Special Deliveries

Mail carriers are always in the swim of things in Lake Geneva, Wis., because they travel their delivery routes by boat. Every piece of mail arrives by special delivery.

CBS News Sunday Morning correspondent Bill Geist reports they've been doing it that way since 1873. He says it's a treasured tradition that could almost pass for a love letter.

Or an old postcard come to life, as a steam yacht known as the Walworth II, which also serves as the mailboat, slips across the clear, sparkling waters of the lake.

Geist says people in the town still enjoy the same simple pleasures they always have, in a timeless place where the arrival of summer is announced by the first mailboat.

Residents such as Jim and Darrell Riley set their calendars by it.

"The mailboats start the beginning of the season of the summer," Darrell says, "and it's always a very sad day when it's the last day the paper is delivered, 'cause that means it's September and its time to go back to the city."

Bill Gage owns and operates the mailboat, as his father and grandfather did before him.

"The mail started right at the beginning in 1873," he says, "but they were delivering groceries and furniture and everything else along with the mail. …The mail had to be delivered by water, just because there wasn't a decent road system around the lake until the 1920s, and people who owned homes on the lake literally came back and forth to their houses by boat … and the tradition has continued ever since."

Martha Craven loves the tradition, but remembers the necessity: "There was a time during the war when everyone really counted on the mailboat. We didn't have TV and computers and all of that, so everyone would gather to meet the mailboat. And then, of course, the newspapers would be spread on the lawn, and the letters, hoping to get one from (troops). All the young men were gone. This was a community of grandpas, kids, and moms. So, the mailboat was that one big link to the rest of the world."Now, her grandchildren meet the mailboat for fun.

"(They) dash down and come out on the end and do this for captain Neill, and when he toots, everyone jumps up and down, and it's Christmas morning. Day after day," Craven chuckles.

The return of the mailboat means the return of the mail jumpers, who must perform a standing broad jump from the moving boat, sprint through obstacles on the docks, deliver and pick up mail, then make a mad dash and a last leap for the back of the boat. It's a spectator sport, as anyone who's jumped the mail can tell you.

Tourists buy tickets to watch, and to see the lakefront mansions, built by Chicago's business barons. Those mansions earned Lake Geneva the title, "Newport of the West."

Mail jumper is a coveted summer job, and applicants had to try out earlier this month.

And Capt. Neill Frame, a tradition himself, with 43 years piloting the mailboat, offered advice to the jittery, knowing that, like paratroopers, they'll occasionally freeze in the doorway.

One applicant look at the pier and went back into the boat, telling Frame, "I was just a little bit nervous. I just decided at the last minute I don't want to be a mail girl."

"No shame in that," Frame responded.

Many performances appeared flawless, except in the keen eyes of judges.

As the competition proceeded, bill made things a bit more challenging.

All the while, Frame had to keep the boat moving, to maintain control of the 60-ton ship as it maneuvered past lightweight piers. He warned jumpers to compensate for momentum, but some inadequately grasped the concept.

You're familiar with the phrase, "Missed the boat"? Here, Geist points out, there are two ways: the dry miss and – the wet one, as potential jumpers fall short of the end of the boat.

But schoolteacher Jennifer Jackson made the cut. She learned mail sorting, and rolling.

Jackson was joined on the opening day roster by a handful of veterans, one of whom hopes to work her way up from the snack bar this season.

For the first delivery of the 2005 season, a lot of people were waiting expectantly.

Two of the jumpers did some showboating on easy drops, and made the tough ones look easy. Usually.

"The worst," Frame observes, "is when the phone books come out. That's a bad day."

The family at one particular pier is always anxiously waiting. Says the mother of the house, "It's the highlight of the day. Every morning, they wait … and they watch for the boat coming. They run down to the water, and everybody gets into position, and it's great.

"The captain, at the end of the summer, always says, 'Have a good winter,' and when we see him again, he watches how the kids have grown. So it's become a great tradition in our family."

It's an idyllic mail route, Geist says, one where mail recipients bake cookies for the jumpers.

"We can communicate by e-mail, and everybody's got a blackberry, and you can fly to London in six hours," Geist observes, "but there's something innate in people's desire to appreciate a simpler time, when flying was meant for the birds and people wrote letters to one another.

"Letters delivered by mailboat in bygone days, which have not yet gone by at Lake Geneva.

"So, while the mailboat may not be completely necessary, the best things in life rarely are."