To be a mail boat jumper in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, you need to be athletic, agile and willing to perform in front of hundreds of tourists.
Marissa Torres-Rabby didn't want to spend her summer making copies in an office or slinging ice cream like her classmates — jumping from moving boats and sprinting off piers sounded a lot more exciting.in the U.S. where jumpers, like Torres-Rabby, deliver mail from a passenger-carrying mail boat. The tradition began in 1916 and has continued, uninterrupted, from June through September, for the last 107 years.
Six jumpers, many of whom come from towns surrounding Lake Geneva, are selected at the start of each season after a competitive tryout in June. Some are excited to be part of a long-standing tradition, but most are teens hoping to land, as Torres-Rabby calls it, "the coolest summer job out there."The jumpers' day starts at the post office at 7 a.m. to pick up the mail, then it's off to the Walworth II to sort the mail, prepare for launch and greet passengers.
Some deliveries are harder than others. Ray Ames, who's been the captain of the Walworth II for the past 20 years, says the largest item a jumper has delivered during his tenure was a 42-inch flat-screen TV, a few summers back. Last year, one of the jumpers had to sprint across the pier with a 30-pound umbrella base.
"There's really nothing better," he adds. "It's such a fun, special job that I can tell stories about for the rest of my life."
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