Walking the walk

A rally in Beverly organized by Rich Donlon on behalf of his local letter carriers union had to be postponed. But that doesn't mean we can't talk about Rich Donlon himself.

One of the favorite stories I’ve ever written was about Rich Donlon, a letter carrier who took part in the Good Friday Walk in Beverly every year. One year, when he was going to be away on vacation on Good Friday, he walked the 13-mile route by himself the week before. I can still see the picture we had of Rich in The Salem News, walking past a big stone wall on Hale Street in Prides Crossing, alone and undeterred.

Rich reached out to me a couple of weeks ago to ask if I could do a story on a rally by the local letters carriers union that he was organizing in Beverly. I told him I’d be glad to get the word out, but only if I could write another story about him in the process.

Rich Donlon on his old route in North Beverly.

So here’s the Rich Donlon story, Part 2. He’s now 84, retired for nearly two decades, with a full head of gray hair. I think he looks like the travel guy Rick Steeves, but he told me most people say he looks like Yaz (look him up, young people!). I’ve seen Rich around town over the years and I would describe him as perpetually positive.

One thing I remembered about him is how much he loved being a letter carrier. When we sat down for a cup of coffee at the Dunkin’ Donuts in North Beverly this week, he used phrases like “my beloved Postal Service” and “my dream job.”

So what was so great about it?

“People,” he said. “It was the people, Paul.”

Rich didn’t become a letter carrier until he was 38 years old, after he and his wife, Gail, both got laid off as teachers at Timberlane Regional High School in New Hampshire after a teachers strike. He bounced around to three or four jobs before former Beverly Postmaster John Condon appointed him as a letter carrier in 1981.

Rich’s first route was in Gloucester Crossing, where he grew up. The first time he delivered the mail to 26 Grant St. — his old house — he started crying.

He later got a route in the neighborhoods on either side of Dodge Street, and that’s where he stayed for the next 22 years. I remember interviewing Ray Battistelli, the founder of the Good Friday Walk, at Ray’s house on Butterworth Road one year, and here came Mr. Good Friday Walk himself, Rich Donlon, delivering the mail.

Speaking of walking, Rich lived close enough to the Postal Service building on Tozer Road that he would walk there to pick up his deliveries for the day, then of course walk his route — 256 houses, nine miles. (Gail, by the way, would walk to work at North Beverly Elementary School, where she taught first grade. They saved a lot on gas.)

Rich is a talker, in a good way. He kept asking me if he was going on too long. “I do tend to prattle or palaver,” he said. And since he got to know just about everybody on his route, I wondered how he could possibly stop and talk to everyone and still get it done on time.

Rich said that would be hard to do nowadays, when letter carriers have to scan each mailbox and their progress is tracked electronically. “Now you might have a chance to say ‘Hi’ and ‘How are you doing?’” he said. “That’s about it.”

Rich said he got to know each of his customer’s needs. At one house, he would wiggle the Time Magazine when he put it in the mail slot so that the woman would hear that it had arrived. One day, he heard the woman inside saying, “Rich, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” He went inside and helped her up.

As for that rally, which was scheduled for Sunday at Beverly Common, Rich notified me after we talked that it’s been postponed due to all the snow on the ground. The rally was part of a national effort by the National Association of Letter Carriers to drum up public support as negotiations begin on a new contract. Rich said the U.S. Postal Service is under threat from a variety of sources, from Amazon deliveries to online bill paying (instead of mailing your payments) to efforts to privatize it.

Still, the Postal Service delivers mail to more than 165 million homes and businesses every day. Rich told me he was pretty sure the mail is even delivered by mules in the Grand Canyon. I looked it up and he’s right.

“You can tell my pride in the Postal Service,” he said.

So that’s the Rich Donlon story, Part 2. I admire his dedication and passion for his profession. And when there’s not two feet of snow on the ground, he still goes out for walks.

Rich punches out on his last day of work in March of 2008.