Following his route to the letter

<I>Editors Note: This is the final installment of our Winter Worker series, which previously featured a snowplow driver, a ski lift operator and a garbage truck driver.

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GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. — Hilarity seems to follow mailman Craig Dean around his downtown route. Friday morning he breezed through the security scanner at the Garfield County Courthouse to cheerful hellos from the sheriff's deputies who man the station. The deputies, seeing Dean with a newspaper reporter and photographer in tow, jokingly threatened to make him surrender his mail and put his hands up while they checked him for weapons.

But he was too quick for them and was headed down the hallway to the clerk of courts office. At each stop he had a smile and "hello" for everyone.

"He's got a really good sense of humor," said Val Lee, one of the sheriff's deputies who mans the metal scanner at the courthouse entrance. "You can always tell when someone likes their job, and he does. He just blazes in here. He's such a great guy."

Dean's day started about 7:30 a.m. in the huge back room of the post office where letter carriers, as they are called, sort the mail for their routes into slots fixed to the walls.

The busy room has seven full-time carriers, two part-time, three rural-route carriers and eight clerks who work up front, said post office supervisor Adele Lujan-Teeter.

Seated at a computer terminal in the middle of the room, she can survey the activity around her.

"Usually Craig is already gone (by now)," she said. "We were waiting on parcels. There were a lot of parcels today."

Sorting, or casing, is a lot easier these days, Dean said, since letters are now automatically sorted in the distribution center in West Glenwood.

As he slots the "flats," magazines and catalogues, he gets a bit of gentle ribbing from the other carriers because he's being followed by the press.

Dean is used to the ribbing, as well as the heavy lifting and the long hours. He's been a mailman for "31 and a half years," he said.

"This is my sixth station. I started in Arvada then went to Newport Beach, California," he said, where his route took him to the beach each day. Despite the shore duty he missed Colorado and moved back to the Front Range where he worked in Wheatridge and Broomfield, then Aspen and now Glenwood Springs, where he's been since 2002.

"I always wanted to be a mailman," he said. Even after all these years he still loves the job.

"Time flies. You're constantly going, and you're not looking at the clock," he said.

Although he's usually out the door by 9 a.m. because of the extra parcels to sort he isn't out the door until 9:30. Once the mail is sorted into trays he loads them into a bright orange hamper and wheels it out to the loading dock at the back of the building. He loads the trays by order of the route, with the mail for the beginning - the courthouse, county administration building, sheriff's office and City Hall - in the front.

Dean works the downtown area on the west side of Grand Avenue, and also delivers to the homes on Pitkin and Colorado avenues as well as the homes off Midland Avenue, between Seventh and 13th streets.

By 10 a.m. he's in high gear. He's in and out of the county and city buildings in downtown faster than a speeding bullet.

Walking quickly, he's through each of the buildings in minutes with a "Hi, how are you" and "How you doing," to people in the departments where he's dropping off mail.

Dean's day will end about 3:30. He's pushing it this day, hoping to make it to the Hot Springs Pool for a workout and a soak.

He also climbs mountains, hikes and bikes.

"It's what we live here for, the outdoor stuff," he said.

Dean has been married to "my lovely wife, Jan," for 22 years, and the couple have a daughter, Carli, who is a senior at Glenwood Springs High School.

Meanwhile, he's cruising along from building to building. "I'm in and out of these places real quick," he said.

Craig Dean • Age: 53 • What's good about the job: During winter storms "Harold the maintenance guy" puts tire chains on Dean's truck. • Favorite time of year: Spring and fall. "Summer's too doggone hot." • Speaking of dogs: He carries a spray but would rather use his leg to kick them out of the way. He's been bitten once and "nipped" a few times.

In City Hall he drops a pile of mail off at the utility counter with a quick hello.

"Craig's been our carrier since we moved into the building three or four years ago," said Karen Bender, the cheerful woman who takes utility payments for the city. "We love him. He's just the best."



Contact Donna Gray: 945-8515, ext. 16605

dgray@postindependent.com

Post Independent, Glenwood Springs Colorado CO