Stopping by the post office

5 S. Washington St.

The voice of 30-year-old Mike Watts reverberates through the tiled

lobby of the downtown post office as he places his order: 20 10-cent

stamps and 20 2-cent stamps.

"I had some old 25-cent denominations I had to spend," he explains.

With a pocketful of obsolete postage made useful again, he replaces his

sunglasses and pushes through the double doors on his way to the

library.

Those two sets of glass doors separate two worlds.

Outside, cars and trucks heading for downtown lunches inch past Van

Buren Avenue on Washington Street while sunny concrete threatens to

microwave anyone who stands on it for too long.

Inside, men and women running errands find a hushed refuge where tiles cool the air and foot traffic is moving at a good clip.

Behind the counter, window clerk Tim O'Reilly, 55, helps customers fill

out passport applications, mail a package to a military address

overseas and put mail on hold for vacation.

A young man grabs one of the last change-of-address forms.

    

"That's a good block to be on — South Wright Street," O'Reilly says. "Don't know why you want to leave."

"Wish I could afford it," the man replies.

Another clerk calls the next number.

"Fifty five? Fifty five, look alive!"

"Oh!" a man exclaims, startled. He laughs sheepishly and approaches the counter.

O'Reilly tells a customer he's been here since 1967, longer than nearly everybody except his brother, who is a mail carrier.

He's working the counter for another hour and a half to usher the rest

of the lunch rush through. His own lunch break is at 2:30, he says — "I

like to have just a little bit of my day left when I come back."

7/17/05