The 40-Year Plan

The College has a reception for retirees and service award recipients each May. Retirees are asked to speak for a couple minutes if they desire.

This is sort of what I said:

Three months ago I never expected to be here. I was on the 40-year plan. I wanted to know what the award would be for 40 years of service. [Someone in the audience said "a new car."]

My grandfather worked for 50 years for the U.S. Postal Service. He started in 1912, and was a rural letter carrier in Cumberland County, Illinois. He delivered the mail on his route by horse and buggy.

Grandpa was a "people person," and he enjoyed talking to people. Sometimes he was the only person the families on his route would see that whole week, and he exchanged news from town and among their neighbors with the folks he delivered to. He didn't gossip -- men do not gossip -- but he would tell them stories.

Later he became postmaster of his small town, and he enjoyed conversing with the people who would come to the post office to pick up their mail each day because there was no home mail-delivery in their town.

I think it was the people that my grandfather enjoyed most about his 50 years working for the USPS.

And I think "people" is the thing that kept me here at Parkland College for 38-and-a-half years ... because I am really going to miss Parkland Library's subscription to People magazine.