After World War II, many country boys went up north to get jobs. One country boy got his first check and went to the bank to get it cashed. The lady teller began to count out the money and lay it on the counter one bill at a time.
The young man was watching and after a while said, "Stop." He told her that she could stop counting because that money would be enough to last him as long as he needed it. That story may have some truth as well as some fiction.
Another story from the World War II era is also about a country boy who went to the city to get a job. He wanted to write the folks back home so he got somebody to help him write a letter.
He asked where he could mail it, and they told him on the corner. When he got there he saw a little box on the side of a pole. He put the letter in the box and pulled the lever. All of a sudden bells started going off, and soon a fire truck and police car showed up. He just stood there as the truck got closer and closer.
When they got there, they asked him if he saw anybody pull the fire alarm. He told them that he didn’t but that he pulled the handle on the mailbox. The police asked him, "Don’t you know the difference between a fire alarm and a mailbox"?
He said, "No." Where he was from didn’t have mailboxes or fire alarms either. People would just leave their letters on certain tree stumps or other known places to leave mail for them to be picked up.