In the bag

Delivering mail is the career McKinley Carroll, affectionately known as “Mac,” had always dreamed of doing, even during the farming days of his youth in Sampson County. Over 40 years later, he’s hanging up his mail back, thankful for decades of doing a job he has always loved.

Carroll spent all those years as a mailman for the US Postal Service in Clinton where he’s driven the same route since he took the job in 1982. These days, good ol’ Mac, now over 70 years old, said he would still be loading up his truck for delivers if he could.

While he wanted to keep going, time, he said, was catching up with him, and his aches and pain were becoming more common. It was that realization that made Carroll decide it was time for retirement, a feeling. he said, that takes some getting use to.

“It is a different kind of life, it really is, but I am beginning to enjoy it,” he said. “Matter of fact, me and my wife were just coming back from Warsaw this morning as I’m speaking, so this is not the normal way I’ve usually started my day. That said, it’s a good feeling, it really is, but now I miss my job, I really do, I miss it.”

Carroll’s last official day was Friday Aug. 30, the weekend just before Labor Day.

“My health, that was the reason. I’m 76 years old,” he said laughing. “Most people don’t work that late in life. My neck, my shoulders, they hurt. There’s a lot of twisting and turning in what I do. If my neck and shoulder and all wouldn’t bother me, I would have probably worked on another year or two. But I’m glad I went ahead now that I’ve done it, and I’m happy with it.”

His career began back in the 1980s, but taking the carrier job, Carroll spent his life on a farm. For him, the path to a mail carrier was destined, but as for what made him stay the course for so long, he was quick to point out it was job security and a passion to serve his community.

“Well, I always thought I’d want to carry the mail,” he said. “I was raised on a farm, and for those that know farming, there’s good years and bad years. If you get rain, things are pretty good, but if you get too much rain, things are bad. Being a mail carrier, it was a very secure job over the years; I don’t know if it’s as secure now as it was when I started, though.”

“I started on Feb. 20, 1982. I was the last person that Mr. Byron Rose, who was the postmaster in Clinton, hired before he retired. The one thing I can say about my job is that if it rained, it snowed, if the sun was shining, I always had a job. All I had to do was report to Clinton, walk in that door, and I would get my pay for that day. Having a family, that was important to me, to have something that was as secure as it could be.”

“If not for this job, I wouldn’t be where I am now. The post office, they’ve been good to me, and the people I serve, they’re like family.”

All those years were spent delivering mail on the same path, which Carroll said was Route 6, and he took a stroll down memory lane recalling what it’s been like being a mail carrier all these years.

“I’ve been on that route so long, I was on the same route for 36 years, seven months and six days,” he said. “I’ve been with the post office 42 years; four years was part-time and the other 38 was full time. “Back years ago, there was a lot of dirt roads and brakes weren’t as good then as they are now. Cars are better now, but back when the dirt roads were a plenty it took a set of brake pads every 10 to 12,000 miles. The cars we have now, though, like my little jeep I still have, I’ve only ever had three or four of them.

“These days, most of the roads are paved and only maybe two or three miles on my route are still dirt roads. Things are just a lot better, far as the roads and everything, than they used to be a long time ago. That said, packages and stuff have definitely gotten heavier than they used to be and something we have a lot more of in the mail now.”

“No matter how it’s changed, I can say one thing for certain — it’s been a wonderful career; I’ve enjoyed it, I really have.”

Carroll said his beloved Route 6 would take him west of Hwy 24 to the Bonnetsville community, to Reynolds Crossroads, over at Parker Memorial, around Floyd’s Used Cars, to Harmony Church and Bass Lake Road.

Decades of work on that same route, Carroll said, has brought many fond memories.

“Me, being a farmer, being in the country, seeing cows, seeing people farming in the field, all that has kept me close to the county and farm life right on, even though I wasn’t farming. I’ve always associated that with it, and I recall one day I was going down the road and the road was full of cows. So, I stopped because I didn’t want to run over them, and I helped a man get them in, I won’t ever forget that.

“Another good story was when, one day, I ran up on a man that was a Catholic priest. His name was Father John. He was on a bicycle on Boykin Bridge Road, and it was on one of them days in August when it was so hot, I mean, you could just feel the water running down you. I remember he was exhausted, and back then I was driving this old 1979 Plymouth, and back then the booths were huge. So, I put Father John’s bicycle in the booth, and he got in the backseat of that Plymouth.”

Carroll said that story always makes him chuckle because they weren’t supposed to pick up passengers, but he made an exception that day to help out the good father.

“I was almost through that day, and the postmaster and him, at the time, were good friends, so it was funny because we we’re not supposed to pick up people like that,” he said with a chuckle. “Even so, there’s certain situations that you have to be a good human being. So, I took Father John and I got him back to Clinton, and I happened to have a cooler with some water in it and he sure did appreciate a bottle of water that day.”

While Carroll had plenty of happy memories, there were more than a fair share of not so good ones to go along with those.

“I’ve been stung by wasp and had face swelling, I’ve had green lizards in the car and much more,” he said. “One day I was slowing down and almost stopped, next thing I know a bird comes flying in. Now, when a bird comes in the car, that’ll scare you. He came through, landed on my dash for just a few seconds, and was out like the wind back through the window, and I tell you that kind of shook me up a little bit.”

Now a few weeks into his retirement, Carroll said he has a few plans.

“Maybe a little yard work, a little traveling, and, who knows, I might get me another part time job somewhere around after a while,” he said. “I’m enjoying myself right now but it’s for sure been a good career, I really have enjoyed it and I’m sure going to miss it. I just thank all my friends and people that I’ve served over the years they’ve been mighty nice to me, I’ll say that.”