By: REBECCA SHALOMOFF
Through rain, sleet, snow and wind, Larry Cole has been delivering mail to Cedarhurst residents for the past 32 years. Ending what has become the longest-running tenure for current mail carriers in the post office, Cole will retire this week.
"He is a very dedicated employee," said Cedarhurst postmaster, Inger-Lisa Fischer. "I'm going to lose not only a good employee, but a good friend. He was always there for me."
Cole, kind and gentle in his ways, went above and beyond the job of bringing people their bills and packages, he became their friend. He always remembered to slip in birthday and anniversary cards for families on his route. Sending notes to kids who went away to summer camp and attending their bar-mitzvahs and weddings, Cole got involved in the lives of community members.
"He is a very thoughtful and caring guy," said Doug Bittner, an employee at the post office. "He's like a fixture in the community."
Born and raised in Hewlett, Cole wanted to become a postal carrier, like his uncle who worked in New York City for 40 years, because it is a stable job. The only hard thing about it, he said, has been the weather.
Cole began his mail-carrying career on Route 5, which covers an 11-mile radius including areas of Cedarhurst Avenue, Peninsula Boulevard and Harbor Hemlock, when postal workers still carried mail in leather shoulder bags. For the next two decades, Cole stayed on the same route he did each day on foot, until he fell ill with prostate cancer and transferred to a mail truck route which he remained on for another 12 years.
Originally, he intended to retire last summer, but postponed it because two other mail carriers were leaving. He wanted to give the post office enough time to find replacements. Seven weeks after undergoing radical surgery and radiation treatment for the cancer, Cole went right back to work. Dedicated and loyal, Cole took pride in his work. But he does look forward to the free time ahead of him, to exercise more, play piano and enjoy the company of his mother, Janette, with whom he lives.
"There aren't enough words to say about him. He was more than a mailman, he was a friend," said Donna Nemeroff of Cedar Wood Drive. "He was kind and considerate. And he always went the extra step."
