“If I was doing other tours, I wouldn’t have stayed here this long,” Capt. Neill Frame says of working on the U.S. Mailboat for the last 50 years.
Fifty-seven years ago Frame started working for Lake Geneva Cruise Line giving speed boat rides. In 1965 he started driving the Lady of the Lake on the weekends, and less than five years later he was driving the U.S. Mailboat every day.
Now in 2019, he works six days a week during the Mailboat delivery season, which runs June 15 – September 15, and loves every minute of it. He starts his season a couple days before that with Mailboat jumper tryouts, and gets to meet his new delivery crew.
“It’s interesting every day,” Frame said.
Frame says his favorite part about the Mailboat route is the kids he gets to work with who jump off the boats to deliver the mail. He said he looks forward to coming to work every day because they keep him young.
And while Frame loves the route and the tradition, he says he’s never actually jumped off the boat to deliver any mail.
“My mama didn’t raise no fools,” Frame said laughing.