Sandy Dahl is not some woman that I met on an online dating service. She is a customer that I see at my station approximately twice a week. Sandy's has a far more interesting past and present than I will ever have.

I just ordered a 2006 movie from my Comcast On-Demand service and it is playing in the background while I am writing this blog. When I am at work, I know that Joanie and Diablo watch their favorite TV show called "168." This TV program is what most of us humans know as the show called "24" but their's is in dog years......

There is so much garbage on television especially about the Obama vs. McCain issue. Enough already!! Even on the internet, the big diatribe is about some loser with no life at all that hacked into Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail account. With enough effort, I am sure anyone can do a Yahoo Search and find Sarah's inbox online right now. Believe me, it isn't worth the effort. All you will find are messages by Sarah's relatives, her co-workers and a few juvenile written love letters by a postal worker named Mark. Please, don't bother with this one! :)

And enough about the "lipstick on a pig" jokes!!!!

If you want to see a pig in lipstick, here it is!!! Doesn't our PMG Jack Potter look wonderful in hussy red!! But this wasn't what I wanted to write about............

I am writing about my newest friend, Sandy Dahl. Her name is insignificant to most of us, but her husband played an important role in the history of events in 2001.

Sandy's husband, Jason Dahl, was the pilot on American Airlines Flight 93 that crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania on September 11th. Jason and Sandy Dahl had lived in Littleton, Colorado for seven years before that fateful day. I never got the chance to meet Jason Dahl, but I had met Sandy perhaps 40 times before knowing who she truly was.

Sandy visits our post office with international parcels with those bothersome customs forms addressed as "Chatfield Bird Sanctuary." I had no idea with whom I was dealing with. On occasions, Sandy would receive Certified letters from government agencies. Three weeks ago, I jokingly asked her if she a spy from the CIA or if she was a postal inspector. I swear with my hand up, when she told me the whole story about her life - I felt three inches tall!!!!

I had not talked to Sandy for three weeks until today. She was the one who broke the ice and said, "YOU are the federal worker!! Maybe YOU are the one from the CIA!" We both laughed and the transaction at the window went on as it normally did before but Sandy and I talked for awhile - even at the expense of holding up the line a little longer. Mystery shopper be damned!! We swapped phone numbers and addresses and hers will be at the top of my black book.

It is not what you are thinking.........can you imagine the stories she has to tell? Being a part of 9/11 history!! Today, I drove up to her house after work and she only lives 3 miles from me AND she is a coffee fiend too!!! A neighbor like her, and I never knew!

Sandy's children have since gone to college since that tragedy and she has a beautiful bird sanctuary in her large backyard. She raises injured falcons, hawks and bald eagles. Sandy's favorite bird happens to be the bald eagle. Bald Eagles are the national bird that symbolize soaring into freedom - unfornately the horned owls in Colorado haven't learned the fact will try to harm the bald eagles.

Right now, as I am watching the movie Flight 93 on Comcast from a different perspective (although some of its fictional according to Sandy), I realize that we us humans without an elitist background, like her husband Jason,  can still become heroes.  By expanding our moral circles, and recognize everyone as one of God's creations with a common fate. We need to put aside our arrogance,  collect our ignorance and find our courage deep inside all of us. It can be difficult, but that is the only way of fighting intolerance and indifference against all of us.

At the strangest times, God will place a "bird lady" in your life to teach you a valuable life lesson.

When a good looking black man dressed in fine clothing parked his rickety ten-speed bike outside of the Oasis Lounge in town, the customers heard him before the saw him and everyone knew to prepare for another round of Isaac.

The tall, athletically chiseled man would immediately barge his way into conversations, stirring debate, often just for the sake of debate. If anyone listened, he would eventually steer the conversation toward his favorite subject: Himself. He would ramble about his days as an star athlete at Louisiana State University, and his days as a truck driver and a rural carrier for Strasburg, Colorado.

Yes, yes, the people at the Oasis would say. They had heard all the stories. Some of them even knew that those stories were actually true. But enough already!! The owners of the Oasis actually put up a sign behind the bar .

"SHUT UP ISAAC!" it read.

People who learned to appreciate Isaac Johns called him "eccentric," or "colorful. " Others called him "cantankerous," or simply "a pain in the ass."

Still, most of them seemed to agree on one thing: He could talk for hours, elegantly and incessantly.........If only he had learned how to listen.

Isaac didn't just tell tall tales - he lived them.

He grew up in New Orleans and lived in the B.W. Cooper housing projects which have been recently torn down. He attended McDonough High School at the same time I did, but we were never close friends - I just knew who he was by his reputation. I remember that he THE football star of our team. He always surrounded by the cheereleaders in his flat top haircut.

(The picture above was in a letter from my 20th high school reunion -  the school didn't know that Isaac had quit his job as a rural carrier.)

After graduation, Isaac went to Louisiana State University on a football scholarship. This was about the time I lost touch him. I had moved to Denver at that time. In a game against Alabama in 1991, Isaac was tackled and received a career ending ACL injury. His football playing days were over.

Isaac went into a depression and  crawled into a bottle of Jack Daniels. Eventually, Isaac was placed on academic suspension and never finished college. Isaac was aware enough about his drinking problem to get help.

A year later, Isaac got an over the road truck driving job with Consildated Freightways for the next 6 years. One of his stories was that he was driving near Rapid City, South Dakota and saw a station wagon off of Interstate 90 in a horrible snowstorm. The family car slid off the road into a huge snow drift. Isaac found the wagon and pulled the family from safety. Just in case you didn't believe him, he readily carried that 1996 newspaper clipping from the Rapid City Journal to show everyone.

Another time, Isaac was drinking in a bar in Garland, Texas. Apparently, there was a rowdy customer inside and Isaac took him on and won. A bartender phoned the police and the troublemaker turned out to be one of Dallas' most wanted criminals. Once again, Isaac had the newspaper clipping from the Dallas Morning News to prove it.

While Isaac was a truck driver, he had met a woman named Claudia who eventually rode with him everywhere. Somewhere along the line, Claudia met another man and left him. Isaac made the same mistake and became best friends with Jack Daniels. Consolidated Freightways fired him after he produced a "hot" urine test.

Events take a twist in 2002. On my night off from work (I was working as a DBCS Clerk on Tour 1 back then) - I met some of my co-workers at the nearby Oasis Lounge. In the background, I heard a familiar voice. It turned out to be my high school alumist Isaac. Isaac and I were surprised to see each other after 14 years of time and 1,000 miles from our hometown.

It was obvious that Isaac was down on his luck and I knew people in Denver that could help him out. I gave him the name of Ethel Allen who ran a restaurant in town and was my first supervisor in my first job in Denver. She is VERY generous with food. In 2002, I knew that the Postal Service badly needed rural carriers and I gave him Char Ehrenshaft's (the district's HR's phone number.) Of course, Isaac said that he wasn't like me and that he made his own luck and fortune and that he didn't need anyone's help. Char phoned me back one day and said that Isaac began work as a rural carrier in Strasburg, Colorado and also told me that he was the most stubbornest person she ever met.

Five years had past since I heard from Isaac. From the postal grapevine I had heard that Isaac had quit his job. Apparently, he gave no reason. He just walked in one day and gave his two weeks notice.

I caught up with Isaac in that same dive, the Oasis, where I saw him years before. By this time, all of the staff and regular customers knew him very well. He rode a ten-speed bike instead of driving his car. The Oasis employees let him eat at the breakfast buffet for free provided he would wash dishes and set tables. The regular customers love to debate Isaac on politics and sports and they didn't seem to mind his company.

One of the regular customers, Regina, became close to him. She knew that if she did the opposite of what others did - Isaac would be happier. Instead of debating with him constantly - she decided to love him. Even when Isaac's liver failed from his past alcoholism, she still cared for him.

Last Saturday, Isaac died from liver failure at the age of 38. Regina was in mood for talking but I got the chance to ask her why she stuck by Isaac's side. Regina said, "I'm not the kind of person who resents people for the past. It's easy for me to forgive." When I asked her if that sense of care was ever returned, she just cried and remained quiet.

For those of us who knew Isaac and I would have to include those regulars at the Oasis that saw him daily - what one thing that has changed since we rubbed shoulders with him.

It would be finally........... a moment of silence.

There is always something new going on around us. I was reading this site before I started writing on here. While reading Carrie's blog, I read something about a new book series called The Twilight Saga. Apparently, it is already a best seller. Shortly after reading Carrie's blog, I was on the phone with my postal friend Barry talking about today's Denver Broncos game.

During our conversation, I asked Barry if his wife Brittany had ever heard of The Twilight series. Barry didn't need to ask. Apparently, these books were one of the birthday presents that he bought for her last July!! I could hear Brittany talking in the background, "What rock has Mark been hiding under!" Okay, I'm sold! - I am going to buy The Twilight series after work tomorrow because I like to read good books. I will have to add "reading good books" on my updated profile when I finish this blog.

After reading Carrie's blog, I am also picturing a postmaster who would get upset if someone removed a mouse corpse from the breakroom. Does her drunken boyfriend  smell like this and she has grown accustomed to the stench? Sometimes you can put lipstick on a postmaster but........I forgot about this one! That line has already been used.

I am sure everyone on this site heard about the flack Obama received over using the line "you can put lipstick on a pig - but it is still a pig."

I am not an Obama fan, but I truly don't believe he made that remark as an insult to Sarah Palin. However, given that Obama has made other remarks that some people think were poorly thought out, - (such as when he said if one of his daughters made a mistake and got pregnant out of wedlock, he wouldn't want her to be punished with a child) -  I do think he should have realized that such a comment would be taken as an insult to Palin... simply because of the timing and coincidence with the comment she made during her speech at the GOP convention.

For me, I'm not up in arms thinking he insulted her, I'm bothered that he repeatedly shows poor judgement in choosing his words and seems to speak without thinking things through and he has a knack for not admitting his mistakes. This sounds like someone else we all know - George W. Bush.

If Obama is about change... then perhaps he should give us something to believe in by doing something very simple..........to think before he speaks and admitting his mistakes.

Perhaps this why I am missing out on the fun things out in the world. I am too focused on the wrong things. Someone will ask me if I have the latest song by "so-and-so." I have to reply back that I never heard of that singer or group. I know of Leona Lewis, Jason Mraz, Jordin Sparks and all of the Waynes - Lil Wayne, Jimmy Wayne, John Wayne (how'd he get in there?) Last week, someone asked me if I liked the new Kardinal Offishall song.

Um, no......who is that?

When they told me what song it was, I recognized the song but I thought it was by Akon. I was close! Apparently the song features Akon. I am a child of the 1980s. We didn't have all of these songs performed by a group featuring someone else. 80s group either excelled on their own God given talent or were caught in lip synching scandals like Milli Vannili. Of course, now you can lip synch in big auditoriums. I remember listening to those fun '80's songs in my first car. It was a 1968 Mercury Cougar (an 18 year old klunker at that time.). After saving my money from after school jobs, I bought my own 16th birthday present for the large sum of $300!! After putting a $500 stereo inside my ride was good to go.

Being an eccentric postal clerk living in the foothills, I still have that car 22 years later. I normally keep it garaged and rarely drive it to work. When I first bought that car, it had cancer (Louisiana rust) on the fenders, a torn-up driver's seat and a front quarterpanel that had a slighly different color. Over time, I have spent a large chunk of change painting and restoring "My Cat."

Last winter, one of my co-workers asked me if I still had my Cougar. Of course, I told him "yes" and that I keep it stashed at home during the wintertime. Someone else chimed in, "No wonder Mark looks so tired this morning, he has a Cougar stashed up in his house during the winter." My co-workers started laughing.

Um........I missed something there. What was so funny?

I was told that a "Cougar" is an older woman that dates younger men. Once again, I have been living under that darn rock too long.

I'm going to crawl back in my cave now to watch the Broncos kick the Chargers ass. Maybe I just enjoy living under this rock with my dogs and enjoying the simpler things. I will just relax and take life as it comes.

Unless, of course,  there is a knock on my door from a Cougar.

My master is late coming home today. I worry when I don't hear his car roaring up the hill before two in the afternoon. Diablo and I always meet our master in kitchen before he goes to work. His goodbyes aren't so painful because we know he is going to say "I'm home from work!" later in the day.

Hi folks, my name is Joanie and I am Mark's faithful sharpei. I am saddled here with my younger chihuahua brother Diablo. Diablo is such a wimp! Last night, our master gave as a bath and Diablo starts shivering and whining. My master should tell Diablo that the couch isn't a face towel and to quit hiding under blankets on the couch. When guests come over, people accidently sit on him. Diablo is still immature. When I was a young pup, I used to bark at the letter carriers but I eventually matured.  Diablo does not bark at you letter carriers out there - he actually barks at the garbageman. If there was someway to let Diablo know that the trashman isn't stealing our stuff....

After my master went to work this morning, I jumped back on his bed to get some sleep. In another room, I heard the sound of "click, click, click." My canine instincts were aroused and I followed the "click, click, click" noise. It was the "clicking of the keyboard and I caught Diablo watching doggie porn, reading PlayDog and spying pics of Anita's pug off of this website with lustful eyes. Bad Diablo!!!! Even worse, Diablo has met another chihuahua off of the website MyDoggieSpace and I can tell you, this girl dog is psycho!!

Diablo is five years younger than I am, so I suppose he is sowing  his wild oats. Diablo wasn't even born yet when our country was terrorized on September 11, 2001. A day we have now renamed Patriots Day. I was a very small puppy living with my master in a tiny condo in Downtown Denver but I still remember it. A real sign to our mortality on earth is watching a fire engine pull up to someone's house. On that day there were hundreds of those big red trucks.

Even though I was a small puppy back then, I realize that humans have their own ways of remembering 9/11. My master said that they were going to have a moment of silence at his workplace at 6:46 AM. Later in the day, my master and his other co-workers were going to have a potluck and cook hot dogs while others would pitch in on American apple pies at the local store to celebrate Patriot's Day. Perhaps, my master is stuck with the cleanup and he is late getting home from work.

Because I want to go to doggie heaven someday, I will pray to God for those 2,976 victims that died at the hands of those terrorists and all of those dogs and cats that won't see their masters come home from work ever again.

By the way, God........are there letter carriers in heaven? If there are, will I have to apologize?

Joanie ("") ("") - loving pawprints.

For those of you have have talked to me or read my blogs since I started posting last January, you will notice that this latest blog was something I wrote back on March 11th. It was a blog called "Frank's Art Gallery" There is a method to my madness for posting it on here again. If you have read this before and you find this blog too boring, just scroll down below the dotted lines to the last 2 paragraphs. If you not read this before, it is tale worth telling:

Frank Miller will be calling it quits soon after carrying mail in Littleton for 33 years. He began carrying various routes as a PTF in 1975 before making regular. In 1978, Frank delivered the mail for the folks on Route 2304. 30 years later, Frank still carries route 2304, but will be retiring in May.

Frank is exercising good timing in leaving the post office in his mind. Not only is the age factor part of his reason - the post office has internally changed since 1975. He has seen his start time pushed back from 7 AM to 9 AM and he knows that Route 2304 will be abolished when he retires. With routes being cut and consolidated - the smaller routes in Littleton will be gone forever and junior carriers will be excessed to Denver or Colorado Springs.

Frank has a lot of stories about his 33 years in the P.O.  but one stands out in my mind. It doesn't involve saving a life on the route or delivering mail in three feet of snow.

This story revolves around this poorly drawn crayon drawing that has been hanging on Frank's case since I've been working here. There was a little girl that lived on the route that was always outside playing. One day, this girl walked up to his vehicle and saw a partial box of donuts inside. The girl asked Frank if she could have one and he joked , "It'll cost you just a nickel." Almost everyday this girl was playing in the front lawn and would greet Frank saying "Hi, Mr. M. - what do you have for me today." He also wondered why this girl was outside and not in school. "Mommy says were on vacation." she said.

One day, Frank said he was rushing to get his route done early and ran into this girl again. The girl said, "Hi, Mr. M." and he just handed her the mail and said that he was too busy to talk today. Several weeks went by and he didn't see this girl playing outside so he walked to the house and rang the bell. The girl's mother answered the door and noticed that it was their letter carrier. The mother said, "I know who you are Mr. M., my daughter Ashley spoke of you so much. I hope I didn't allowed her to bother you. If she was a nuisance - please except my apologies." Frank told her that she was a delightful child and wondered why she wasn't outside anymore. The mom said, "Didn't Ashley tell you? She had leukemia and died last week. By the way, Mr. M., she wanted you to have this."

The girl's mom handed Frank a smeared envelope with Mr. M. in bold crayon letters. Inside was the drawing with "It'll cost you just a nickel." written on the bottom. Frank says that it was the only time in 30 years that he lost his emotions and hugged and cried with this mother.

Ashley is gone but her drawing still lives. Frank left the drawing on his case as a reminder to him that we need to take time to enjoy living and life and each other.

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I received a phone this morning that Frank Miller ("Mr. M") passed away yesterday afternoon while fishing on his small boat in Chatfield Reservoir. His wife, Cindy, whom I have known as long as I have known Frank, told me that a park ranger found him in his boat still holding on to his fishing pole. Apparently, his heart just stopped beating and rigormortis set in. A park ranger found Frank on his boat in the early evening hours when his boat was drifting too close to other boats on the lake. Frank only had the chance to enjoy 4 months of retirement after 33 years in the Postal Service.

Mr. M's wife, Cindy, wants me to co-ordinate his party after the funeral. Morbid, you say......perhaps....Frank's last wishes were simply, "when I die, throw a party." I suppose you had to know him personally to understand that request. He had asked me go fishing with him after his retirement and now I regret never going out on his boat and swapping beers, stories and lies with our former #1 seniority carrier. Frank was a happy go lucky soul who never took his job too seriously, yet; he was a hard-worker. You can't buy something like Frank's personality and work ethic for any price.

Not even for a nickel.