Car tires, 52-inch platinum televisions and "camel-head cheese" are just a few of the items that come through Dartmouth's Hinman Post Office.
With Hanover's limited shopping resources, it's easy to understand how important the mail system is for Dartmouth students. What most students may not think about, however, are the jobs of the two men who handle the daily mountain of packages and letters.
Howard Durkee and Tom Stebbins have worked in the Dartmouth's mail room for a total of 60 years combined. Durkee started in the mailroom in 1963 as a mail sorter, straight out of high school, and has since worked his way up to become the mailroom's supervisor. His office, off to the side of the package room, is cluttered with packages and letters of various shapes and sizes, but he rarely has the time to sit in it.
Durkee's day begins at 7:30 a.m., after a 15-minute drive from his house in Lebanon. After unlocking the doors of the Hinman mail center, he meets Stebbins, who arrives around the same time. They wait for the first wave of carriers.
"The morning hours are always the busiest, in terms of sorting packages and writing slips," said Stebbins, who worked as a Dartmouth custodian before he switched to the mailroom.
Stebbins said he likes the increased student interaction that wasn't part of his old job -- most of which occurs in the afternoon.
"How busy it is really depends on the volume of packages we received that morning," Durkee said, in between signing a paper and helping a student locate her package.
The two men agree that students are usually courteous. When they do encounter an impatient student, however, Stebbins -- who has four children, with two 27-year-old twins in the middle -- maintains an understanding outlook.
"Most of the students today are younger than my kids, and I more or less treat them as my kids. I see it as just being in the wrong place at the wrong time to get vented on," Stebbins said with a chuckle.
Durkee also finds the students generally pleasant.
"Some are impatient, some are not. Most days they're understanding if their packages don't arrive," Durkee said with a shrug. He is rarely phased by anything after 44 years, he added.
What also fails to astound the duo is the variety of packages that pass through the mailroom. Most of the items that come through are commercial, such as books and clothing, they said, but Stebbins recalled one particularly unusual item -- a suit-container shaped like a casket.
"We once got live bees," Durkee said, "which wasn't a problem at all. Basically, if the couriers ship them, we take them."
The only thing Hinman does not accept is alcohol.
Besides having great chats with students, Stebbins also likes the job for the occasional celebrity he meets, such as Crawford Palmer '93, a basketball player on France's national team. As a sports fan who umpires for local softball and basketball teams in his spare time, Stebbins found the encounter especially exciting.
While many students picking up packages are in too much of a rush to care about the goings-on behind the window, Colleen Lamarre '07 is one exception.
"Tell me the secret, how do you know which package is in the front or in the back mail room?" Lamarre asked while picking up her package.
Durkee smiled but refused to disclose the answer.
The staff in the mailroom totals five, and there have been no student employees for 20 years.
"They're just so unreliable, some days they're here and some days they're not." Durkee said.
Due to the limited staff, someone may not always be at the window, but students usually wait patiently until they are spotted, and the staff is sure to take staggered lunch breaks in order to keep the window open.
