"Dammit, How Ya Doin’ Laddie?" Memories of a Memorable Mailman

“Dammit, how ya doin’ laddie?” To many who knew Eldon G. Turner, those were terms of endearment. Others not so fortunate to hear those words directed at them may have considered Mr. Turner brash or even rude.

But the longtime Avon Lake mailman and World War II veteran was known as “Al” to his colleagues, and to a couple young letter carriers he took under his wing inside and outside the Post Office, he was “good ol’ Dad.”

 last Friday, March 30, 2012. He was 85 and though he lived a long life, it still came as somewhat of a surprise that he succumbed so quickly to the disease. He was too stubborn and tough to let anything get him down. If you didn’t believe it, well, he’d convince you otherwise.

I met Al in 1984 after a job transfer to the Avon Lake Post Office. The moment I saw him — a short, balding, barrel-chested man with a filterless cigarette dangling from his lips and dressed in a neat uniform with bow tie — I knew he was one of a kind. And I’m sure his business and residential customers along his delivery route felt the same way. At each stop he’d shout greetings while storming in the door with the daily mail, or he’d give a toot and a wave from inside his old USPS Jeep while popping letters and magazines into a roadside mailbox.

Whether you agreed with Al on his politics or other views, he was unapologetic and a union man through and through.

“I calls it like I sees it,” he would say with a grin, in that familiar Popeye-like way of his. And if Al didn’t “see it,” he’d make it up. People either loved or hated Al, and that seemed to be the way he wanted it.

As Al’s career with the Postal Service wound down, his zest for life did not. He was a leader at the local VFW hall, bowled in the evenings with some of his co-workers, and in the mornings he would hop aboard the “big machine” — his relatively small motorcycle — to grab a hearty breakfast.

“Thank-you kindly,” he would tell the waitress with a wink, warning he’d be back again.

Al retired from the Post Office in 1989 and enjoyed a lengthy retirement with his daughter, son, grandchildren and extended family, but he lost his beloved wife, Liz, along the way.

Unfortunately, I didn’t keep in touch with Al over the years after moving away, but a recent conversation on the phone with him brought back all the fond memories. He could barely speak, but he didn’t have to. His words, wisdom and witticisms so thoroughly etched in my mind came through loud and clear.

God speed, ol’ Dad. We’ll never forget you.

Don Smeraldi, Murrieta, CA (former co-worker of Mr. Turner)