It seems there isn’t anywhere Gene Storey goes that someone doesn’t wave or say hello. They recognize him, but he doesn’t always recognize them. It’s no mistake, though. He’s met just about everybody in town after working at the LaGrange post office for more than 42 years.

Storey was 26 when he started as a mail clerk/carrier when the post office was on Church Street.

For the first 17 years, he walked city routes, delivering mail throughout town.

“I’ve been everywhere in LaGrange,” he recalled. “I carried different routes every day.”

Then he was promoted to a window clerk, and that’s where he met most of LaGrange face to face.

“Everyone comes to the post office, but you’re still surprised at how many people you meet,” he said.

Working as a clerk had an added bonus. His workday started at 8:45 a.m. instead of the 4 a.m. starting time for carriers. The downside was that he went home with red ink on his fingers every day after canceling letters.

“We had to use a (hand-canceling) stamp with those old red ink pads. If you put too much ink on the pad, when you stamped it went all over you. We’ve still got stamps, but they’re self-inking now,” he said.

Red ink pads aren’t the only things that have disappeared from the post office in the last four decades.

“When I started working, everything was manual. You had to weigh a package on a scale, look up the zone in a book, use the charts and figure everything out. Now you just punch in the ZIP code and the computer does everything,” he said.

Delivering mail is a clear-cut job with few deviations. In fact, Storey remembers only one day when mail carriers were unable to deliver all the mail.

“We had a severe ice storm. That morning the postmaster and I were the only two who came to work. He gave me all the special-delivery packages and I delivered them in my VW bug. That was all that got delivered,” he said. “I don’t remember any other day without delivery.”

He does remember the day the post office opened on a Sunday.

“It was the Fourth of July in 1976, the country’s bicentennial celebration. It was on a Sunday, but we opened the post office, which was on Church Street then, and people lined up down Smith Street with memorabilia they wanted us to stamp,” Storey recalled.

Postal workers hand-canceled anything people brought to them that day, using the historic date marking the nation’s 200th birthday.

“We stamped Bibles, $2 bills, probably even some newspapers. We stamped anything people gave to us. There were two clerks that day, and all we did was hand-stamp all day long,” he said.

He’s seen a lot of changes over the last four decades. From hand sorting to computer sorting; from 17 mail routes to 35 routes; from Church Street to the new Calumet Center post office.

Storey, 68, was eligible to retire when he was 55 years old.

“All along I thought I’d retire then. But when I got there I decided I’d rather be working,” he said.

However, he’s decided that now is a good time to set out on that retirement course. He plans to spend more time with his family, including his wife, Glenda, and especially his three grandchildren. He’s also looking to find a good hobby.

“I don’t have one, but I’m going to find one. I’m going to stay busy,” he said.

Sherri Brown can be reached at sbrown@ lagrangenews.com or at (706) 884-7311, Ext. 240.