The mail must go through in spite of rain, wind and snow, it was once said. Rust, however, apparently wasn’t in the equation.
One handicapped Ripon  senior citizen and U.S. Air Force veteran Joe Podrasky got upset when he said he was told by a next door neighbor that he would have to get his mail for his home in the 700 block of Nancy Drive at general delivery at the post office for at least three weeks while postal officials waited for approval from Sacramento to replace a cluster box that had failed.
Podrasky said he countered with his own idea that would be much faster and cost less.  One piece of flat metal could be welded at the base and attached to the box in much less time – about half an hour – and for a lesser cost, he argued – but that would be too simple, he added.
He said there are eight homes on his street that now have to drive to the post office on Main Street every day to get their mail before it closes for the day.
The cluster box that broke off was three houses east of his home for even numbered addresses with another directly across the street for the odd numbered addresses of homes like his in the area. He added that when he was told he would have to go downtown to get his mail, he countered with the fact that he was disabled and the post office should bring it to him.
The cluster box across the street is already showing signs of rust that had eaten through its base as well.
Complaining that the post office didn’t contact him that they couldn’t deliver his mail, he said it was probably in the mail already and at the counter waiting for him to go and pick it up.
He noted that he was told they couldn’t deliver to his house because he did not have a mail slot in his door suggesting that he might just go down to the local Schempers’ Hardware Store and buy a metal rural deliver mail box and put it on his front porch. 
It is Postal Service policy that a post master can’t speak to reporters about mail issues but rather defers any questions to district offices in Sacramento and San Francisco.

To Contact Glenn Kahl, email gkahl@mantecabulletin.com.