It’s a new walk of life

Deepa Bharath

Don Crocker has a nice singing voice.

Not that it’s the voice of Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin,

old-timers who get Crocker’s feet tapping and fingers snapping.

But the mailman’s voice is gilded with a melodic quality, one that

would make listeners smile even if they didn’t mean to -- even as he

sings “It’s a Small World After All.”

Thursday was Crocker’s last day at work. After 47 years and nine

months on the job, it was time for him to pursue his true love --

fishing.

And his colleagues were going to miss his lilting voice, which

perked them up on days when their mailbags would feel a tad heavier.

“I still have to clean out my locker,” he said, sitting on a

swivel stool in his “office,” basically a desk with a lot of cubby

holes.

On the desk are at least two dozen pictures -- smiling faces of

family members, wedding pictures, baby photos and images from

successful fishing expeditions. Many pictures are of friends he made

on his mail route.

Crocker is a local guy. He was born and raised in Balboa

Peninsula. His father, Frank Crocker, was Newport Beach’s first paid

fire chief in the year 1927. For 35 years, Don Crocker always helped

his dad set off fireworks at Newport Dunes for the Fourth of July. It

was a tradition for them.

Crocker, 68, graduated from Newport Harbor High School in 1954 and

went to Orange Coast College, where he studied building and

construction. He worked as a lifeguard for two years.

The job at the post office just happened, Crocker said.

“I took this job because it was available,” he said. “And it gave

me a steady paycheck.”

He started at $1.52 an hour, Crocker said.

“It wasn’t much, but it was steady and secure,” he said.

Crocker needed that paycheck because he got married at age 20. Now

he is a father, grandfather and a great-grandfather.

But life wasn’t easy with pay that was only a little higher than

minimum wage. So, for the first 30 years, he worked eight hours as a

mailman and then worked a second job painting homes.

He has delivered on almost every mail route there is in Newport --

Balboa Peninsula, West Newport, Back Bay, Westcliff, Dover Shores and

Beacon Bay, to mention a few. He’s delivered on a bike and a

mailster, which was basically a motor scooter, before mail trucks hit

the road.

But the route he was on the longest was in the area near Hoag

Hospital. He got close to customers, Crocker said. He helped them out

with odd jobs. He went fishing with some of them, and he even brought

them fresh zucchini and tomatoes from his garden.

More recently, he has been delivering in Lido Isle, which he has

enjoyed the most, Crocker said.

“I love that the people are so friendly,” he said.

Crocker always took that extra step to serve his customers, said

his colleague Kerry Moll.

“He really cared about his customers,” she said.

For Crocker, the helping comes naturally. It’s the philosophy that

rules his life, he said.

“If you’re nice to someone, you will get it back a hundred times,”

he said. “You will.”

Crocker didn’t let “procedure” bog him down when it came to

helping people, said Cindy Lugaro, who has been a letter carrier for

20 years.

“He wears his uniform with pride,” she said. “He always came in to

work in a good mood.”

That was always easy, Crocker said.

“I always listen to KLAC in the morning, to some of the old

numbers,” he said. “It gets me going.”

When he walked into the mail office in the morning, he was always

singing or whistling one of those tunes.

“That’s the thing about Don,” Lugaro said. “If you’re not in a

good mood coming in to work, and you just spend a few minutes with

Don, you start thinking, ‘This is a good day.’”

Crocker won’t waste much time. He heads to Huntington Harbor

today, the first day of his retired life, in his fishing boat Ginger

A, named after his wife.

“I also have a house I need to paint,” he said. Crocker is a Mesa

Verde resident.

More than anything else, he feels his retirement is well-earned.

“It’s a physical job,” Crocker said.

With arthritis, backaches, two falls and a dog bite, he is ready

to call it quits.

“I hurt,” he said.

Hurt as he may, Crocker is still a role model to the younger

postal workers, said Matt Ferris, a seven-year postal employee.

“I look at him and think -- he’s done this all his life,” he said.

“He has a family. He’s put his kids through college. And I think, if

he’s done it being a mailman, I can do it too.”

Crocker’s colleagues say they’ve enjoyed the many jokes and fun

conversations they’ve shared with him. On Thursday, they

toilet-papered his truck.

“It’ll be hard to walk in and not see Don any more,” Ferris said.

“I’m going to miss him so much. We have to put his picture up on the

wall or something.”

* DEEPA BHARATH covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at deepa.bharath@latimes.com.