Mailbox Envy

Many homeowners in the Lake Worth area express themselves through their mailboxes. Here's my favorite, although it's actually located on Hypoluxo Island.

A pick-up truck just can't compare.

Curb and kitsch appeal!

Owners mark the season, too.

As you might expect marine critters, sea shells, beach glass and anchors decorate many.

Birds, too.

I'll bet more than one winged creature mistook this for a house.

Fruit, flowers and palms.  The pineapple symbolizes hospitality.

Christianity gets its due, too.  This mailbox, in front of the garage, is mounted on a cross.

Others evade categorization, except perhaps store-bought with minimal customization.

Some mailboxes, like their owners, have seen better days.

Multiple dwellings inhibit expressions of personality.

2024 Update:

I finally got around to decorating our mailbox at the Florida Folly with a series of stamps the Post Office issued to commemorate the 20th century, decade by decade.  Mayor Betty Resch stopped by to take a peek while campaigning for re-election. 

2025 Update:

What was I thinking?  The Florida weather--bright sunshine frequently alternating with torrential rain--destroyed our collage mailbox despite several coats of fixer.

Sag Harbor (4*)

Who knew?  Colson Whitehead describes an African American summer community as lovingly as I chronicle my life in the Pines.  The big difference is that the two boys whose hijinks he describes presumably grew into men.  Sag Harbor is more about coming of age than arrested development. 

WPB Walk

West Palm Beach memorializes MLK just a few blocks south of Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach.  It's time, city fathers, it's time.

That's Palm Beach behind all those bobbing masts on the Intracoastal.

I've been getting more and more into filtering on my i-Phone.

A desire to deviate from my same old, same old walks in Lake Worth led me to the Northwood neighborhood in West Palm Beach.  

Note the palm tree in relief near the top.

Sunset turns the sky pink over Palm Beach.

Sweet Invasion

The prospect of visitors interrupted my Folly routine.  Getting Thom's Mercedes SL 400 washed topped the priority list.  It was the least I could do for the neighborhood's most expensive loaner!  Sergio's hand car wash in Lantana--outside the Rocket station, which sells the cheapest supreme grade fuel in the area--did a superb job.

Unfortunately the Benz is useless for more than two people.  With Magda, Joe & Dagny we were five en route to the Sawgrass Mills Outlet Mall.  Here's a glimpse of how that went.

Thom and Chris discovered the mall in January where they dropped a bundle at J Lindeberg, a Swedish chain.  Dagny slept through the Gator Glam installation.

Joe modeled a John Varvatos jacket at my insistence.  Call it mohair vicariousness.  But even at a steeply discounted $1200, neither of us was going to spend that kind of coin.

We hit the annual street painting festival on Sunday morning.  Thom and I take it for granted, but Magda said it increased the hipness quotient of Lake Worth by a huge factor.

I wonder what Gustav would think if he knew he was being sponsored by Flooring King?

Many artists tried to protect their work from weekend showers with plastic drop cloths.

Sudden precipitation nearly washed away this "Singin' in the Rain" canvas.  It's one of Magda's favorite movies.  I've never seen the whole thing.

Dagny did a superb job imitating the Mona Lisa smile.  Even at 20 months, she can be enigmatic!

But still too young to appreciate her grand uncle's taste in wheels.  I had hoped to take her for a neighborhood spin in Thom's coupe, but Magda & Joe put the kibosh on that.

I certainly survived my formative experience with a German convertible!  Although one could argue that the early jumpsuit definitely resulted in my adult passion for overalls.

The ladies loved the Folly pool.

Monday finally provided another day of beach weather.

Dagny may not remember this year's visit, but I'm hoping it will become an annual thing!

More Street Painting:

Blizzard vs. Street Painting (2026)

Duck Lip Grannies (2025)

Lake Worth's Big Weekend (2024)

Artists @ Work (2023)

Artistic Tanning (2022)

Tweed, Not Tweet (2019)

Homesteading (2018)

Normal People (4*)

Marianne's masochism is the only element that gave me pause in Sally Rooney's incisive, compulsive page-turner about a Millennial relationship between a smart, unloved rich girl and the son of her household's maid, a single mother.