grandfather, I’d wait at the window next to the front door, and the moment I saw the mailman drive up Windsor Avenue, I’d bolt out to the mailbox, being careful not to trip over my own two feet on the sloped driveway or worse, wind up trampling my grandmother’s bed of creeping phlox. My reward? Having the guy in the postal worker uniform drive right up to me in the little Jeep, hand me the mail, saying, “Have a good day, sir!” and proceed to roll on to the next house. Hopefully, handing a pudgy kid mail and giving him a cheerful greeting kept him from fulfilling the other aspect of postal workers in the late 1980s.

Then, I blinked, and the little mail Jeeps were gone, instead replaced by something that looked for all the world like a air-freight dog kennel with headlights and taillights. The Grumman LLV had as much charm as a lukewarm dog pile compared to the cheerful little DJ-5 that brought the mail around. I always kind of wanted a DJ, probably because they were right-hand drive. In reality, I’d be disappointed…two-wheel-drive, and either an AMC six or the Iron Duke four for power. But, apparently, a Magnum 318 fits into a DJ just fine. See for yourself!