Rudy Tempesta had a decorated military career, flying 21 missions as a turret gunner in a B-24, often flying alongside the famed Tuskegee Airmen. He started his career in New York City and often delivered mail to the Empire State Building before moving south in 1958 –
After 68 years of delivering mail, Rudy Tempesta had experienced more than his share of hot, humid days. But today was different. Midway through his route along Summerset in Chapel Hill, NC, a route he had carried for over two decades, the extreme heat was taking its toll on his 89-year old body. Soaked in sweat and feeling ill, he decided to return to the Chapel Hill Public Library.
He had just staggered to a bench inside the library’s doors and sat down when he began throwing up.
The rest of the day became a blur: the people’s faces gathering around him, voices, the ambulance ride to UNC Hospital, more blurred faces and jumbled voices in the E.R.
Ironically, just a few days before this his postmaster had approached him out on the route as he was reloading his vehicle.
“Don’t you know you’re not supposed to drive without a seatbelt?” she had asked of the man who had driven a postal vehicle accident-free for more years than there were candles on her last birthday cake.
“I was wearing my seatbelt,” replied Rudy. “I unhooked it as I came to a stop.”
From there the conversation turned to the summer heat. As Rudy recalls it, the postmaster didn’t seem to think it was hot inside his truck.
“What?” exclaimed Rudy. “It’s 95 degrees in that damned truck. You’re riding around in an air-conditioned limousine and you tell me it’s not hot in the truck!”
Although this may be a typical conversation between a carrier and a supervisor or postmaster concerning what’s hot and what’s not on any given summer day, it was not typical for this postmaster and Rudy. Normally, the working relationship was respectful. But on this particular day, for whatever reason, the sparks flew.
Then, a few days later, Rudy finds himself in the hospital suffering from heatstroke.
Although Rudy could have died that day—much younger letter carriers have succumbed to the heat in the past—his life did not pass before his eyes. But if it had, these are some of the scenes he might have revisited:
The flashbacks would likely have gone back to 1925 and his birth in Brooklyn, NY to his two Italian immigrant parents. He would have recalled his happy childhood there and his four siblings.
The flickering video of memories long past would then have segued into his early adulthood and the two years he spent as a ball turret gunner hanging precariously from the bottom of a B-24 Liberator bomber in World War II as it flew missions over Nazi-occupied Europe.
It was during these two years that the teenager became a man and became acquainted with the specter of death as he and his fellow crew members flew through enemy machine-gun fire and maneuvered flack-darkened skies.
After his discharge he would recall his brief stint working in a machine shop and then the beginning of what would become a very long career with the postal service.
Harry Truman was president was president that year, the man who had famously said of his job, “The buck stops here.”
But when Rudy began delivering mail, the hourly wage was less than a buck. It was 85 cents.
He’s also facing hurdles in getting his retirement processed. Lots and lots of paperwork to be filled out and filed. (In a subsequent conversation over the phone we learn that Rudy’s paperwork has been completed and he’ll be retiring on November 26.)
On the brighter side of things, Rudy says he’s received numerous phone calls, cards and letters, and visits from co-workers and customers. A co-worker will be coming by tomorrow to take him to the doctor.
During our conversation, the maintenance man stops by to see how he’s doing. Then his letter carrier, Newman, looks in on him and delivers a letter from a former customer who now teaches in Spain. The writer is Julia Daugherty, a young lady whose picture hangs on his apartment wall and who has become like a daughter to him.
“She’s a sweet kid,” he says. “You get close to them.”
Evidently there’s a certain closeness he has with his co-workers as well. Back in September a petition with 26 signatures was sent to President Obama asking that he send Rudy a letter of appreciation for his many years of service.
I have one last question for America’s senior letter carrier before I leave.
“Now that you’re finally retiring after all these years, Rudy, how do you want to be
remembered?”
“I’d like to be remembered,” he says, “as a good guy and that I cared about people.”
That shouldn’t be a problem at all.
Enjoy your retirement.
This man must love his job and I am glad he loved it, but I think he will fine their is life after the P.O. Spend time with the family and loved one’s, time goes to fast sometimes
Enjoy what you have.
.
Well, first of all, congratulations, Rudy. You indeed have many a tale to tell, and it’s impressive you managed to hang tough when most of us call it a day at half the time. I guess you’re one of those rarities who loves work and being a civil servant to the people, an honorable trait if there ever was one.
I modeled myself after the fellow whom I felt was my office’s best worker, a real gentleman, wounded vet and very professional every step of the way. I hope I succeeded at least to a small degree, and have always had longer tougher routes, not being content to do half the work somebody else did for as much pay.
Now as far as that supervisor, that behavior was atrocious, unprofessional and callous in the extreme. Obviously this idiot has no respect for elders, veteran carriers or the sacrifices to their bodies they made over decades of punishing mail volumes and all kinds of weather. It is very typical any more for supervisors and management to regard letter carriers as pack mules with low IQ’s who deserve ridicule and harassment, experience be damned. It’s the attitude far too many incompetents cop when they get a taste of a little authority because they, in many cases, were not popular with coworkers in the first place as craft and not respected, so they get into management to get “respect” through artificial means, and never understand that no matter how high they rise, they are still regarded as the assholes they were from the first.
Management doesn’t like the comments on these web sites but they deserve the criticism if they earn the disrespect of good workers. Now, there are just as many lousy craft workers as good ones, and to be adversarial just to cover your ass and be a jerk yourself puts you in the same category as a bad supervisor. But good people deserve respect, and if you would do more to appreciate them instead of micromanaging them and harassing them down to the last minute of every day you would have an easier job yourself. It’s a two way street. My PM and supervisor are good folks, and I’m lucky, but I’ve had my share of bad ones, too. Bottom line – show respect, you get respect.
89 and carrying tells how hard the job really is.
Maybe the SOS should have carried mail instead of busting him.
the only thing that makes this job hard is the corrupt, uneducated, low IQ postal mismanagement running the agency into the dirt! losing billions a year and disrespecting workers is their game. in this case a 89 year old WW2 Vet-SHAMEFUL!!!!!!!!
isn’t it typical of a PM totally oblivious to the distress of the carriers? put a satchel on your back and walk in the heat, then you’ll
know what work really is!
This PM or supervisor has no shame or conscience. True story: in a nearby city a few years back, a truck driver pulled up to the plant, was having bad chest pains and some plant workers helped him into a break room, where he hoped he’d be all right but he wasn’t. Tragically, the man died of a massive heart attack quickly, and there wasn’t time for anybody to summon an ambulance.
But the sick part was when an employee went to the supervisor in charge and told him of the terrible news, and the supervisor only said, and very hatefully, from what I understand, “Great. Now where will I get another driver?”
Isn’t their compassion touching? Just like that California office where a poor clerk had a severe injury and for 55 minutes nobody, craft or management bothered to call 9-11. Rules or no rules, what’s the matter with bastards like that? We live in a world full of extremely selfish people who can’t see past the ends of their own noses and have no compassion for anybody but themselves.