Neither rain, nor sleet, nor a bear or other crazy experiences has kept Jesse Lee Hatfield from delivering the mail — they just motivated him to write a book.
“I love being a rural mail carrier,” Hatfield said. The 55-year-old lives in Conway, but he has delivered mail for 23 years for the Greenbrier Post Office.
When he and other carriers gather at the post office, they all have stories to tell about friendly — or not-so-friendly — pets they’ve encountered or funny things that have happened. Hatfield started jotting down his experiences a few years ago and in September 2014 published 72058: The Many Mini Adventures of a Small-Town Mailman.
“I had all these notes; I didn’t plan to write a book. I found out in middle of November 2009 I had [prostate] cancer and was going to be off for 30 days to have surgery,” he said. Hatfield told his co-workers to start putting together their stories for him. His wife, Suzy, is a substitute mail carrier for the Greenbrier Post Office, and she shared stories for the book, too. It wasn’t until January 2014, Hatfield said, that he started putting the collected stories in book form.