Tom Parise’s final day on his mail route
Upper Arlington residents and students bid heartfelt goodbyes last week to a retiring postman they said did much more than deliver mail for the past two decades.
Oct. 31 marked the end of a 34-year career that’s seen Tom Parise of Hilliard cover many miles on foot to dispatch packages, letters and other parcels on time and undamaged.
For the past 21 years, those services have been provided on the same route in Upper Arlington that includes Barrington Elementary School, The Mallway and Barrington and Guilford roads.
But saying he delivered their mail doesn’t cover it; over and over again, those along the route said the mailman had become a trusted friend and part of the community’s fiber.
With a few tears being shed, Barrington Elementary staff members last Friday donned costumes resembling those worn by U.S. Postal Service employees and students at the school made Parise grand marshal of the annual Halloween parade.