Way back in my high school days, I overheard some goat roapers talking about their previous night’s adventures. It seems they were riding around in the bed of a pickup truck on the rural county roads practicing their roaping skills on mail boxes as they passed them. One of them had the misfortune to have successfully roped a mail box that was solidly cemented in the ground, and ended up being yanked out of the truck bed. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing out loud!
Goat ropers… You’ve GOTTA be from my area! Never heard that term anywhere else!
My mailbox post is a railroad tie. The box itself is one of those heavy duty ones with the locking “in box.” These days we have to worry about the mailbox baseballers AND the mail thief porch monkeys…
Goat ropers was a term I used and heard in Oregon and in California. I would make a bet it is used all around the country, I was accused of being a goat roper when I had goats and lived in Southern Alabama… I would ask Chuck in Alabama, he is the penultimate goat roper or is that goat chaser, I can never get that right…
Goat fucker? No, that would be Mohammed ibn al-Chuck.
Years ago, when I lived in east Clark County, someone had it bad for my neighbor. And, as my mailbox was next to his, both boxes were flattened every few months.
He had a buddy make a 1/4-inch stainless steel cylinder, about 14″ by 24″, to use as a mailbox. It was open at the road end. Didn’t offer to have a second one made for me, and I didn’t have those resources at the time.
A few months later, on New Year’s Eve, I was sitting in my living room and heard a very loud explosion at the end of the driveway. Walked down to check it out, and found the pieces of a pipe bomb in the neighbor’s “mailbox”. It was deformed, but relatively intact. My box was unharmed.
Back in the seventies my Dad had an ongoing war with the local high school punks who made sport of smashing his mailbox. He eventually resorted to welding together 1/4 diamond plate and building an armored mailbox. They only tried to hit it with a bat once. Was quiet after that for a while, then they came back with a 1/4 stick of dynamite and blasted it high enough in the air that it cleared the road and landed in our driveway. They must have gotten busted elsewhere, because that was the last time we had any issues besides the occasional drunk driver knocking it down.
My folks put up a mailbox when they were married in 1946 and it lasted until the early 90’s when someone smashed it. I straightened it and it got smashed again so I built one from 1/2 of a 12″ 7 gauge pipe with 1/4″ sides and bottom, 14 gauge back, and 11 gauge lid. Hasn’t been touched since. A neighbor had one smashed so he built another out of steel and a couple of days later when he went to get the mail there was a crooked aluminum ball bat laying next to the mailbox. He left the bat there and the next day the bat was gone and a six pack of beer was in the mailbox.
My mailbox weighs in at about 160lbs. The largest rural mailbox with a smaller one inside, and poured with 2 full 80# bags of sakrete. Going on 18yrs old now. I dread having to replace it, then I remember I have the tractor to lift it these day.
Read about one guy having problems with his mailbox being run over on a regular basis. He got a large chunk of metal to serve as the base for a stout metal pole, and put some dirt over the base for camo. Shortly thereafter, he had a pickup high-centered and unable to leave, letting him know who was doing it.
Had the same trouble once, replaced it. Then it happened again so my new box that time was an “A” size box set inside a “D” size with the annular space filled with 12,000psi mortar, 3 #5 bars, each with 12″ development length in the mortar and extending 48″ out the bottom. That was set into an 8″ DI pipe filled with 5,000psi concrete, set with 6′ of cover. It took 2 full days.
Looks like somebody tried already! Loser!!
Way back in my high school days, I overheard some goat roapers talking about their previous night’s adventures. It seems they were riding around in the bed of a pickup truck on the rural county roads practicing their roaping skills on mail boxes as they passed them. One of them had the misfortune to have successfully roped a mail box that was solidly cemented in the ground, and ended up being yanked out of the truck bed. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing out loud!
Goat ropers… You’ve GOTTA be from my area! Never heard that term anywhere else!
My mailbox post is a railroad tie. The box itself is one of those heavy duty ones with the locking “in box.” These days we have to worry about the mailbox baseballers AND the mail thief porch monkeys…
Goat ropers was a term I used and heard in Oregon and in California. I would make a bet it is used all around the country, I was accused of being a goat roper when I had goats and lived in Southern Alabama… I would ask Chuck in Alabama, he is the penultimate goat roper or is that goat chaser, I can never get that right…
Goat fucker? No, that would be Mohammed ibn al-Chuck.
Years ago, when I lived in east Clark County, someone had it bad for my neighbor. And, as my mailbox was next to his, both boxes were flattened every few months.
He had a buddy make a 1/4-inch stainless steel cylinder, about 14″ by 24″, to use as a mailbox. It was open at the road end. Didn’t offer to have a second one made for me, and I didn’t have those resources at the time.
A few months later, on New Year’s Eve, I was sitting in my living room and heard a very loud explosion at the end of the driveway. Walked down to check it out, and found the pieces of a pipe bomb in the neighbor’s “mailbox”. It was deformed, but relatively intact. My box was unharmed.
Back in the seventies my Dad had an ongoing war with the local high school punks who made sport of smashing his mailbox. He eventually resorted to welding together 1/4 diamond plate and building an armored mailbox. They only tried to hit it with a bat once. Was quiet after that for a while, then they came back with a 1/4 stick of dynamite and blasted it high enough in the air that it cleared the road and landed in our driveway. They must have gotten busted elsewhere, because that was the last time we had any issues besides the occasional drunk driver knocking it down.
My folks put up a mailbox when they were married in 1946 and it lasted until the early 90’s when someone smashed it. I straightened it and it got smashed again so I built one from 1/2 of a 12″ 7 gauge pipe with 1/4″ sides and bottom, 14 gauge back, and 11 gauge lid. Hasn’t been touched since. A neighbor had one smashed so he built another out of steel and a couple of days later when he went to get the mail there was a crooked aluminum ball bat laying next to the mailbox. He left the bat there and the next day the bat was gone and a six pack of beer was in the mailbox.
My mailbox weighs in at about 160lbs. The largest rural mailbox with a smaller one inside, and poured with 2 full 80# bags of sakrete. Going on 18yrs old now. I dread having to replace it, then I remember I have the tractor to lift it these day.
Read about one guy having problems with his mailbox being run over on a regular basis. He got a large chunk of metal to serve as the base for a stout metal pole, and put some dirt over the base for camo. Shortly thereafter, he had a pickup high-centered and unable to leave, letting him know who was doing it.
Had the same trouble once, replaced it. Then it happened again so my new box that time was an “A” size box set inside a “D” size with the annular space filled with 12,000psi mortar, 3 #5 bars, each with 12″ development length in the mortar and extending 48″ out the bottom. That was set into an 8″ DI pipe filled with 5,000psi concrete, set with 6′ of cover. It took 2 full days.