Friday, July 21, 2000
The postman always sings twice? No, but . . .
For 42 years, Silverton man put unique stamp on job
By Allen Howard
The Cincinnati Enquirer
SILVERTON — For 42 years, Sherman Lynem took care of post office customers here with a kind word, and sometimes even a song.
On Thursday, he needed a little tender loving care himself, choking back tears during a retirement party at the Silverton Post Office branch.
“I thank God, my family and my friends for this moment,” he said. “This is a blessing to be able to retire still healthy.”
Mr. Lynem, 67, of Silverton, said leaving the post office was like leaving a family.
In his job as a window and distribution clerk, Mr. Lynem had become a patriarch to his co-workers and customers.
“I have been a customer there for 39 years,” said Sue Garry of Pleasant Ridge.
“He is the kind of person who brought happiness to customers when they came there.”
Working at a window where he saw from 200 to 300 people a day with numerous complaints, Mr. Lynem said he developed a special technique for cheering people up.
When a customer walked in and said with a sigh that there was so much to do, Mr. Lynem broke into the spiritual song, “One Day at a Time, Sweet Jesus.”
He could switch his singing to suit the mood of the customer. When another customer said, “Gosh, this is a blue Monday,” Mr. Lynem sang a few verses of Fats Domino's rendition of “Blue Monday.”
He said he didn't consider himself much of a singer.
“When I was a kid I sang tenor but everybody said I sounded like a girl, so I tried to sing bass. I think my voice got lost somewhere between a bass and a tenor,” Mr. Lynem said.
Kelly Parks, a medical assistant, stood at his window Thursday.
“I am going to miss him,” Mrs. Parks said. “I will especially miss his singing.”
Family members and friends came to the post office for the party.. They included his wife of 41 years, Juanita; daughters Mellanie Williams and Wendy Lynem; a son, Timothy Lynem; grandson Jeffrey Cargile; friends Maude Thompson, Blanche Castleberry, Vernetta Lewis, and his pastor, the Rev. Ronald Mabley.
“It is going to be different around the house,” said Mrs. Lynem. “I have to get used to him not getting up going to work after 41 years.”
He said he might fish a little, work on the family farm in Cynthiana, Ky., maybe join a bowling league, but most of all root for the Reds.
“I am an avid Reds' fans and I don't like what management is doing with all this trading,” he said.
Whether Mr. Lynem was cheering for the Reds or cheering up his customers, he did it with class and emotion, said his boss Katrina Baker-Calmeise, station manager.
“He has the humanistic skills that's needed working at a window, meeting the public,” she said.
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