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North Carolina Letter Carrier|2012 Retiree of the Year John Walden Is Not Quite Totally Retired
2012 Retiree of the Year John Walden Is Not Quite Totally Retired
By Richard Thayer, Editor

It’s still dark outside most mornings when John Walden, President of Branch 545 Charlotte, enters the branch office and prepares for another full day of work.

“I like to get in the office early,” says Walden, “because once the phone starts—with 17 offices and five AOs—you can stay on the phone a lot. I get in there at 5:30-6 o’clock. I can get a lot of work done preparing grievances prior to all the other stuff cranking up.”

This has pretty much been his daily routine since being elected president of the 850-plus member branch in 2001.

What makes his early morning work ethic even more remarkable is the fact that he really doesn’t have to be doing this. He could still be in bed. Or fishing.

That’s because John Walden is retired.

Well, not quite.

As Walden points out: “I’m a fulltime president, so I’m not really retired.”

We’re talking fulltime, and then some.

Although he retired from the Postal Service a couple of years ago as a city carrier, he was elected to another 3-year term as president last year. This means that he will continue to arrive at the office before dawn for a full day’s work at least until October 2013.

Because of his many years of dedicated service to the letter carriers and citizens of Charlotte, Walden received the 2012 Retiree of the Year Award this past June during the State Convention.

Which begs the question: With the multitude of challenges now being faced by letter carriers, why would anyone want to forego retirement and continue to work eight to 10-hour days?

“Quite a few people wanted me to run again,” explains Walden. “I felt I was capable of doing a good job. I had experience. I enjoy doing the work.”

Walden, born and raised in the barbecue capital of the world—Lexington, NC—attended college and served a stint in the Air Force before making his way down to the Queen City in 1971 in search of employment.

Although he eventually found work there, it only paid four to five-hundred dollars a month. His roommate on the other hand, a postal clerk, was bringing home four-figure paychecks on a regular basis.

Those four figures inspired him to apply for employment at a Charlotte post office.

Nine months after passing the test, Walden was wearing a brand-new letter carrier uniform and working as a PTF at Starmount Station.

Shortly after being hired in 1974, he joined the NALC and began attending branch meetings.

“I had never been involved in a union before,” says Walden. “Lexington wasn’t much of a union town.”

In the early 80s he bid on Randolph Station and became an assistant shop steward to a man who would become his mentor—Joe Bradford.

When Bradford retired, Walden stepped into his shoes fulltime, a position he held until he was elected president in 2001.

Walden readily acknowledges that being a shop steward can often be intimidating for anyone.

“Sometimes stewards get so overwhelmed,” he observes, “that they think they don’t know it all. But no one knows it all. But as you get more experience, you learn and things come back to you. There’s a lot to know, but through the years you learn a lot, so you retain a lot of that knowledge.”

That’s one of the things that makes Walden such a formidable opponent when it comes to resolving grievances: he has a lot of knowledge, and he knows how to wield it.

He’s always been interested in learning the nuts and bolts of being a union representative and being contract-savvy. He attended his first letter carrier seminar in the mid-80s in Raleigh. So strong is his commitment to training and learning that he hadn’t missed a single union-sponsored function until the autumn of last year. There was a conflict in scheduling.

The weekend of the seminar coincided with his mother’s 92nd birthday.

“That doesn’t happen very often,” he adds.

An advocate for training, Walden sees to it that his branch’s shop stewards receive it locally at least once a quarter.

Over the years, first as a wet-behind-the-ears assistant shop steward, then as a full-fledged steward, then as branch president, Walden has encountered his share of challenges.

With 850-plus letter carriers and nearly 20 stations throughout Mecklenburg County, Walden and his team of 30 shop stewards have their hands full most days.

One of the biggest challenges being faced by letter carriers today, says Walden, are the flat sorting machines and the Joint Alternate Route Adjustment Process (JARAP). Going into flat sorting, management had high expectations for savings. However, now that the flat sorting business hasn’t resulted in the anticipated savings, they’re expecting letter carriers to take up the slack and make it work.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

“In one of our stations,” says Walden, “they (management) sent in one of their blitz teams. They go out with the carriers and watch them. They want to get these numbers but they can’t get them. Carriers are taking longer on the street because they’re carrying almost a third bundle every day on walking routes. You can only get so much from a carrier in eight hours, or 10 hours, or whatever.”

The flat sorting debacle combined with JARAP is the source of another challenge: drastic and frequent changes in routes.

“It used to be that you would go quite a few years before you had a lot of changes in your route,” he says. “Now there’s rebidding. When you’ve got senior carriers losing their routes, it causes a lot of friction and stress. I think once we get through this, things might settle down.”

In spite of the challenges being encountered by letter carriers inside and outside the post office, Walden and his branch members still find the time and energy to give back to their community through such NALC-sponsored programs as the annual May food drive and the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

This past May’s food drive was an especially good one for the branch in part because of the generosity of AARP.

“Our past record was 250,000 pounds,” recalls Walden. “This year we got a call from national. They said AARP wanted to send us paper grocery bags. This year, with those bags in every box a week before the food drive, we collected 473,900 pounds of food. It almost doubled what we had been bringing in. We have a great group of people who work hard in Charlotte on the food drive. Lorna Wooding is the branch coordinator. She does an outstanding job.”

Branch 545 has also consistently been a leader in raising money for MDA, an organization that the NALC has supported since the 1950s. In 2010 the branch finished third in its category, raising close to $9,000.

No one knows what the future holds, but one thing is for certain: the Postal Service will be requiring less letter carriers to do more. With the number of new hires having declined dramatically over the past few years, and with attempts by anti-labor groups to eviscerate the Postal Service, letter carriers who were once inactive or semi-active, will need to step up if the USPS and their futures are to be preserved.

Walden encourages carriers to become more involved in their branches by regularly attending meetings and their state training workshops that are held in the spring and autumn.

“You go through the ranks,” he says, “you build your seniority, and then these people retire and others come along. The company is going to go on in some form.”

Hopefully, the Postal Service’s future form will be one that the NALC and its letter carriers—carriers like John Walden—have helped to mold into an organization that will continue to proudly serve the American public for many generations yet to come.




Bill and Mary Bunting
Bill and Mary

As a rule, letter carriers are a tight-knit bunch. And those who regularly attend our state association’s training seminars, rap sessions, and state and national conventions are especially tight-knit.

So, when a familiar face, or faces, are no longer seen at these functions their friends want to know what happened to them.

Such is the case of Bill and Mary Bunting of Randleman, NC, both long-time NALC and auxiliary members (over half a century), who haven’t been see for quite a while at our state functions.

Fortunately for those of us who have had the pleasure of knowing them over the years, they were with us briefly back in 2009 long enough for Bill to pick up his Retiree of the Year Award for 2010. The purpose of this quarter’s column is to introduce them to those carriers who have never met them and to bring everyone else up to speed on what has happened in the intervening years of their absence.

And we’ve included a little history as well.

One of eight children, Bill was born and raised in Asheboro, NC. Upon his graduation from high school in 1950, he married his childhood sweetheart, Mary Baker.

He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1951 to ‘55. In 1954, while stationed at Fort Knox, Bill and Mary had the first of their six children, a boy.

Upon completion of his military service, Bill settled down for a while in Asheboro with both he and Mary working at the local hosiery mill.

But then in 1957, at the suggestion of a friend, Bill headed north to Chicago and electronics school. He explains his move this way:

“I couldn’t see getting far working at the mill getting five cents an hour raises. I decided I needed to do something to improve our livelihood.”

Fortunately, Bill wasn’t meant to be an electronics man. After several months of going to school full time and working part time, he quit school and got a job with the Chicago post office working out of Rogers Park Station, making $1.98 an hour.

Although he caught on fast and enjoyed his work as a letter carrier in the Windy City, Bill and Mary longed to return to North Carolina. But he had trouble in getting transferred. He explains the problem this way:

“Postmasters back then were playing politics with positions. I had known the postmaster in Asheboro all my life, but she couldn’t bring me back because my daddy was of the opposite party from her.”

In 1967 Bill brought Mary and his children to Asheboro determined that he would either succeed in transferring or he would quit his job in Chicago and then attempt to get on with a post office once he was back home.

His break finally came in 1968 when the Greensboro postmaster agreed to his transfer.

A union man since his being hired in Chicago, Bill immediately became involved in Branch 630, eventually holding every office the branch had to offer, beginning with sergeant-at-arms.

In 1969 Bill attended his first North Carolina state convention held at the old Sheraton Hotel in downtown High Point. He ran for his first state office that same year, collecting 12 votes.

Undaunted, he ran for the office of 6th district representative again the following year and won (Back then state conventions were held annually). This would be the first of several offices he would hold in the state.

In 1976, while serving as the president of Branch 630, Bill was elected president of the state association, a position he would hold for three years.

“When I was president,” recalls Bill, “we didn’t have money to do nothing with. Your branch officers and state president went anywhere to teach route examination school somewhere. You paid your own way and went on your own time. I used to work in Greensboro, take an hour vacation and get off at 2 instead of 3, hit the road, go down east somewhere, put on a school at 7that night, then after I’d been down there I’d drive back and work the next day.”

During this same time Mary, in addition to raising the children, was very much involved in the state auxiliary, serving on at least three times as its president. Both she and Bill were both mainstays at every seminar and convention.

Bill was a participant in one of the major events in the history of the NALC and the Postal Service: the strike of 1970.

“What brought the strike on,” recalls Bill, “was we were tired of begging Congress for pay raises and we weren’t getting anywhere.”

With the carriers in New York City on strike there was the threat of the government decertifying every branch and taking their money. To avoid that, Bill was given the branch’s money and told to hide.

“I was holed up in Asheboro,” says Bunting. “No one knew where I was.”

Bill says that many things changed after the strike and the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, many of them good, but some of them bad.

“The pressure on the employees increased,” he says. “And it got worse. I couldn’t wait to turn 55 so I could retire.”

His union work included arbitration cases. Those picked up after 1970. One of his most memorable cases involved his representing himself.

In 1978 he was involved in a bad car accident which left him in a coma for four days. Since he was under contract with his personal vehicle, he filed a worker’s comp claim. However, it was subsequently denied when the man in charge of the claims wrote a letter to the Labor Department falsely claiming Bunting had been intoxicated at the time of the accident.

Although it took Bill a year-and-a-half to get the grievance adjudicated, the arbitrator in the case ruled in his favor.

By the time he retired in February of 1987 (after 32 1/2 years of service), Bill was working 11 hours a day.

In recognition of Bill’s last day on the job, Mother Nature did something special.

“I got my mail up, went out to load my jeep, and it started snowing. The more I walked (that day), the deeper it got. When I got through at 8 o’clock that night, it was 14 inches deep.”

At age 55, Bill figured he was still too young to quit work entirely, so he got himself a job at the Asheboro Zoo for a while, then went on to work for 10 years in a local concrete company.

When he retired from there at 65, he figured he was still too young to quit work, so he began work as a jailer with the Randleman Sheriff’s Department. That lasted three years.

Then at 68, he decided he wanted to be a deputy sheriff, so he enrolled in rookie school.

He says of that experience: “I stayed with them kids all the way.”

By “all the way,” he means this: The course at rookie school consisted of carrying two 150 lb. Bodies 50 yards each, walking across wooden beams, leaping a six-foot broad jump, crawling through a 40’ pipe, through windows, over fences and walls, then finishing up with a 550 yard run. All of this to be completed in less than 2-and-a-half minutes.

“It was pretty tough on this old man,” says Bunting. “But I had my mind made up. I wanted out of that jail (duty).” He eventually graduated from the school, a 68-year-old rookie.

By age 70 he was working in the civil division of the Sheriff’s office serving summons, subpoenas, foreclosure notices, evictions and the like. And serving in various security jobs part-time.

Nearing 80 now, Bunting decided to hang up his badge earlier this year. This past fall he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. But after a series of radiation treatments, he received a clean bill of health from his doctors.

Mary has not been able to attend the state’s functions for a number of years now due to ill health. She suffers from COPD, arthritis and heart problems. But thanks to Bill, a daughter, and Home Health Services, she has been able to remain at home.

And September marks a special observance for Bill and Mary. On September 3rd they will celebrate their 61st wedding anniversary.

We asked Bill if he had any parting advice for carriers just starting out with the Postal Service.

“First thing I’d tell a carrier is join the union the day you go in and be diligent in what you do every day. Learn as much as you can about the operation of the post office as well as the union. Learn to protect yourself (by learning the contract) and remember you have help on the workroom floor with you—your shop steward.

“And get involved not only in the union but the legislative part of it and be active in COLCPE.”




Rudy Tempesta: America's Senior Letter Carrier
Rudy Tempesta: America's Senior Letter Carrier
By Richard Thayer
Howie Leff Memorial Branch 936
High Point, NC
(Photo from Parade.com)

When Rudy Tempesta began delivering mail in 1946, Harry Truman was president, a future president, George W. Bush, was born, it cost 3 cents to mail a first class letter, and gas was 15 cents a gallon.

Memorable melodies being played on radios back then were such toe- tappers as “Choo Choo Ch’ Boogie,” “Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop,” and “Shoo Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy.” It was the year the Postal Service began using helicopters to deliver mail to some of the nation’s largest cities, and letter carriers like Tempesta made a whopping 85 cents an hour.

A lot has changed since 1946.

With one notable exception.

Rudy Tempesta is still delivering the mail.

And at a vigorous 85 years of age, the wiry, five-foot-five, one-hundred-thirty-eight pound son of Italian immigrants, has no intention of retiring. Ever.

A few years ago he told a reporter with the Raleigh News and Observer: “I like delivering the mail, and I like the people. As long as my body holds up, I plan to keep on going. I’m going to be the last man standing.”

And the way he’s going, he could be.

Tempesta hasn’t always been a letter carrier though. Prior to the start of his postal career he served two years as a ball-turret gunner on a B-24 Liberator bomber. He flew 21 missions over Europe curled in the fetal position, hanging from a plane that was aptly called “The Flying Coffin,” delivering not mail but bombs to Germany, Austria, Hungary and Romania.

Tempesta, being the proactive kind of guy that he is, wasn’t drafted, he volunteered. He was rejected the first time he tried to get in due to his having had rheumatic fever as a child. They told him if he got a written note from his doctor stating that he had never had rheumatic fever, they would accept him.

Recalls Tempesta, “The doctor who had treated me was dead. The doctor who wrote the note said he had never treated me for rheumatic fever, which was true. He hadn’t.”

He was accepted.

After the war, Tempesta returned to his hometown of Brooklyn, New York and worked for a few months in a machine shop before being hired by the United States Postal Service. He would spend the next 12 years delivering mail on four floors of the Empire State Building.

“They were a mile long,” he says of the floors. “You made three trips in those days: first and second class mail, then registered, certified and airmail, then bulk mail.”

Back in those days carriers would clock in at 6 a.m., work until 3 p.m., go home, sleep, then return at midnight and work the building again.

His first shop steward was a young man by the name of Vincent Sombroto. “I’ve known him for a hundred years,” says Tempesta. “He’s a great guy. Too bad he had to retire.”

In 1959 Tempesta moved with his first wife to Chapel Hill. She was a native of Carborro. They had two children before they divorced.

In 1982 he would marry for a second and last time. He sent her to college, then to medical school. After three children, that marriage, too, would end in divorce.

When he began delivering mail in Chapel Hill there were only five routes, all walking. Today there are 60, all riding.

He began by delivering mail along the old Victory Village route, over by the UNC hospital.

“I would start at the old post office downtown and walk across campus,” recalls Tempesta. “I met people from all over the world. (Former governor) Jim Hunt was a student then and I used to have coffee with him.”

He became Branch 2613’s president soon after he arrived at the post office. Real soon.

“First day,” he laughs. “They make a joke of it. ‘Damn Yankee, let him fight with the managers.’ There was no election, they just appointed me. The first thing I did was ask for a count. They never counted down here. It worked out perfect.”

He would go on to serve as the branch’s president for the next 40 years, longer than most carriers’ careers.

Although he’s known for his outgoing, friendly personality, Tempesta has been known to get feisty when he has to.

“I like to fight for people,” he says. “I enjoy winning arguments. If they (management) don’t want to see the light, they’ll have to see it through an arbitrator. You can’t break the contract, I don’t care if you’re the president of the United States.”

He can also be tenacious. He recalls one case he pursued for 10 years before he finally won it. The carrier in question had been fired because he had been hospitalized and unable to work. Although Tempesta won the case twice, the Postal Service appealed it both times. When the case went before arbitrators in Washington, DC, they ruled in the young man’s favor, giving him not only his job back, but also his back pay, seniority and all of his accrued sick leave.

“There were a lot of discipline cases over those 40 years,” observes Tempesta. “The postmasters in those days —I hate to say it—were stupid.”

He mentions an EEO ruling in the grievant’s favor where a postmaster said to him and the case’s arbitrator, “You guys are from the old school.” It wasn’t meant as a compliment.

Tempesta flared up. “What do you mean by the old school? The old school made it possible for you to be where you are today. We made the changes that put you where you are. We’re the ones who fight for raises and you copy us.”

Having served as a branch president for four decades, what advice does he have for those who are just starting out as shop stewards and branch presidents?

“First, learn your contract. Learn something about law, and then you use common decency and compassion. If you see a guy that’s being abused and it’s hard to prove, always feel that you can win. Always protect your workers, that’s where your job is. Never give up on a case; go all the way. If you lose a grievance, go with the EEO, go to the labor board, or write to the president of the United States. I’ve done that a lot. We won a lot of things that way.”

He finally had to give up the presidency in 1996.

That was the year he nearly died.

It happened one day at home. Suddenly, he discovered that he couldn’t move. At the hospital he was diagnosed with toxic shock syndrome, a potentially fatal illness caused by a bacterial toxin.

He credits his oldest daughter with saving his life. The situation was looking pretty grim and one doctor who had obviously given up on him, asked Tempesta’s ex-wife (the one he sent through medical school) if she thought they should take him off life support.

“My daughter went berserk,” says Tempesta. She said, ‘You touch (his life support) and you’ll be sued for life! That’s my father!”

His brush with death would prevent him from delivering mail for six months. Fortunately, he had over two-thousand hours of sick leave to cover it.

Although proud of his accomplishments as a letter carrier and unionist, he is most proud of his achievements as a single dad raising five children, ranging today in ages from their early twenties to late fifties.

Even though working full time as a letter carrier, he never allowed his work to interfere with his being at his children’s school activities.

“My two boys played 15 years of baseball,” says the proud dad. “That means I had to travel back and forth—games three times a week and practice the rest of the week. Then you had to travel around the state to play these tournaments. My daughter played softball for four years.” His eyes twinkle as he adds, “She was a great second baseman.”

His son Nick told a reporter with the Chapel Hill Herald Sun: “Both me and my brother played baseball. He came to all our of our games, and he was the loudest guy there. His age didn’t stop him.”

If you want an answer to the inevitable question about what has kept him so young all these years, he’s quick to answer: “My kids keep me young. I’m mother and father to them and they’re the greatest kids in the world. That’s what keeps me healthy.”

Most carriers are lucky if they receive a safety award honoring them for driving one million miles without having a preventable accident. A couple of years ago Tempesta received recognition for driving two million miles without an accident.

Among the rules he observes when delivering mail is this: “When you’re driving in Chapel Hill and you see pretty girls in front of you, don’t let them distract you. Make sure you’re looking straight.”

What advice does he have for those carriers who are just starting out?

“The post office is a great job, just don’t let them (management) get you down...managers are out for the bonuses, that’s why they push. The backbone of the Postal Service is the mail carrier. We’re the best advertisement they’ve got. We set a good example for the post office. It’s a good job. Work hard at it but don’t let anyone abuse you. Enjoy the union, that’s the biggest thing you’ve got working for you. Be friendly with everybody.”

So after toting the mail for 65 years you might think he would be looking forward to retirement in the not-too-distant future.

But that’s not the case.

“I can go at any time, but I don’t want to go. I want the benefits for my kids. I’m happy. Everybody likes me and I like everybody.”

You can’t do any better than that.




Scout's Honor
Scout’s Honor
By Richard Thayer
Howie Leff Memorial Branch 936

For High Point letter carrier Jerome Goode, 1994 was a pivotal year; it was the year he discovered his life’s passion.

Prior to that year Goode had served 13 years in the U.S. Army, and had been carrying mail for the past three years. Up until then he had been pretty much satisfied with his lot in life.

Perhaps too satisfied.

The impetus that would forever change the course of his life, and the lives of others, came from a woman who years earlier had helped in raising him and his five brothers and sisters in Greensboro, NC.

Goode chuckles as he recalls that defining moment when Mrs. Josie Gaston had a heart-to-heart talk with him.

“She told me I owed her,” he recalls. “She told me I had to give back.”

Gaston pointed out to Goode the number of boys in their Greensboro neighborhood who were “running wild,” many of whom didn’t have a father at home to give them the guidance they needed in life. Without mincing words, she told him he could repay her for what she had done for him by helping those boys, and others like them.

Gaston’s challenge took Goode to a local Boy Scout troop where he signed up to be a scout leader.

In the beginning there were just four boys. But under a leadership style and philosophy learned through his military training, his troop quickly grew to 50 within a year-and-a-half. What initially began as an hour-a-week volunteer service has now grown to a 30 to 45 hours-a-week act of love.

Goode believes that many adults today have abdicated their responsibility to their children.

“We wait until they get to be 14 or 15 and say, ’Son, you should know better,’ but who has taught them any better? We assume somebody else has done the teaching, and no one has.”

Goode notes that in these rapidly changing times, scouting has changed as well. Today, scouting is more specialized and adult scout leaders teach from a background of their own life experiences.

Having had a father who was a U.S. Marine and having served in the Army, Goode’s expertise is in the area of discipline and self-taught child psychology.

Goode is emphatic when he says that many adults today don’t seem to realize that children actually want discipline, they crave it. He says that one of the major problems today is that parents have given up their authority in exchange for the child’s friendship.

“A child is thinking,” says Goode, ‘Daddy I have to listen to, a friend I don’t.’”

In addition to the numerous activities provided for the boys, something else that attracts them to scouting is the organization’s policy of treating everyone equally.

“When we put on the (scout) uniform, we’re all the same,” says Goode. “I don’t care if you live in the richest part of town, or if you’re in public housing, we’re all Scouts, we’re all one family. We don’t care if you live in a shack or a mansion. The kids like that.”

That attitude of fairness and equality toward all is especially appealing to those boys who come from broken homes, homes where there is no father figure to help their mother in raising them.

So Goode, and other scout leaders like him, step in and fill that void in the child’s life.

Goode recalls a situation where an 11-year-old scout had thought about committing suicide for the sake of his family.

“He had a single parent,” says Goode, “and he was the oldest of three. He figured that if he killed himself his mother would have two kids to feed and she wouldn’t have to work so hard.”

The boy’s horrified mother heard of her son’s plans and told Goode. Goode, in turn, implemented a plan of his own.

“I went and got him a rake, some plastic bags and said, ‘Hit it.’ I took him around and let him rake people’s yards. Afterwards, I said, ‘Now you’ve got some money, give it to your mama.’ It was as simple as that.”

Goode’s being a letter carrier gave him an idea a few years ago that developed into a successful partnership between his scouts and the High Point post office. The epiphany that led to this partnership occurred one day while he was delivering mail along his route on High Point’s west side. At the time his route consisted of his driving seven miles delivering mail to curb boxes, then delivering the remaining 11 miles on foot.

Recalls Goode with a laugh, “I thought to myself, ‘Man, there’s got to be a better life.’”

That thought of a better life soon morphed into a plan by his scouts to put up curbside boxes for High Point’s customers.

Explains Goode, “Kids (in the scouts) need community service and the post office needs free labor. Why pay Maintenance to erect mailboxes when you can get a kid to do it free?”

That early partnership resulted in 1,000 new mailboxes and posts being erected throughout High Point. The workforce that accomplished this remarkable feat consisted of only two adults and nine boys, ages 11 to 15.

It was a win-win situation for everyone involved: the 1,000 new curb boxes increased the post office’s efficiency, carriers walked less, customers got free mailboxes installed, and the kids got their community service, and their exercise.

But the partnership didn’t stop there; it still continues today. Each year, during the second Saturday in May, the scouts help out with the NALC’s annual Food Drive.

“Carriers pick it up,” says Goode, “but the scouts are out there to unload the trucks and break it down for the different groups that receive the food for their pantries. Other guys started bringing their units out to help. I bring out a grill and we feed the carriers.”

To illustrate the unique partnership enjoyed by the scouts and the post office, Goode came up with the idea of a uniform that’s made up of one-half of a scout’s uniform and one-half half of a carrier’s uniform.

Goode wants his fellow carriers to know that it’s possible to have both a postal career and to be a scout leader as well. And perhaps there are others who would like to form a partnership between the scouts and their local post office.

As part of its observance of the 100th anniversary of the founding of America’s first African American troop (in Wilmington, NC), and in celebration of Black History Month, a Scouting exhibit—”Faces of Scouting”—is now on display at the International Civil Rights Center and Museum in Greensboro, NC, now until March 20, 2011.

Today, through his own example, Jerome Goode is helping to pass along to others the same advice Mrs. Josie Gaston gave him years ago: “You’ve got to give back.”

And, says Goode and others like him, there’s no better way of giving back than by being a Boy Scout leader.

Scout’s honor.

(Photo at left by Carl A. Walton)




High Point Carrier Leads Scouting Exhibit at Historic Museum
High Point Carrier Leads Scouting Exhibit at Historic Museum
USPS Newsbreak

GREENSBORO —Jerome Goode is a High Point city letter carrier, but that’s just his day job. He’s also heavily involved in the Boy Scouts, and it is his passion, vision, and creativity that led him to work with the historic International Civil Rights Center and Museum in downtown Greensboro to present the exhibit, “Faces of Scouting,” on display in the lower gallery of the museum until March 20.

“Faces of Scouting” is a remarkable collection of artifacts, photos and memorabilia chronicling the 100-year history of African-Americans in scouting. The first black scout troop was established in Elizabeth City in 1911, one year after scouting officially started in America. Goode, who authored and published several booklets celebrating the legacy of African-American scouting, serves as the assistant district commissioner, Piedmont District of Old Hickory Council.

“I worked with the museum for more than six months organizing the exhibit and gathering the signature items now on display,” said Goode, a 33-year employee and resident of Greensboro . “One of the items is a mannequin with a uniform – half scout, half letter carrier – to illustrate how its been led by volunteers who work regular jobs, like in the Post Office. There are thousands in history that gave valuable hours, weeks, even years to help make scouting a worthwhile experience for boys and girls, and we want to make sure people understand and remember that with this exhibit.”

Goode also points out how scouts are always in the market for worthy community projects, and proudly notes how troops put up more than 1000 mailboxes for curbside delivery in High Point when he first started in scouting back in 1995. “Scouting can greatly impact a person’s life,” he says. “So many America ns have been scouts or involved in scouting in their lifetime, and we hope this exhibit can help people realize its importance on our history and culture.”

“Faces of Scouting” is a free exhibit until March 20 at the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, 134 S. Elm Street , downtown Greensboro . Guided tours of the museum cost $8. The museum is open six days a week.




If You Knew Harry
If You Knew Harry

By Richard Thayer
Howie Leff Memorial Branch 936
High Point, NC

Those attending the North Carolina State Association’s training seminars and state conventions see him in their classes, in the hallways between sessions and perhaps at a nearby table in a restaurant with his wife and friends. Short, slight of build, wearing a ball cap and a mischievous grin, he isn’t the sort of person who draws attention to himself.

Although he’s a regular fixture at the state’s seminars and conventions, it’s quite probable that many carriers, especially the younger ones, don’t have the slightest idea who he is.

If one were to take the time to speak with him, here are a few of the things they would learn:

His name is Harry Klabbitz. He’s a thirty-year veteran of the Postal Service and a bona fide member of the Greatest Generation (having served during World War II in the South Pacific), is a member of Lewis Tucker Merged Branch 1128, his wife’s name is Louise and they have been married for nearly 60 years. At last spring’s seminar he received a plaque from his branch in recognition of his being a proud NALC member for 60 years. He wears that grin because he enjoys life in general and being around letter carriers in particular.

Now if you were to sit and chat with him longer you would find out other things as well. Following are just a few of them. Born in Pinehurst, North Carolina in 1924, he moved with his family to Akron, Ohio as a boy before returning several years later, finishing his high school education and graduating in 1941, six months before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

Shortly thereafter Harry was called to active duty by Uncle Sam, serving as a gunner for the 193rd Tank Battalion in the South Pacific.

While serving on Okinawa, Japan he recalls waking up one morning with a piece of shrapnel on his side. Not in his side but on his side. Although the interviewer didn’t pursue the matter, it would seem that Harry must have slept through an enemy barrage of some kind because the shrapnel hadn’t been there before he went to sleep.

When his side began hurting a short time later Harry assumed it had something to do with the shrapnel even though it hadn’t pierced his skin. A subsequent examination revealed that the pain had nothing to do with the shrapnel. He had appendicitis.

Although the appendicitis wasn’t life-threatening, it almost cost him his life. While recovering from surgery on a hospital ship off the coast of Okinawa, a kamikaze pilot, who obviously had no regard for the Geneva Convention, crashed his Zero into the ship, but failed to sink it.

If there were any other close encounters with death during the war, Harry didn’t divulge them to his interviewer. With the exception of his appendix, Harry was discharged with all of his body parts intact in 1946.

Harry worked briefly at a drug store before being hired by the Pinehurst post office to carry the mail. The year was 1949 and he began by making the princely sum of 85 cents an hour.

As a newbie letter carrier Harry walked the streets of Pinehurst covering 18 miles a day. After three years he was promoted to a riding route, although Harry didn’t consider it a promotion. He enjoyed walking.

And he enjoyed the 30 years he put in as a letter carrier. “I had a route,” he says, “where I had real good friends. People enjoyed seeing us, talking to us. They really appreciated us.”

Unfortunately, the U.S. government didn’t. Back in those days letter carriers had to lobby Congress for their pay raises. Those were the days of “collective begging,” where carriers like Harry piled into cars or onto buses and traveled to DC to lobby their congressmen. Harry recalls those days with fondness, telling how he and several others would pool their money and share a hotel room.

“We would take the mattress off the bed,” says Harry, “and lay it out on the floor.” Instead of taking their leave time for some much-needed rest and relaxation, they used it to lobby Congress. Not only did they not get a vacation, but neither did their wives. And Harry is quick to give the ladies and the auxiliary credit for the work they did in supporting their husbands during those hard-scrabble years.

Not only did they use their leave back then for lobbying, they also spent their own money. The state association during those years had little if any money to pay their officers’ expenses.

Times were hard but the carriers back then were a close knit group. They stuck together and looked out for one another. He recalls a time when he and another Pinehurst carrier drove to Greensboro for that year’s state convention (they had them annually back then). When it came time for them to drive back home, the car wouldn’t start. Now what would they do?

Harry recalls that it was the state’s secretary-treasurer, W.D. Haralson, who loaned them his car so they could get back home. Adds Harry, “He did a lot for us.”

In 1950 Harry met his future wife, Louise, as the result of an accident. Harry had been hit by an automobile and had broken his hip. He was admitted to Moore Regional Hospital for surgery. One night as he was recovering, one of his legs dropped off the side of the bed and he couldn’t get it back in (or so he says). There just happened to be a pretty young nurse on duty that night and Harry asked for her assistance.

“I said, ‘How about putting my leg back in the bed?’”

How’s that for a pick up line?

He and Louise started dating after his discharge from the hospital and were married the following year. They had three boys over the years: Tommy, Carl and Mark, none of whom felt the compulsion to follow in their dad’s footsteps as a letter carrier. They are all happily employed elsewhere.

In 1961 Harry ran for the presidency of the state association and won. Contrasting that era with today Harry says, “There were two or three running for each state office then. It wasn’t like it is today.”

Having served for 30 years as a letter carrier you would think Harry would have a few dog bite stories, and he does. He recalls at least three different incidents in which he was bitten by man’s best friend. One of the more amusing stories has to do with his being bitten by a German shepherd. The dog belonged to a military man, a lieutenant. When Harry passed on the doctor’s bill to the officer, the man balked and said he had no intention of payin

Harry says to the man, “If you don’t pay the bill I’ll report you to your commanding officer.” The lieutenant says real huffy-like, “I’m my own commanding officer.” Without missing a beat Harry says, “That’s not what Colonel Blake told me.” “You know Colonel Blake?” asks the lieutenant, coming down off his high horse. “Yeah,” says Harry, “he’s my uncle.”

The lieutenant couldn’t pay that bill fast enough.

Interestingly enough, the worst bite Harry ever received wasn’t from a dog, it was from a human. And it didn’t happen while he was carrying mail but after he had retired. Harry was working as a security guard at Moore Regional Hospital. He was called to the emergency room to help subdue and eject a intoxicated woman who was attempting to bite a doctor. She refused to go with Harry peacefully so he grabs her by the arm. When he does, a man steps in between the woman and Harry with Harry’s hand still firmly attached to the woman’s arm. During the brief scuffle that ensued, the woman latched onto one of Harry’s fingers, bites it off the way you wound the end of a cigar, and spit it out on the floor.

Health permitting, Harry and Louise will probably be in attendance at our fall seminar in Durham. When you see them, you might want to express your gratitude to them. It’s because of Harry and Louise Klabbitz and others like them that you and I have what we have today.





 


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