Letter carrier finds choice of career delivers every day

Veteran letter carrier Billy McGruder since September has been feeling the holiday spirit — literally. Retailers started mailing Christmas catalogs the Tuesday after Labor Day, increasing the heft of his bag to 35 and 40 pounds.

It's been particularly cumbersome these past several weeks, when customers are leaving stacks of outgoing cards to post. There've been times, McGruder said, when he's ended the street with more mail than when he started.

Other times, the holiday season can be fun, he said. "When the weather is nasty, people will invite me in for coffee or hot chocolate,” McGruder said, "or put out candies and cookies for me.”

McGruder, who is 48 with 25 years service, likes his work because he can meet and greet people, enjoy the different seasons, and not be tethered to an indoor job. At The Village post office, he sorts mail from 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. each day and then hits the road. Of course, he's had a few dog bites, but nothing serious.

Nationwide, postal workers handle about 20 billion pieces of mail between Thanksgiving and Christmas, 213 billion a year. On average, letter carriers deliver nearly 2,900 pieces a day to more than 500 addresses.

"Where workers by hand once sorted 600 pieces an hour, computers now sort some 36,000 per hour,” said Larry Flener, spokesman for the Oklahoma District. An electronic beam reads the addresses on mail and then a bar code is sprayed on them.

Brad George works as a box clerk, sorting mail at the Meridian and Reno post office, but fills in at the window when things get hectic. His favorite part of the season?

"Seeing the little kids come in with their parents, all excited about the holiday, and the mail sent to our military men and women overseas. Customers often have good stories to tell about their Christmas traditions,” George said.

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. These words, inscribed at the top of the James A. Farley building in New York, are considered to be the motto of the Postal Service. The phrase is a translation of an ancient Greek work of Herodotus describing the Persian system of mounted carriers, c. 500 B.C.