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Leftover/Surprise Birthday Shower By Eric K. Jackson

On Saturday June 21,2008 the letter carriers at the Bala Cynwyd post office held a cookout/surprise baby shower for letter carrier Kathleen Rannali. But what started out as a day we looked forward to almost became a big disappointment.

About four years ago, at the Bala post office, we stated a tradition of cooking out and socializing as a way to cap off the hard work put into the Letter Carrier Food drive. Everyone brings in covered dishes, the sunshine club provides funding which we buy burgers, hotdogs, sausage, and actually one year we had filet mignon. After this year’s “Buzzy Palooza (named after retired Bala letter carrier Vincent Filiponi) we had a lot of leftovers. So when Diane McGuire approached me regarding having something for Katie, I thought it was a great idea. I gave her $20.00 for Katie and after consulting Martin Ferris our “Director of fun and games”) the leftover/surprise baby shower was on!

So, after returning from the street and facing the daunting task of sorting the donations out, I was approached with the news that the Postmaster had disallowed it on the premises. Of course he had a standing invitation and knowledge that this goes on every year. Monday morning he approached me and said he didn’t want any problems from the District.

But being postal workers that we are, we are used to management reneging on promises (understood or not). On this day, we would not let him rain on our parade. We quickly changed the venue to a local park.

The affair turned out much better than we could have imagined. It lasted about two hours. Many people attended. Bob Miller Sr. even stopped buys on his weekend off (way to go Bob). Katie was very surprised to see all of us and the gifts for her. All in all, a good time was had by all. I’d like to thank Diane McGuire and Joan Renshaw for getting the gifts, collecting the money and coming up with the idea. Also, Marty Ferris gets our gratitude for everything else. It’s nice to know that even in the mist of our very stressful existence as postal workers, we can find time to celebrate being human beings as well.

We are looking forward to getting together soon as “co-workers”.

P.s. Can you believe that Ray Milanese didn’t give away the surprise to Katie?

I love you Bala!

Eric K. Jackson
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