POST script

In researching the previous blog post
about post offices...

Hmmm : why "post"?

post (n.1) 

"a timber set upright," from Old English post "pillar, doorpost," and Old French post "post, upright beam," both from Latin postis "door, post, doorpost," perhaps from por- "forth" (see pro-) + stare "to stand," from PIE root *sta- "to stand, set down, make or be firm" (see stet). Similar compound in Sanskrit prstham "back, roof, peak," Avestan parshti "back," Greek pastas "porch in front of a house, colonnade," Middle High German virst "ridepole," Lithuanian pirstas, Old Church Slavonic pristu "finger" (PIE *por-st-i-).

post (n.2) 

"place when on duty," 1590s, from Middle French poste "place where one is stationed," also, "station for post horses" (16c.), from Italian posto "post, station," from Vulgar Latin *postum, from Latin positum, neuter past participle of ponere "to place, to put" (see position (n.)). Earliest sense in English was military; meaning "job, position" is attested 1690s.

post (n.3) 

"mail system," c. 1500, "riders and horses posted at intervals," from post (n.2) on notion of riders and horses "posted" at intervals along a route to speed mail in relays, probably formed on model of Middle French poste in this sense (late 15c.). Meaning "system for carrying mail" is from 1660s.

Aha! That supports Tim's theory. We were wondering about the public seating in this mid-1960s photo : set above the gutter and facing towards the road outside the Kangaroo Flat Post Office.

             

We recalled it was a Bus Stop. Tim suggested it might be sited there as a continuation from the days when the Melbourne-Bendigo Cobb & Co mail coach would stop at each post/office. 

Anyway, in researching our previous blog post about post offices, we found online at vimeo a very interesting 90 minute interview with the artist Robert MacPherson.

l - r : Michele Helmrich, Robert MacPherson, Rex Butler
An Evening with Robert MacPherson
The University of Queensland Art Museum
1 May 2013

In it, MacPherson talks at length and in great detail about his art. And, in a note towards the end, explains why one year he sent 3000 items through the Hepburn Springs Post Office and received in return a thank you letter from postmistress Debbie.

 33 envelopes from Bob (23 January 2007)

detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...

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