3 generations have walked the same Montpelier postal route
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Montpelier mail carrier Craig Montgomery sits on the steps of his father's house on Shamrock Lane in Montpelier. Montgomery is the third generation mailcarrier in his family, delivering mail on virtually the same route as his father and grandfather. Stefan Hard/Times Argus |
Toolbox
By Mel Huff Times Argus Staff - Published: September 18, 2007
MONTPELIER – Craig Montgomery has three photographs he treasures: One is of his grandfather, Harold Montgomery, delivering the mail to an address off Elm Street. Another is of his father, Dave, delivering mail in the very same spot. The third is of Craig himself, following in his father's and grandfather's footsteps – literally.
Craig Montgomery is the third generation of Montgomerys to deliver mail to neighbors on the Elm Street route.
Craig took over the route in June when his father retired. Dave Montgomery had carried letters to the families in the Elm Street and Meadow area – Spring, Summer and Winter streets – for 19 years. Dave doesn't remember exactly when his father got the Elm Street route, although Harold Montgomery began delivering mail in 1955. Father, son and postal officials think the Montgomerys are one of very few, if not the only, families in which three generations have carried mail on the same route.
"It might just prove that stupidity is hereditary," Dave jokes.
On a recent evening Craig, lean and dark, with heavily tattooed forearms – he calls himself the Illustrated Mailman – and Dave, rounder and gray, sat at Craig's dining room table reminiscing about their shared world.
For the eight years before Craig got the Elm Street route, he delivered mail along Berlin Street. "It's all hills both ways – 11 miles a day of walking," Craig says. Both routes take about the same amount of time to complete; the Elm Street route has more stops – "485, but who's counting," Dave interjects. Craig says he agonized for a year about changing routes.
"I knew I would miss the people on my old route, and I still do. But change is good, I guess, especially when it's flat."
Craig's day starts at 7:30 a.m. and ends at 3 p.m.
"With two boys, that's about midday for me," he says. When he leaves work, he picks up his sons at daycare (Maddox is 2 and Angus 4), comes home and plays outdoors with them as long as there's light.
"One good thing about dad's route is that you have energy left at the end of the day," Craig says. "The other route used to whup you."
"When you have a route for 19 years, all those people become like family to you," Dave says. "You watch their kids grow up, you go to their birthday parties, you go to their graduations, you go to their weddings, you go to some of their funerals. The people become part of your whole day." When he retired, he said, one little boy who was moving from daycare into kindergarten came out of the house with a bunch of balloons for him and shouted, "'Congratulations, Dave! You graduated!'
"That's what I liked about the job – the people," Dave says.
"And the dogs!" Craig adds. Craig's 125-pound Rottweiler sits at Dave's elbow, gazing at him mildly.
"I've only been bitten once in 42 years," Dave says. "I love dogs, and they know it."
Both men carry dog biscuits.
"I wish I could take them off my income tax," Dave says. They know the neighborhood dogs by name: Gunner, who used to follow Dave on his route; Birken, named after the sandals; Winnie and Coriander. One day as Dave was taking mail out of his truck, a small dog of his acquaintance rushed out of the yard at a very big dog, which charged at him. The small dog made a U-turn and sailed into the back of Dave's truck.
Father and son not only deliver mail but chat with the elderly, direct people to garage sales and help lost strangers. A French-speaking couple once stopped Dave for directions to Heaton Woods. Dave, who doesn't speak French, drew them a map. When he saw the man still didn't understand how to get to the retirement home, he said, "Follow me," and led them there in his mail truck.
"He was never going to get there," Dave explains, laughing. "Luckily, in a small town you can do that kind of thing," Craig observes.
Generally, the two don't consider the weather a deterrent. Vermont has only about eight days a year of really bad weather, Dave figures. Craig declares that even when the weather is bad, he would rather be outdoors than working under flourescent lights. But they do have their share of flood and snow stories.
In 1969, when Dave was working the Bailey and Terrace Street route, Montpelier was shut down by a Christmas storm that left the streets waist-deep in snow. After the streets were plowed and the mailmen were sent back out, Dave tried to climb over a snow bank to reach a corner mailbox. What he didn't realize was that the neighborhood children had dug a tunnel under the bank.
When he reached the top, he fell through. He and his bag were stuck. About that time, Dwight McCullough, the owner of McCullough Crushing, came down Terrace Street with a bucket loader, saw him and yelled, "Hey, Dave, do you need some help getting out of there?" McCullough lowered the bucket, Dave grabbed it, and McCullough pulled him up and dropped him on the other side of the snow bank.
At Christmas, Dave made sure the children's letters to Santa got answered. One year, a letter addressed to "the North Pole" came to Montpelier from California, written in Spanish. Dave took it to a woman from Mexico who lived on his route, and she translated the letter and helped him draft a reply. The boy said all he wanted was for his grandfather, who had cancer, to get well.
Craig and his father have delivered more than letters and catalogs. "It's amazing what people mail – full mufflers, tires," ducks and bees. "Chickens are a big thing," he adds. "You hear them – 'cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep.' Sometimes it's like a zoo in there. I like the odd ones that make me laugh."
He particularly likes the coconuts. "They just write the address right on them. They use it like a postcard, so you've got to deliver this big, furry coconut," Craig says.
The factor that weighed most heavily in Craig Montgomery's decision to switch to the Elm Street route was the opportunity to walk in the steps of his father and grandfather. Sometimes as he delivers the mail in an old apartment building, he thinks about them climbing the same stairs
When Craig went to the locker room on his first day at work, he found his father's locker, and next to it, the locker that had belonged to his grandfather: Its yellowed label read "H. Montgomery." It was jammed shut, but Craig found a screwdriver, pried it open, and put his own name on a label under his grandfather's.
A pair of his grandfather's boots still stood in the locker, and one day Craig decided to wear them. He was surprised to discover that the boots were too small. They still stand in his locker, covered with dust.
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