Nice Trip To The Post Office In Hazen, ND

Hey! I had a great trip to the Hazen, North Dakota post office. My oldest son lives out there and I was visiting last week. It was a cold, windy, drizzling and trying to snow kind of day. I took my trip to the post office to try and get my hand cancel on a post card. I met the postmaster, I told him I was a collector and would like a hand cancel on a post card. He dug through his drawer to find a nice post card. He first stamped on a clean paper to make sure the cancel would be sharp and clear. He asked me where I wanted the cancellation positioned on the card. He then said " I should just hand this back to you, If it goes through the mail you will get a sprayed on cancel from Bismark over this". He waited for the ink to dry and placed it in a glassine for me.
While waiting for the ink to dry he told me I had missed the 100 year anniversary of the town celebration. I asked if they had a special cancellation. He said they had, but there were none left at the post office. After the time period the post office allowed him to fill the collectors requests was up, he bought the remaining few and took them home. I thanked him and went back to my truck.
I told my wife this story, who had been patiently waiting while I was chatting. She asked why I did not ask him if I could buy one of his covers he had at home.(Why didn't I think of that?)
I went back into the post office and asked. He said he would not be back in the next day, but if I gave him my address he would send me some. I asked how much and he replied, "Don't worry about it, it only cost me the price of a stamp. I don't get to visit with too many collectors these days."
I see a lot of negative posts about post office service these days....not in Hazen North Dakota

Nice story. Looks like Hazen had a Lewis & Clark pictorial cancel, too, back in 2005:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LEWIS-CLARK...380643755094

wt1,
He did say he may have something from a few years back and if he found it he would throw that in too. I don't normally collect those sort of things unless I have some sort of connection to it. I like that Lewis and Clark one as I collect my birthdate, April 2. The oldest cover I have with April 2nd is a stampless cover from 1844. I put that up earlier on a previous post.

I got the cover from the postmaster in the mail yesterday. I ended up buying the one in the link wt1 listed. I will post pictures of both when that one arrives to complete the story.