The Throwback Mailman
With a vintage leather bag slung over his shoulder, old buttons on his jacket, and retro patches on his sleeve (along with his heart), Jimmy Lonetti makes the postal uniform cool again.
If you’re a regular Uni Watch reader, you may recall that I recently interviewed Jimmy Lonetti, the founder of D&J Glove Repair, who at the time had moved his glove operation from his Minneapolis garage to a retail storefront. That interview included this tantalizing exchange:
Jimmy Lonetti: One reason I took the leap to opening the storefront is because I’m pretty close to retirement from my main job, which is working for the United States Postal Service as a letter carrier. We could do a whole talk on that, because I’m kind of quirky when it comes to my uniforms for the Postal Service. I’m the guy who finds the old patches on eBay, so I take the new patch off my shirt and put on the old one. Everything I have is vintage-looking.
Uni Watch: Wait — you’re saying you basically create a throwback Postal Service uniform for yourself?
JL: Yes.
I was super-curious to learn more about Lonetti’s postal proclivities, but that interview was supposed to be about his glove-repair business and I didn’t want to stray off-topic, so we stuck to gloves and saved the postal uniforms for another day. That day, I’m happy to report, is today.
I should note here that my interest in retro postal aesthetics extends beyond Lonetti. In 2018, I wrote an article for Gizmodo about mailbox design; my collection of uniform catalogs includes a 1971 Postal Service uni catalog; and I even have a section of a vintage mail chute mounted in my apartment. So it would be fair to say that I was extremely excited to talk with Lonetti about his uniforms.
Here’s the transcript of the faaaaascinating Zoom call that Lonetti and I had last week, edited for length and clarity. I think you’re really going to enjoy it!
Uni Watch: Let’s start with some basics. How long have you been a letter carrier?
Jimmy Lonetti: About 10 years.
UW: Was it something you always wanted to do? Like, did you idolize your childhood mailman, or maybe dress up as a mailman for Halloween when you were a kid?
JL: Just kind of a midlife change that fit with what I needed at the time.
UW: Did you have to work your way up to letter carrier from a lower position?
JL: I came in at a time when the whole generation of guys who joined the Post Office after the Vietnam War were retiring, so they were hiring a lot. You start as a CCA — city carrier assistant — but I only had to do that for about 14 months. Then I became a full-time carrier.
UW: Is your route mostly residential? Mostly commercial?
JL: Residential, in South Minneapolis. I have a few businesses — a record store, which is always nice to pop into every day. An auto repair place. I have a church, which has pristine bathrooms, so that’s always a plus.
UW: For a normal carrier, how does the uniform situation work? Like, is the uniform issued to you, or do you get a stipend to go purchase the uniform yourself?
JL: You get an allowance every year — they give it to you as a card, like a gift card or debit card. It’s pretty generous, close to $500 a year. But the uniforms are generally pretty expensive, because everything is union-made in the USA. You can order through an online catalog, or there’s a couple of local stores you can actually go to.
UW: Can anyone go in and buy a postal uniform?
JL: No. Even when you go online, you have to verify what your “craft” is, which is your specific job. So if you’re a mail sorter, say, you’re not allowed to shop in the mail carrier section, because those are different crafts.
UW: Do you also get any kind of allowance for cleaning your uniform? Or can you at least claim that expense as a tax deduction?
JL: Not that I’m aware of. But yeah, I go through a lot of OxiClean in the summer.
UW: How long had you been on the job before you got the idea to start wearing the vintage or throwback uniforms?
JL: Um, pretty much immediately. When you’re a CCA, you don’t have a uniform allowance. They just tell you, “Oh, go down to the union office,” because they have a bunch of old uniforms down there that they give out to the part-time employees. And you know, I wasn’t going to make that trip. I was already going to vintage stores a lot at the time, so I thought, “Okay, I’m gonna go pick up whatever random light-blue polo shirt I see, and get whatever postal patch I can find on eBay, and that’ll be my uniform.”
That’s how I started wearing the “standing eagle” patch. I like it better than the current logo. The standing eagle was introduced in 1970 — before that, they had this kind of Pony Express logo — and then in ’93 they changed from the standing eagle to the current one, the “sonic eagle.”
UW: “Sonic”? What’s sonic about it?
JL: I think the reasoning was, like, “The old eagle was just standing there, but this one is, you know, in motion, soaring, moving forward.” To me it looks like something a high school football team would slap on the side of their helmet — the Cottage View Eagles or something.
Anyway, I was never a fan of that logo, so I pick up the standing eagle patches on eBay for two or three bucks. Then when I get a shirt that has the sonic eagle on the left breast, I get out my Uni Watch seam ripper to remove it and then put the standing eagle on the left sleeve, because that’s where it was worn back in the day.
UW: So you don’t necessarily get vintage shirts — you buy a new shirt with the current patch, and then you’ll swap out the patches.
JL: Yeah.
UW: And do you always throw back to the standing eagle era?
JL: Mostly. But I picked up a Pony Express-style patch — that’s the logo that preceded the standing eagle — and put it on a shirt.
UW: Do you do the sewing yourself?
JL: No. The machine I use for leather sewing when I do glove repair just isn’t fine enough to sew patches. But I have this great tailor in the neighborhood who puts up with all my sports-related projects and postal stuff, so he takes care of it.
UW: What would the typical letter carrier have in their locker, uniform-wise?
JL: Here in Minnesota, we need things for all seasons. So you’re gonna have long pants and you’re gonna have shorts. A lot of guys wear the snow pants in the winter — pants over their regular pants. You’re gonna have jackets, polo shirts. There’s your regular button-down shirts, kind of like a dress shirt, and then there’s the shirt-jac, which is almost like what you’d see a barber wear. That’s what I prefer to wear in the summer. Every once in a while the managers must get some directive from above or whatever about some dumb thing to enforce, and so a couple of summers ago they told everybody that only the shirt-jac could be worn untucked, and if you’re not wearing that type of shirt, you need to have your shirt tucked in.
UW: Are there sweaters?
JL: Yeah, cardigan sweaters that zip up — those are nice.
UW: What about headwear?
JL: In the winter, I wear the classic bomber-style hat, with the flaps. And I was pretty fortunate, because I was able to find the smaller standing eagle patch — I don’t see those too often. But it was perfect to replace the sonic eagle.
Then my go-to hat in the fall and spring is the Stormy Kromer, with the flaps in the front. They’re an American company and they’ve made those hats for years. I really like them.
UW: Are they an official postal supplier, or did you just decide it would go well with the look?
JL: It just goes well. I actually sent them a photo of myself wearing their hat [the same one shown above, as it turns out — PL] and said, “You should pitch your hats to the Post Office as part of their uniform program.” Never heard back from them.
And then I wear a lot of baseball caps in the summer.
UW: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that, because you sent me a photo of a ballcap with a USPS/Olympics patch.
JL: I found that on on eBay when I was looking for some other postal gear. It’s a vintage cap from the [1984] L.A. Olympics. So I wore that one all summer during the recent summer Olympics.
UW: I also noticed in one of the photos you sent me that you have a ballcap with a standing eagle patch that says “U.S. MALE” — M-A-L-E, instead of M-A-I-L. What’s that about?
JL: That’s a novelty patch I got on eBay. I just wear it as a goof and nobody ever notices. You’re one of the few people who’ve picked up on it.
UW: You’re not required to wear a hat, right?
JL: No. It was required at one time, but they made it optional in the early ’70s. And baseball caps weren’t allowed until the early ’80s.
UW: What about your jackets — how do you customize those?
JL: For current jackets, it’s the same as the shirts: I’ll just take off the new patch and put the old patch on the left arm. But I also have a nice selection of vintage jackets that I’ve picked up on eBay, which I love wearing. One of them is a vintage winter coat that has the drop waist and quilted lining. It has standing eagle buttons for the breast pockets and then I got vintage buttons for the closure.
UW: It has a zipper and buttons? That’s like having a belt and suspenders!
JL: The buttons on the closure, they have this little image of a letter carrier and “POD,” for Post Office Department, which is what it used to be called [before the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970]. Those buttons would have predated the jacket, but I liked them, so I put them on. The standing eagle buttons on the breast pockets are original to the jacket.
Then I have a vintage nylon windbreaker that I really like. It’s got that nice sheen to it, kind of like those Ebbets Field Flannels windbreakers. And I didn’t have to add anything to the windbreaker — it already had the standing eagle patch, the buttons, everything.
UW: Do you have vintage pants?
JL: Five or six years ago we outgrew the old neighborhood post office where I was working. They moved us to the main downtown post office in Minneapolis, which I enjoy working out of — it’s a beautiful building, built in the ’30s, Art Deco, just gorgeous. But the locker room at the old post office had lockers full of stuff that guys just left there after they retired, so I got some old pants from there.
Those older pants are 50% poly, 50% Orlon, and they just have a great sheen to them. Also, they put extra layers of material on the sides and at the back pockets, which I think was to alleviate wear from carrying the satchel.
UW: So you get patches on eBay and they let you ransack the locker room. Do you ever find stuff at vintage shops?
JL: I scored my current fall jacket at a vintage shop. It didn’t have a patch on the arm, but otherwise it was perfect. But you know, this probably says something about the current population or whatever, but a lot of the vintage stuff out there is just so small. And I’m not a big guy — I’m five-ten, maybe 185 or something — but the vintage stuff is usually too small for me. It was all small, wiry guys.
UW: Like Mr. ZIP — he’s very wiry!
JL: That’s my other thing: I keep telling people at the Post Office that we need more Mr. ZIP!
UW: Definitely. What are maybe some unusual uniform components that someone might have but are less common?
JL: I always tell the ladies, “I don’t understand why you don’t wear the skirts in the summer.” I always threaten during Pride Weekend or whatever that I’m gonna order a skirt and wear it.
UW: You could say it’s a kilt!
JL: Another thing I always see in the catalog, you can still order a dickey — like, a cut-off shirt with a turtleneck. I’m not sure if that would come in handy, though.
UW: How would you describe the current state of the uniform offerings, in terms of aesthetics and functionality?
JL: I guess they’re adequate. I always tell guys at work that my dream job at the Post Office would be to somehow be involved in the uniform program.
UW: How would you say your colleagues feel about the current uniforms? Do they like them? Do they even care?
JL: I’d say they’re pretty indifferent.
UW: Now here’s the big question: Technically speaking, are you actually allowed to wear the throwback stuff?
JL: No. I’m sure I’m technically out of uniform, or not wearing what I should be wearing.
UW: Has your boss or supervisor ever said anything to you?
JL: No.
UW: Are they even aware that you’re doing it?
JL: Yeah, everyone I work with knows. But you know, the Postal Service has bigger problems to worry about than some guy who just wants to wear his vintage stuff.
UW: What about your union shop steward — have they ever said anything to you?
JL: No.
UW: What do your fellow letter carriers think of all this? Like, do they think it’s kind of cool, or do they just think you’re a weirdo?
JL: I’ve influenced a few of them who have gotten some patches on eBay and done their own little thing. One guy has a Pony Express patch on his performance hoodie or something, which looks kinda weird, but good for him.
UW: What about the people on your route, the people you deliver to — do they notice?
JL: Yeah, they like it. Sometimes I’ll scan the comments on NextDoor, because everyone usually complains there about their mail service, but my customers will say, “Jim always has the vintage coat on,” or whatever. And then before the holiday season, I pass out little postcards with Mr. ZIP saying, “It’s been my pleasure to serve you for this year.” People like that, so I make out like a bandit on tips.
UW: One thing that seems to have changed over the years is that letter carriers used to wear shoes. And now, at least in my neighborhood, they all wear black sneakers.
JL: You’re not supposed to have anything open-toe, you’re not supposed to have nylon sneakers or anything like that, but I still see it. I usually wear Keens, because they have the big toe bumpers. I’ve had pretty good luck with those.
UW: Are you supposed to wear official Postal Service socks? Or can you wear any old navy blue socks?
JL: You can wear white socks, too. But they don’t have to have the Postal Service logo or anything. Some guys just wear the no-shows, which technically I don’t think you’re supposed to do.
UW: Do you ever wear a tie?
JL: No. I’ve been tempted to order one, but I haven’t. If I did, I’d probably have to get the real official-looking hat to go with it — the one that looks like a police hat.
UW: Do you have any vintage shorts?
JL: No. They wouldn’t really be any different from what’s currently worn.
UW: What about one of those pith helmets?
JL: Some guys like to wear those for the summer months and on rainy days, but I’ve never really liked that style. For rain, I got a navy blue waxed baseball cap, and then I applied one of those bar patches that say, “Letter Carrier.” They also offer a cape, which is kind of cool, because that can go around and then cover your mail bag. But then also, you can’t beat Gore-Tex, so one of the first things I bought with my allowance money was the real expensive postal Gore-Tex raincoat. And, you know, took off the patch and put the standing eagle on the sleeve.
UW: You just mentioned your mail bag, which reminds me that when I was a kid, our mailman carried a big leather bag, but nowadays everybody here in New York uses a push cart. You use a bag?
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JL: I’ve never seen a mail carrier use a push cart in the Minneapolis area. See, I don’t do my whole route by foot, because my route starts about 12 miles from the downtown post office where I work. So I drive a truck to the start of my route, and then I have 16 different park points where I park the truck and deliver the mail to the people, then drive to the next park point, and so on.
UW: Oh, so it’s almost like being a UPS guy.
JL: Sort of. Anyway, everyone uses a satchel. The new ones are nylon, but I have an old leather one I found on eBay. The old ones can be kind of expensive — I think people like to use them for messenger bags or computer laptop bags or whatever — so I found one that needed repair, and I knew I could do that because of my glove-repair experience. So I sewed it up, added some reinforcements, re-riveted it.
I don’t use the leather one as much in the winter, just because the leather gets pretty stiff and I don’t want it to crack. So I have a blue nylon one that still has the standing eagle logo on it that I found laying around, which I use more in the winter.
UW: You also have a little bonus bag on your satchel strap. What’s that about?
JL: I was kind of pleased to find that on eBay and add it to my postal bag. It’s a little pouch that connects to the strap — the old carriers would use it to carry stamps that they could sell to customers. So I do that, too — I buy stamps myself and then sell them. I keep them in a little waterproof container inside the pouch, and then I sell them, because people ask me for stamps quite often.
UW: So while you’re delivering the mail, you’re also making change and dealing with nickels and dimes and stuff?
JL: I don’t insist on exact change. As long as they come close enough, it’s fine.
UW: I didn’t realize until now that you drive a truck as part of your route. That opens up a whole new throwback area. Do you ever find yourself wishing you had a vintage vehicle, or at least a vintage livery?
JL: There’s still a few guys who drive the old vehicles — you know, the real boxy ones — but they’re miserable. No air-conditioning in the summer, minimal heat in the winter, so I wouldn’t want that. But yeah, I wish the logo on my truck was different.
UW: You should get a big standing eagle magnet that you can just slap on the side!
JL: I do have a big Mr. ZIP sticker that I put in the cab of my vehicle. It’s like the one on my satchel. Every once in awhile I come across those on eBay and they’re kind of nice to put up.
UW: What’s the deal with the gold chain that every letter carrier seems to have?
JL: That just keeps your keys that access the collection boxes. I have two of those boxes on my route.
UW: Oh, so you also collect mail from mailboxes?
JL: Yeah.
UW: What about those green relay boxes?
JL: The same key would work in those, but I don’t have any relay boxes on my route.
UW: Do you know of any other letter carriers out there who do what you do? Is there an online community of carriers who wear throwback uniforms?
JL: Not that I know of. I saw something over the summer about some letter carrier in Chicago and he was getting all these accolades because he dressed really nice. You know, he wore the tie.
UW: I think we may have actually run that in the Ticker [on the Uni Watch Blog].
JL: Yeah, I think you did. Anyway, he’s basically getting all this credit for dressing like you’re supposed to.
UW: Do you pay extra attention to postal uniforms in movies and on TV?
JL: Yeah. There seems to be a lot of variety in terms of whether a TV show or movie will use an actual postal uniform, or whether they’ll use some kind of knockoff. Newman on Seinfeld and Cliff Clavin on Cheers — they got it right. But sometimes I’m watching some movie or sitcom or something, and I say, “That’s not a postal uniform. That’s not the correct logo.”
My favorite postal scene is in Goodfellas, where they threaten the mail carrier who’s delivering the truancy notices from Henry Hill’s school. They got that right — period-specific down to a tee. The Pony Express patch, the red tie, everything. Perfect.
UW: Letter carriers famously have to work in the rain, the snow, the dark of night, all of that. It seems like that would be particularly challenging in Minnesota. How do you handle extreme cold or particularly snowy days?
JL: I get asked that a lot, and I always say the same thing: There’s this old Norwegian or Scandinavian proverb that says, “There’s no such thing as bad weather — just bad clothes.” So that’s my theory. We use hand warmers, foot warmers. I might cycle through three different pairs of gloves during the day, because the first pair gets sweaty. I have a black balaclava, and I buy this stuff at a local store called Musher’s Secret. We put it on our dog’s paws when we go to the dog park in the winter, but I’ll coat my cheekbones and everything with it. I’m fine.
UW: Is delivery ever canceled if it’s particularly nasty?
JL: Occasionally. It happened about two days before Christmas, which was the worst possible situation. Air temperatures were 10 to 12 degrees below zero, and then wind chills were in the negative 20s, so they only let us deliver packages and we didn’t do any door-to-door mail delivery.
UW: What about snow?
JL: That happened recently, too. We got 14 inches of snow and they didn’t let the carriers go out. And to me, I think it’s kind of silly. I mean, I could have delivered mail that day. But the problem is that these new trucks only have front-wheel drive. So there can be three or four inches of snow and postal carriers are getting stuck, you know, just pulling up to the curb, and then they have to wait two or three hours for a tow truck.
UW: So in addition to being in charge of uniform design, you’d like to be in charge of the vehicle power trains.
JL: Yeah, at least make them four-wheel drive.
———
And thus concludes one of the most enjoyable and informative interviews in Uni Watch history, at least from my perspective. I hope you folks agree! Please join me in thanking Jimmy for sharing his story with us, and for his role in the miracle that is mail delivery.
If you want to go a bit deeper down this rabbit hole, here are some additional resources you may enjoy:
The Postal Service has put an informative uniform-history timeline on its website. It was written in 2002, so it’s not up-to-date, but it’s full of fascinating history. You can check it out here.
There’s also a good article on the history of postal uniforms, with some excellent photos, here.
Here’s the Postal Service’s current list of authorized uniform components and combinations.
If you’re interested in the design history of mail-delivery vehicles, that’s available here.
Want to know about the history of mailbox design? You can find that here.
Although Lonetti doesn’t like the sonic eagle logo, here’s something pretty cool: An engineering professor recently calculated how fast the sonic eagle is flying!
If you love style guides (and what Uni Watch reader doesn’t?), you can find the Postal Service’s current branding specifications, including info on logos, colors, typography, and more, here.
You can learn more about all of this at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum in Washington, DC.
That’s where I thought this article was going to end. But just as I was putting the finishing touches on the text, I received a package in the mail. It was from Lonetti, which seemed like an almost spooky coincidence, since I’d just spent the previous several days working on this article about him. I opened the package and saw something wrapped in tissue paper, along with a note on top:
Paul —
This jacket was always too snug on me. I figure it will fit you pretty good. Thanks for all the D&J exposure over the years and for the “virtual” friendship.
— Jimmy
I unwrapped the tissue paper and found a vintage Postal Service jacket very much like the ones Lonetti wears, complete with a standing eagle sleeve patch, “POD” buttons, reinforced shoulders to handle the wear and tear of the mail bag, and a super-cool interior label. Check it out:
Holy shmoly! Can you even imagine receiving such a gift, especially from a real letter carrier who cares about this stuff as much as Lonetti does?
I emailed Lonetti to thank him, and also to ask for a bit more information about the jacket. He wrote back:
Everything on the jacket is original. The only thing I did was have the sleeves shortened by my tailor. They were oddly long, at least an extra two inches.
It’s a different style than the similar jackets I wear — the pocket placement is different. I think it has to date pretty close to the 1970 transition from the Pony Express logo to the standing eagle. I know I've seen that style jacket with the Pony Express patch instead of the eagle.
And Lonetti was right — it fits me pretty well (the hat is the closest thing I have to a postal cap):
I don’t really have the right to wear it, of course, but maybe I’ll slip it on now and again, just so I can feel like Jerry in that one Seinfeld scene:
So then I thought that would be the end of this article. But last night (Tuesday, Jan. 31) I met a friend in Manhattan for dinner. As I waited for a subway to take me back home to Brooklyn, look who was standing a few feet away from me on the platform:
I’ve lived in New York for nearly 36 years, and I can tell you that it is very unusual to see a uniformed postal employee on the subway. But naturally this is the week that I saw one! After spending so much of the past week immersed in the world of vintage postal gear, it was hard not to think that this guy’s red stripe and sonic eagle patch looked, well, wrong. But hey, we can’t all be as cool as Jimmy Lonetti.
Paul Lukas has been writing about uniforms for over 20 years, but this is the first time he’s written about postal uniforms. If you like his Premium articles, you’ll probably like his daily Uni Watch Blog, plus you can follow him on Twitter and Facebook and check out his Uni Watch merchandise. Have a question for Paul? Contact him here.
Excellent article, Paul. This is what UniWatch is all about for me--thanks!
Thank you Paul and Jimmy! This is the best interview I have read in a while. I read it Wednesday morning and have been thinking about it since then. Great writing and great subject matter.