BY SARA PITZER
SALISBURY POST

The Richfield Post Office, which has been in the same building on U.S. 52 since 1963, officially moved to a new building around the corner on N.C. 49 Saturday after the close of business at noon.

When his co-workers at the post office asked him to lower the flag for the last time at the old location, Smith agreed. He knew it would be an emotional moment. But he didn’t know that the mayor, the town council, his family and many of his friends would be there, too, to honor his years in service and formally present him with the flag.

Smith, who has worked at the post office since July 1970 and served as postmaster since 1977, has been on sick leave for several months and announced he is retiring. He will never work in the new building.

Retirement comes as a kind of mixed blessing for Smith. At 53, he has more than enough years in government service. He served with the Marines in Vietnam for two years and has added up 30 more years in the Post Office. Wounds from Vietnam have sometimes added to his health problems.

Now that he’s away from the daily stress, Smith’s health is better, and he is spending more time with his family, especially his grandchildren: Colby, 8; Mason, 5; and Heidi, 2. He likes working with his father-in-law, Joe Fisher, raising cows, clearing pasture and working the farm. “I have been thoroughly enjoying this time,” Smith said.

On the other hand, he is leaving work that has been like a mission for him. “My job was to help people,” he said. Help them with a smile. He tried to smile at everyone who came through the door, he often said, because that was the only smile some of them would get all day.

Also, he took the service aspect of the job seriously. The Post Office is the closest form of government some people know, Smith said. He helped people who couldn’t read or write fill out money orders. He read their letters to them if they asked. He went to the polls with them and helped them vote.

When a kid showed up without enough money for the letters he was supposed to mail, Smith took the difference out of his pocket and stamped them anyway. If he spotted a letter without a stamp in the collection box, he put a stamp on it and paid for it himself. He saw it all as little things adding up to help people.

Often, his help wasn’t entirely postal. Smith kept clothes hangers in the office to help women when they locked their babies in the car. “That happened a lot. ”And he used the fire extinguisher in the office more than once to help people whose cars caught on fire in the parking lot. “First, I called the fire department and then ran outside with the extinguisher,” he said.

On one occasion, a woman came in with a tiny, fluffy puppy and said, “Mickey, can you weigh my little dog? ”Smith set the animal on the scales, said, “2 1/2 pounds” and handed the dog back without missing a beat.

What Mayor Floyd Wilson noticed when he first moved to Richfield from Charlotte was that Smith made a trip to the Post Office a pleasant experience. “Always before, in my experience, you put off going until the last minute because you knew you would have to wait and be handled like cattle. Here you never had to wait.”

Smith said he does remember two times when people lined up and waited — once when the Elvis stamp came out and again when the Marilyn Monroe stamp was issued. The U.S. Postal Service didn’t send many stamps to Richfield, and both times he ran out before he got to the end of the line. But nobody got mad. He assured them more stamps would arrive soon.

Smith said he hasn’t always gone by the book at work, partly because when he started there wasn’t much of one. Before it became the U.S. Postal Service, the old Post Office Department felt the influence of politics, Smith said. When the postmaster, Jasper Drye, thought about taking on this young local Smith, he went around town asking, “You reckon it’s OK to hire Mickey?” So Smith began his career as a part-time flexible clerk, learning the ins and outs of the business from Drye.

They did lots of things as a small town post office that are not acceptable by today’s U.S. Postal Service rules. Handing mail over the counter to people who had trouble opening their boxes is a good example. “We knew everybody. We knew it was their mail,” Smith said.

But the town has grown. Nobody knows everybody any more. And where the old post office rented only 135 boxes in 1970 and maxed out at 412 boxes, the new 4,100-square-foot building will have 1,392 post office boxes and two stamp vending machines.

During Smith’s tenure on the job, mail distribution went from one rural route to two. He encouraged the carriers, whom he hired himself and calls “the best,” to take a few minutes to chat with elderly folks they met at mailboxes on their routes. “I always told them if they see anybody they can help on that route to stop and help.”

People noticed. They liked him for it.

Town Clerk Carolyn Lisanby said, “He was a public servant in that job. He did lots of little extra things for people, especially the older people, like helping them put the stamps on if they were having trouble.”

Ruby Fraley, branch manager of First Bank in Richfield, said, “Idon’t know how to start. He was the most humble, gentle man as a postmaster, as well as a friend. He was very helpful to us and to everyone. If he had an enemy, I don’t know about it.”

And Terry Almond, a carrier Smith hired, said, “He’s been a real good postmaster. I’ve always heard if you can’t get along with Mickey Smith, there’s something wrong with you.”

Mickey’s wife, Bonnie, said, “His joy was being able to serve his customers and serve with a smile. He never minded if anybody called him at home and asked him a question about their mail.”

If postal patrons had trouble getting to the post office during regular hours, Smith would invite them to knock on the door earlier and he’d give them their mail. “He had compassion for people and when they could and couldn’t come,” Bonnie Smith said.

Mickey Smith said he hasn’t arranged his schedule to work, even briefly, in the new building because he’s already broken his ties and doesn’t want to make leaving any harder on himself or his employees than it already is. But he is almost sorry to miss the new building, because he and officials in Charlotte worked for 10 years to get it.

The new building has a much larger parking area and a dock with a lift outside. The new post office will not have computers right away.

In a sense, the new post office marks the end of an era, Smith said. The days when a local boy can go to work in his local post office and eventually become its postmaster are over because the promotion system has changed.

The days when the postmaster knows everybody in town and can help them out in lots of little unofficial ways are disappearing, too, as the town grows. It will take a picture ID to get a key to a mailbox in the new building. A new postmaster hasn’t been appointed yet, but it almost certainly won’t be anybody from Richfield.

What won’t disappear is Mickey Smith’s affection for the people he’s served for more than 30 years. He misses seeing them, he said, and looks back on his career happily. “It has been a very loving and pleasant experience for me.”