Riding with Ed Culver: When the Mailman Was the Coast
Mabel wrote him up in 1961: the mailman who filled grocery orders and played bass viol in the symphony. Her grandson rode in his van to Monterey — back when the coast ran on trust.
Mabel Plaskett ended her 1961 history of the coast mail with a tribute to the man then driving the route: Ed Culver of Pacific Grove, born September 29, 1920, Air Force veteran, married to Darlene, four children — and, as she delighted in telling her readers, a serious musician who played bass viol in the Monterey County Symphony Orchestra and in a dance band every week, with Darlene driving the mail on those nights.
“Ed is a most important person in the lives of coast residents. Most of us depend on him for groceries and he carries a store of necessary commodities and will fill grocery orders, deliver cleaning, cash checks, run errands, take messages, etc. and remains calm, friendly and unharried.” — Mabel Plaskett, The Land, November 1961
Her grandson remembers him from the other side of the van.
Bill “Bull Plaskett” Alderson grew up on Ed Culver’s route. Ed drove a big van down the coast, and it was a rolling store: you could buy food off him, and if you needed something he didn’t have, he’d get it in town and bring it down next trip. And if you needed to go — Bill rode with Ed up to Monterey many times. He rode with the propane delivery man over the mountain and back, too, when that was simply how you got where you were going.
Nobody thought it remarkable. That was the coast: a community that ran on trust and resourcefulness, where the mailman carried your groceries and your kid, and everybody got where they needed to be.
Bill’s reflection on it, recorded in 2026, belongs with the story:
“It wasn’t like it is today, where you can’t do that because it’s illegal. This was a community — people. We were very resourceful and there was never any issue. Our world today has lost the trust, the community, the care, because we’re so worried about being sued that nobody can act with kindness. Companies can’t act with kindness. The post office can’t allow their carrier to do any of these sort of things. It’s just tragic.”
Mabel’s closing line in 1961 was a toast: “Here’s to the one who brings joy and gladness and news of the outside world to dwellers of mountain and coastland — the mail man!”
Seventy years of coast mail carriers stand behind that sentence — the Plaskett boys swimming icy rivers with the pack mule, Old Jack the mule stopping at each owner’s mail tree unprompted, George Harlan’s Friday ride to Jolon, Byron Plaskett’s schedule so exact the Melvilles set their watches by it — and Ed Culver’s van with the groceries in the back, a boy riding shotgun to Monterey, and a bass viol waiting at home.
Recorded from the memory of Bill “Bull Plaskett” Alderson, 2026. Read Mabel’s full history of the route: Mailmen Are Important Link In Coast Country History.