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Star Route mail carrier retires after 49 1/2 years, 4 million miles
DANBURY, Neb. — Dale Blake walks into his back yard, and the world just slips away. Towering trees, including one massive, ancient cottonwood, shelter the yard. It’s shady, with patches of glittering sunlight … cool, and quiet.
Well, it’s quiet except for the friendly chatter of the rescued rooster and the wild turkeys.
It’s still a haven — projects to putter with … no deadlines … no driving …
Dale’s finally able to truly enjoy his yard, situated on the eastern edge of Danbury, now that he’s retired from driving a “star route” mail delivery route for the U.S. Postal Service.
Between February 1968 and July 2017, Dale logged about 184 miles a day and nearly 4 million miles in total.
For 491⁄2 years, Dale picked up the mail at the train depot in McCook at 4 a.m., (and for a time, the Omaha World-Herald newspaper also at the depot and parcels from the post office facility at the west junction of Highways 83 and 6-34), and hauled it all to the McCook post office downtown. From there, he says, he “ran the mail out of McCook” to post offices in Indianola, Bartley, Cambridge, Wilsonville, Lebanon and Danbury in the morning, and then reversed the route and carried mail from those post offices back to the McCook post office the same day.
Dale said some times the small-town postmasters on his route helped him unload the mail. Some times, he was delivery, muscle and manpower all in one.
“One-hundred-eighty-four miles a day, seven days a week … 365 days a year,” Dale says of the job when he started. “Come hell or high water … good weather or bad. We’d have to go.”
A blizzard in 1978 stranded Dale for three days at a home near the junction of Highways 83 and 89. A couple times, he got caught in the flood waters of the Beaver Creek. Dale remembers one summer storm “in ‘87, we got 10 inches of rain. The rain gauge just kept running over.”
When Dale started the job, for the first 12 years, the mail routes ran seven days a week — Sundays and holidays included. Then the route drivers got Sundays off, and eventually Christmas and major holidays. “The minor holidays, we were still running,” Dale says.
When Dale started, part of the road between Cambridge and Wilsonville wasn’t paved. And the highway along the Beaver Valley was just armor-coated. “In the winter, it’d break up and go to pieces,” Dale remembers.
Dale had no accidents in 491⁄2 years, and “only two flat tires that held me up,” Dale says.
The star route drivers are responsible for providing their own vehicles; they’re paid by the mile. “I thought we were gonna get rich. That didn’t work out,” Dale said, chuckling. “Gee, gas was only 21 cents a gallon back then.”
Dale drove 11⁄2-ton pickup trucks, originally thinking he’d trade for a new truck each year. That worked out for about four years, Dale said, and then as the price of trucks kept going up and up, and trucks just lasted longer, he drove each one longer.
At trade-in time, one truck had 700,000 miles, another had 600,000 miles. The truck he sold to Don Weiss, who has taken over Dale’s route, had 340,000 miles on it. “They run well,” Dale said. “They’re all highway miles.”
When Dale started working for the postal service, McCook’s post office was located in the imposing white limestone Federal Building (built in 1915) in the 400 block of Norris Avenue. “The federal court offices were on the second floor, and we made coffee in the basement,” Dale said.
McCook’s “new” post office, in the 400 block of West Third, was finished in 1987. The new building, with its big loading dock, is so much easier to work in, Dale says; at the old building, trucks had to take turns to back up to the dock.
Francis “Frannie” Hassler was Dale’s first McCook postmaster, at the Norris Avenue location, Dale remembers. All the little towns had their own postmasters. “They were all nice people,” Dale said. “Most would help unload.” Lebanon’s post office closed in 2002.
Dale doesn’t have any big plans for his retirement, official since July 1. He putters around his acreage, and, with some help, he’s clearing out several trees that have died.
Dale helps the neighbors any time he can — he’s trapped 17 raccoons so far for one of them. Everyone shares their garden bounty.
Dale and Roberta volunteer to help at the Food Bank for the Heartland Mobile Pantries when the food distributions are scheduled throughout parts of Southwest Nebraska.
“There’s always something to keep me busy,” Dale says. He enjoys not having to meet any deadlines, he says.
Dale still gets up early — a force of years of habit. “I’m up by 5:30 and put on the coffee. By 6, we’re on our second pot of coffee,” Dale explains.
After a spring that was too wet, too cold and too late for his normal extensive planting, he plans to plant a large garden — about 1 1/2 acres — again next year.
Friends ask Dale, “What are you doing in your retirement? Don’t you want to travel?” Dale grins, cocks his head and laughs, “Sure, I’d like to travel, but my wife says she wants to go, too!”