Kindness and offering a personal touch were what drove a local mail carrier to spend 36 years delivering mail to Collingwood residents.
For this week’s edition of People of Collingwood we sat down with Glen Bender, a retired Canada Post mailman.
Q: How long have you lived in Collingwood?
A: I was born and raised here.
I grew up on the main street of Collingwood. Do you know where 98 Super Panda (restaurant) is beside the federal building (on Hurontario Street)? That used to be my parents’ restaurant.
My dad was in the army, he lived in Angus. He fell in love with Collingwood back in the day, and after the war, he said the first two blocks were the best blocks in Collingwood.
He had worked for a bakery and then got into the restaurant (business). He bought the building, back then it was cheap. (The mortgage was) maybe $150 a month, back in the 1960s. We lived upstairs.
I was no good as a cook, but I could mop floors. It taught me work ethic.
Later, I worked at the shipyard. I went away to school but I didn’t like Toronto, so I came back to the shipyard.
In the wintertime of 1975, I was laid off. As the (Canada Post) was right next door (to the family restaurant), they came over looking for help because they were short-handed.
That’s how I started delivering mail.
Back then you had to write tests, be interviewed, you were fingerprinted; it was pretty strict.
How you look is important. That’s what got me the job. It was down to two of us and the other guy had a full beard and an attitude. (laughs)
I was full time at the shipyard and part time with Canada Post in June of 1975. People asked me, “Why would you do that?”
I told them, “Opportunity.”
That only lasted a few months. A guy got caught not delivering the junk mail. He was given a choice: either you quit or you go to jail.
Every time I saw him after that I thanked him. (laughs)
Q: So you moved up to full time with Canada Post at that point?
A: Yes. I never looked back.
Q: In what year did you retire?
A: In the spring of 2011.
Q: I assume you’ve seen a lot of changes to Collingwood from 1975 to now. Can you tell me a little bit about the changes you’ve seen?
A: We used to be an industrial town. There were lots of jobs.
A lot of those companies and jobs are now gone. The shipyards are gone. We used to employ thousands of people.
It was the bread and butter of Collingwood.
Now, it’s surviving. It’s doing well.
Q: Do you think these changes have been for the better or worse?
A: In a small town, you know people.
I think we’ve lost some of the small-town identity, because of tourism.
City people move in. The landscapes are changing because of all these condominiums on top of one another.
It even affects animal life, driving coyotes, skunks and raccoons into town because they’ve lost their habitats.
The mountains are very, very busy, and the traffic has increased.
But I still like going uptown. I like driving up the main street. They do a lovely job maintaining it. The parks are great. I go to Sunset Point in the summer time, have a coffee while I walk my son’s dog. I walk behind the elevator.
I love it. I have no desire to ever move away.
Q: Is that what sets Collingwood apart from other towns for you?
A: It’s more the people. It’s nice when you see someone you haven’t seen for a while.
I get nice comments from people like, “We miss you as our mailman!”
I went the extra mile.
If there was a snowstorm, I loved it. Climbing the snowbanks to deliver the mail.
Q: Do you have any funny stories about people you met or things you saw while delivering mail around town?
A: I used to have the nickname The Turtle.
On Hume Street, there used to be a place called McKee’s Boxed Meats. It’s a coffee shop now.
I’d always go in the front door, talk with Graham McKee to deliver the mail, then went out the backdoor and up Napier Street.
One day, a dog got loose and came charging at me. My first reaction was to put my foot up to give him the boot. I didn’t like carrying dog spray or anything, that wasn’t me.
Well, I slipped on the ground and went down on my back. Then I was afraid the dog was going to bite my face.
So I was on my back, spinning around, kicking for dear life. Graham looked out and saw me.
The next day when he saw me, he apologized for laughing so hard.
So from then on, he called me The Turtle.
I got chased by a lot of dogs. Mailmen and dogs. We intrude on their property, and they just go snakey.
Q: There have been a lot of changes within Canada Post over the past 40 years. What’s your opinion on those changes?
A: (The super mailboxes) – I didn’t like them.
I like the personal touch. The bosses didn’t like it. I used to deliver directly to businesses and my bosses didn’t like it. The businesses did though.
I didn’t like the strikes either.
Q: Did you ever participate in any of the strikes?
A: The first time there were strikes, it was either the clerks, or the letter carriers. If one wasn’t striking, the other was.
I respected it and I wouldn’t cross the line, but I tried to stay neutral in that area.
They were good to me. I just couldn’t do it.
It’s too bad they couldn’t just resolve things and prevent that.
When I started with Canada Post, the fellows I worked with were a great bunch of fellows. We worked extra hard. Sometimes we did overtime, but we didn’t care if we didn’t get paid extra for it. Sometimes if one of us were out sick and the mail was sitting there and the boss asked us, we went and delivered it.
Like everything else, things are changing.
Who mails a letter anymore? Flyers are online. You pay your bills online. Advertisements are the bread and butter of Canada Post.
Q: You retired in 2011. Do you ever miss delivering the mail?
A: Oh yeah. It was hard to let go. 35 years is the maximum, I wasn’t going to get paid any more money.
When I first retired, I would just walk. For the first two years, the weather didn’t bother me.
Now, if my son’s dog doesn’t want to go out in the cold weather, neither do I. (laughs)
Time marches on.
For our feature People of Collingwood, we’ll be speaking with interesting people who are either from or are contributing to the Collingwood community in some way. This feature will run on CollingwoodToday every Saturday. If you’d like to nominate or suggest someone to be featured in People of Collingwood, email [email protected].
