PHILADELPHIA _ He walks hurriedly down the sidewalk, his tattered navy bag swaying back and forth, stuffed with letters, magazines, and small packages.
"You're still the mailman!" says a man in his 60s, nursing a cup of coffee by the bustling Upper Darby, Pa., street.
"Yessir!" he replies. It's Monday, the carrier's first day back on the job after a week off, and the neighborhood has missed him.
He's proud to be a mail carrier _ a position he's held for two decades _ but now that his job has been put at the center of a national debate, he's been told by his bosses not to talk to reporters. He wants people to understand the pressures of being a mail carrier right now, but out of fear that he could be fired, he doesn't feel comfortable sharing his name.
Though residents have their own names for him. "Hey, boss!" one man yells out his car window. The kids on the block call him "OG" _ original gangster.
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds, reads the Postal Service's motto. It's a creed embedded in his system, visible in the exhaustive breaths of walking 10 miles a day in the summer heat. But he never falters or stops.
People need their mail.
He pats the man with the coffee on the shoulder and keeps moving. Talking with residents has always been his favorite part of the job, but now, with twice as much mail to deliver, there's little time to spare.
"How come you've not been promoted yet?" the man asks as the carrier passes.
"I'm here to stay," he nods back, continuing to the next house. "I like being with the people."
But, as funding necessary for the Postal Service's survival stalls in Congress, he wonders how much longer he will be out here.
