Special Delivery

Jeanne Wallace works for the Palmdale Post Office, usually sorting the mail and delivering along city routes.

But the high point of her week is Monday, when she drives the Leona Valley rural route through a mountain community about 10 miles west of Palmdale. Darting her dark blue 1973 Jeep on and off Elizabeth Lake Road to fill the roadside mailboxes, she savors the scenery and talks with the people she meets along the way.

Wallace, 35, lives in Palmdale with her husband, Randy, and their six children. Sitting in her living room with the kids darting about, she spoke about her once-a-week life on the road.

“Being a rural carrier was kind of my calling, but I didn’t know it. I just kind of fell into it. It’s so rewarding and it’s so satisfying. I love being outside. It beats working 9 to 5 in any store, anywhere, any day.

Being way out there in the country, nothing compares to it. I don’t care if it rains. I don’t care how hot it is. I don’t care, I want to be outside.

It gets pretty hot in the summertime because we’re in the desert. 105 in Leona Valley, 120 out in Little Rock. But it’s nice, because you can go in and use someone’s hose and get all wet, and you’re nice and cool. One day it was about 110 and I was on 90th (Street), and this guy was watering his flowers. I asked him if I could have a drink and he said, ‘Sure.’ Then I just stood there and I said, ‘Squirt me.’

He was like, ‘No way.’ I said, ‘Yes, come on, just squirt me, I want to be soaking wet.’ I turned around and let him drench me; that way it took longer to dry. You keep a lot cooler that way.

Last winter it rained a lot. Water was coming down Leona Avenue so fast and there was so much of it that it looked like a raging river. Your Jeep is so high up, you know you’re safe, but it’s still scary.

I’m an RCA, Rural Carrier Associate, which is a (substitute). I’ve been a sub for five years. It’s really hard to get your own route, but someday that’s what I want. I’d like this to be my career.

The Leona Valley route has about 500 boxes and over 60 miles of driving. I can do the route in 3 1/2 hours, but I like to take my time because it’s so relaxing and it’s so beautiful. San Francisquito Road is the end of my route. The ride out there is breathtaking.

One time I was way out on Elizabeth Lake Road and I saw a deer standing in this meadow eating grass, just standing there. I felt just like I was in the mountains way far away in Canada.

On the way back in, there’s a cherry orchard and I like to take my break there. There’s a little white fence, and I just sit on the fence and look around. It’s really pretty, lots of rolling hills. I like to sit there and relax and organize my Jeep.

Everybody I’ve ever met there is real small-town, friendly-like. Once you start talking to them, they’ll tell you their whole life story, if you sit there long enough. But, I’ve got to deliver the mail too. But there’s enough time for both.

When I first started I had a Mustang, a regular left-hand-drive car. I used to sit in the middle on the console, on a towel, because it had bucket seats, and drive with my left hand and use my left foot: gas, brake, gas, brake, put the mail out the right-hand window.

Then I bought a Jeep, a ‘73; it was older than dirt. My first Jeep was ‘Old Betsy.’ Poor ‘Old Betsy,’ I miss that Jeep. It was the first real job I ever had, so my Jeep meant a lot to me. It helped me, it was my partner.

I had that Jeep two years and then the transmission went out of it up on Godde Hill Pass. I had to put it in reverse to get to the top, then coasted down to the bottom and drove to the Leona Valley Post Office in reverse, on the right side of the road, but in reverse. I called the Palmdale Post Office, and they brought me a regular government Jeep that I could use until I bought the Jeep that I have now.

My Jeeps are my partners. I feel close to them. I love my Jeeps. I always pat my Jeep in the morning, ‘Come on, let’s go to work now.’ ”