Please Mr. Postman

I spent my last full day in Baltimore, before I head to Cairo for a week, with my favorite toddler: we dropped L. off at work, attended a Music Together class, explored a local college (one of Cleo's deepest interests of late, since she watched Steve, in Blue's Clues, announce that he was going to college), and played at Port Discovery, a local children's activity center. Cleo has a number of go-to spots at Port Discovery; yesterday, the market - with its many full-size plastic fruits and mini shopping baskets - and the water room, above, had a certain magnetism. But we also ended up, as usual, in the diner, a wonderful scaled version of a Fifties restaurant, where parents can sit at small stools while a maelstrom of focused, chaotic activity unfolds on the other side of the shiny counter.

Among the more touching details in the diner, though, is a period jukebox, filled with singles from the late Fifties and early Sixties, and completely free. Orbison, Presley, Sinatra: they're all there, and all you need to do is to press the right two buttons, to hear your song. And there, too, is the first hit by the Marvelettes: Please Mr. Postman, which came out in 1961. So we pressed C, and 3, and the tune came on. The machine coughed a deep, robotic cough, and its central mechanism then rolled to the left. A record was chosen, the needle made contact, and: instant Motown! And against that backdrop, Cleo gathered plastic ware and a menu, as though a young waitress in the spring of 1961.

As you can see in the top image, though, the song isn't completely optimistic. It's about a young woman's hope that her beau, off at war, will write her. But nothing's arrived, and spider webs have gathered in her mailbox. No word is forthcoming.

Worry not, Cleo. I'll get a card in the mail for you as soon as I find my way in Cairo. And then, before you know it, I'll be home.