Everybody knows about mail carriers and the weather. Nothing stops the mail. Not rain. Not snow. Not sleet. Not even bitter, biting, bone-chilling cold.

Bill Bumpus knows all about it.

One time, delivering mail in the West Side hills, a fierce, icy wind numbed his face. The zero-degree cold cut through his coat like knives slicing through silk.

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Nope. He crawled into the mailbox. "I put the key in the slot, opened the door, got in the relay box and pulled the door shut with my keychain so I'd be able to open the door."

How's that for resourcefulness?

"After 42 years, you have a lot of stories," he said.

(Bumpus didn't say how the delivery driver reacted when he climbed out of the box. That story probably belongs to the driver.)

Later this month, Bumpus makes his last run for the 599 patrons he's delivered to for 22 years. "When I put up the mail, I put it up by names more than numbers because I know them all," he said.

He started working for the Postal Service at age 19. Now, at 61, he's retiring. "Maximum retirement is 41 years and 11 months," he said. "I've reached the top. Why not retire and spend some quality time with my wife?"

Well, there's also that thing about the weather. "In the winter, I'm just going to enjoy looking out the sliding glass doors at the snow, knowing I don't have to go out in it."

Actually, he's mostly going to enjoy looking out the sliding glass doors knowing he doesn't have to go out in the heat. "I was made to be a mailman," he said. "I like the cold. I'd rather deliver in January than July. Heat wears me out.

"At least now we can wear shorts. When I started, we had to wear those old bus driver hats - and that thing was hot!"

Many of the stories he's accumulated over 42 years concern run-ins with weather. Like the time he had to bounce his truck off the curb to maneuver down snow-packed Market Street. Or the Big Snow of '78 when he walked to work from MacCorkle Avenue on the South Side to Stonewall Station on the West Side.

Everybody knows about mail carriers and the weather. Nothing stops the mail. Not rain. Not snow. Not sleet. Not even bitter, biting, bone-chilling cold.

Bill Bumpus knows all about it.

One time, delivering mail in the West Side hills, a fierce, icy wind numbed his face. The zero-degree cold cut through his coat like knives slicing through silk.

When he reached the relay box to pick up another batch of mail, the relay carrier hadn't arrived. What would he do while he waited for his mail? Freeze to death?

Nope. He crawled into the mailbox. "I put the key in the slot, opened the door, got in the relay box and pulled the door shut with my keychain so I'd be able to open the door."

How's that for resourcefulness?

"After 42 years, you have a lot of stories," he said.

(Bumpus didn't say how the delivery driver reacted when he climbed out of the box. That story probably belongs to the driver.)

Later this month, Bumpus makes his last run for the 599 patrons he's delivered to for 22 years. "When I put up the mail, I put it up by names more than numbers because I know them all," he said.

He started working for the Postal Service at age 19. Now, at 61, he's retiring. "Maximum retirement is 41 years and 11 months," he said. "I've reached the top. Why not retire and spend some quality time with my wife?"

Well, there's also that thing about the weather. "In the winter, I'm just going to enjoy looking out the sliding glass doors at the snow, knowing I don't have to go out in it."

Actually, he's mostly going to enjoy looking out the sliding glass doors knowing he doesn't have to go out in the heat. "I was made to be a mailman," he said. "I like the cold. I'd rather deliver in January than July. Heat wears me out.

"At least now we can wear shorts. When I started, we had to wear those old bus driver hats - and that thing was hot!"

Many of the stories he's accumulated over 42 years concern run-ins with weather. Like the time he had to bounce his truck off the curb to maneuver down snow-packed Market Street. Or the Big Snow of '78 when he walked to work from MacCorkle Avenue on the South Side to Stonewall Station on the West Side.

"I ended up helping a guy who had a route around the station," he said. "We couldn't take our vehicles anywhere."

Bumpus kept an eye out for more than bad weather. In one case, you might say he kept an eye in. "I pulled off to eat under a tree. A car pulled up behind me. I thought he wanted his mail or directions. Instead, he said, 'I have a false eye that has slipped in the socket. Can you help me?' I took a handkerchief and popped it back into place. I did not finish my lunch."

Samaritanism goes with the territory. "We look out for our patrons. If mail stacks up or there's something unusual, we make sure everyone's OK. I walked on a porch one time and I heard a real low voice saying, 'Mailman. Mailman. I'm inside. I fell. I can't get up. Would you go get my neighbor?' The neighbor helped the elderly lady get up and she was OK."

He could measure his career in dog bites. Seven, he said. "One time up on the West Side, this dog was out that was usually behind the fence. The woman opened the door and said, 'Don't move. He won't bite.' I didn't move. He caught me right on the thigh. I said, 'Lady, for a dog that won't bite, he's doing a pretty good job of it.'"

The route he covered for 22 years, No. 1431, takes him up South Ruffner to Hampton Road, East Ridge, Longridge, Stonehenge and back down to South Ruffner and Porter Hollow, where he grew up. "I tell people I start in my part, go up to the dream world and come back to my part again."

He got his first delivery experience as a fill-in carrier in North Charleston, a walking route. "When I started, the only carriers who had vehicles were the ones with mounted routes in outlying areas. We got tokens from the Post Office and rode a bus to and from our routes. If the route was close, you walked to it.

"When we first got Jeeps, we were all out back trying to figure out how to deliver out of them."

Jeeps are just one of many advances he welcomed over the years. "They were talking way back that someday mail could come in the order of delivery without us ever touching it. We'd say, 'Yeah, sure it will.' Well, we've got that now: DPS" - Delivery Point Sequence.

His career spans three uniform patches. The first, a Pony Express rider. The second, an eagle. And now, the familiar eagle in flight.

Active in the local union, he served as shop steward, vice president and eight years as president of the National Association of Letter Carriers. He also handled the newsletter.

"I was there in 1970 when they had the great postal strike in all the big cities and brought in the National Guard. We were all at the Union Hall waiting on a call to walk out. Congress controlled everything. Pay raises were all vetoed. We were qualifying for federal help to buy homes."

They didn't walk out. National union leaders told them to keep working. "They said Charleston wasn't big enough to make a difference," he said. The strike led to the Postal Reorganization Act that changed the U.S. Post Office Department to the U.S. Postal Service, an independent organization. Like a lot of people, most of the time, Bumpus still calls it the Post Office.

"The Post Office has been good to me," he said. "I've been blessed. God gave me a job I enjoy and health to do my job."

To contact staff writer Sandy Wells, use e-mail or call 348-5173.