MAIL ON WHEELS

Saturday, October 06, 2007
By Diana Nelson Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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One evening this summer, Mel Packer opened the front door of his home in Point Breeze to a young man wearing a bicycle helmet. His name was John Pena, and in his hand was a letter, handwritten by two friends of Mr. Packer’s 17-year-old daughter, Rosa.

This was no ordinary mailman, and Mr. Packer was game for the experience. The letter to Rosa earned Mr. Pena an invitation to share dinner with the Packer family.

It was one of few delivery rounds Mr. Pena made without his partner, Ally Reeves. The Carnegie Mellon University art students, in a collaborative performance-art project, have delivered more than 300 handwritten letters as the self-styled “Pittsburgh Pedal Express.”

Dinner with the Packers was a highlight among many stories and expressions of delight the pair have collected on their magical mystery tour of the city. But the best story has been their own.

The third-year graduate students, both 26, decided last spring to team up on an art project. They are both letter writers with a fascination about the work of mailmen. They both use bicycles for transportation. And they are inspired by the path less taken.

Mr. Pena, of Ellensburg, Wash., is interested in old postcards and their messages, forced to brevity but not to being dashed off like e-mail. Back when people knew their handwriting would travel more slowly, he said, “they wrote from the heart, more descriptively, more carefully. How natural it’s become not to think that way.”

“A lot of people might have seen a friend’s handwriting that they’d never seen before,” said Ms. Reeves, a native of Ashland City, Tenn.

Avoiding any tendency to mimic the U.S. Postal Service, the couple created Pittsburgh Pedal Express and an invitation for the public to collaborate.

During the Three Rivers Arts Festival in June, they set up a table in the PPG Wintergarden and supplied it with handcrafted envelopes, Pedal Express stamps, notepaper, pencils and instructions to write a letter to someone in Pittsburgh.

The directions invited riddles and whimsy: “If you don’t know their address, describe the location, and we’ll do our best to find it. Your letter will be delivered by bicycle as soon as possible.”

Their table and mail box were up for three weeks. More than 300 letters accumulated. Many people rose to the occasion, drawing fanciful maps and directions on the envelopes.

“One person wrote, ‘the brick house in the middle of the block,’ but they were all brick houses,” said Mr. Pena. “So I asked people ,’Do you know Jamie?’ Most people said, ‘No.’

“One [envelope] said, ‘Robinson Street, near Oakland, apartment building left hand side,’ ” he said.

The envelope for Mr. Packer’s daughter had no address but guided him to the house with a basketball hoop in front and a peace sign in the window.

One sender from Perry Highway drew a map on an envelope destined for Shaler. It was one of just a few that violated the instruction that the recipient be in Pittsburgh, said Mr. Pena. But all letters were delivered.

They started delivering July 1. Because of their schedules and the time involved, they deputized four friends to help — Brandon Kuczenski, Robin Hewlett, Gregory Witt and Jenn Gooch.

One day recently, Mr. Pena and Ms. Reeves finished the North Side batch, leaving most without an answer at the door.

One letter was addressed to Bob Beckman at his gallery and print shop on Foreland Street, Artists Image Resource.

They knocked, and after several moments, he opened the door, holding a phone to his ear. He took the letter distractedly and closed the door.

Mr. Beckman opened the envelope and read the note: “Dad, I just wanted to say hi, Zach.”

Then he charged out to the sidewalk where the two art students were figuring out the best route to their next stop, the Children’s Museum.

“How awesome,” he said to them. “What’s the story, guys? How is this posted? How is it that you end up giving me this?”

A day later, Mr. Beckman told the Post-Gazette, “There are constantly people coming up to the door on bikes, coming to do work [at the shop]. I shuffle them to the other door if they knock at this one, but when I read this wonderful thing from my son, I wanted to show them my appreciation.

“The nature of the whole thing was wonderful. The process itself makes one take a pause. It’s a very directly connected, human wonderful thing.” A letter is even more personal today because of e-mail, he said. The time it took for Zachary’s letter to arrive, he said, “was, I think, a thoughtful, aesthetic strategy.”

A woman in Lawrenceville was so enamored of the experience that she asked, ” ‘Is this a new thing? Is it going to stay?’ ” said Ms. Reeves. “She said, ‘I’m really happy to get this letter in this way,’ and I said, ‘I’m really happy to deliver a letter in this way.’ ”

Mr. Pena had the opposite reaction one night in Squirrel Hill, one of the few deliveries he made alone. He rang a doorbell and heard a woman scream.

“It made me scream,” he said, mimicking a startled jump. “She said, [in a panicked wail], ‘What do you want?’ and I said ‘I’m delivering a letter from your friend Jack,’ and she screamed, ‘How do you know Jack?’ So I said, ‘How’s about this? I’m going to leave this letter here and you can get it later.’ ”

For Mr. Packer, and his daughter, the letter resonated.

“Technology is getting in the way of so many human encounters,” said Rosa, a student at the High School for Creative and Performing Arts Downtown.

“Art comes in so many forms,” said her father. “Making personal connections these days may be art. I know there’s something magical about the personal involvement of taking pen to paper.” His family still receives handwritten letters, he said, “but not as many as we should all get.”
First published on October 6, 2007 at 12:00 am
Diana Nelson Jones can be reached at djones@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1626.