By David K. Shipler
In this age
of self-serving politicians and corporate executives, and of resentment toward
big business and big government and everything else big that stomps on the
little guy, it is worth telling the story of an unassuming man who has put
loyalty to a community above financial security. This will not get national
attention, but it should.
First, the
geography and the logistics: For 28 years, L.J. Hopkins has loaded up his van
every day, six days a week, to meet a variety of needs among folks living on
two islands off the coast of Maine. He has driven onto the state ferry for its
mid-morning run from Bass Harbor to Swan’s Island, unloaded his cargo, and
returned to the mainland on an afternoon ferry. To get stuff to the other
island—Long Island’s town of Frenchboro, which has only two ferry trips a
week—L.J. has subcontracted with an island resident who has taken it in his
boat from Swan’s to Frenchboro.
L.J.’s work can be pretty frantic.
On the mainland he races around picking up urgently needed prescription
medicine, engine parts, groceries, and the like. If he can’t get it, you
probably don’t need it. He’s even taken two blown tires of mine off to the
mainland to get fixed, and brought them back. He transports FedEx and UPS
packages. And, most central to his financial well-being, he had a contract to
transport the mail to the Swan’s Island post office—until earlier this spring,
when small bureaucrats wielding excessive power prevailed. For decades before
him, his mother brought the mail as well.
(This account is not exactly the
official version, because the Postal Service’s regional public relations
spokesman, Stephen N. Doherty, failed to reply to any of my rather pointed questions.)
The shock came when the local
postmaster in the mainland town of Southwest Harbor, Mary Saucier, told L.J.
that Postal Service regulations prohibited a vehicle from carrying anything
other than mail. So, if L.J. wanted his $100,000-a-year contract, he could not
take anything else, no FedEx, no UPS, no prescriptions, no groceries, no tools
or parts to keep lobstermen’s engines running—nothing but mail.
