Sean C. Morgan
After more than 20 years delivering mail in Sweet Home, Dave Mengore will retire Saturday, March 29.
Mengore, 62, has worked for the U.S. Postal Service for 24½ years, starting as a rural carrier assistant in Sweet Home for a year, then spending three years in Lebanon before returning to Sweet Home.
“I’ve done pretty much the same route the last 12 or 13 years,” Mengore said, who generally can be seen, rain or shine, sleet or snow, walking the sidewalks in shorts. His route ranges from Second Avenue to 10th Avenue north of Highway 228 and Long Street. Most of it is a walking route.
He started working on the Post Office’s auxiliary route, filling in for regular carriers who had days off.
Mengore moved at age 11 or 12 from Montana with his father, a contractor, to Sweet Home when he came here to work on Green Peter Dam.
He said he plans to visit his brother, retired Fire Chief Joe Mengore, in Mexico, at least if he’s still there, and he plans to get out of the rain to Arizona during the winter, which, this year, for the first time in his experience, actually stopped the mail routes, he said. But that’s just because the delivery trucks were unable to reach Sweet Home one day last month.
“I’ve got a lot of projects at the house I’ve let go,” Mengore said. “I’ll finally get them done.”
In between, he plans to hunt and fish more often and perhaps buy a metal detector, and he’ll spend more time with his six grandchildren. Mengore has two daughters, Cari and Jessica.
Mengore said the Post Office provided a comfortable living, and he’s enjoyed the people he worked with. Most of all, he said he will miss the customers.