Charlie Strong navigates the heavy traffic in North Kalispell on a daily basis, weaving in and out of myriad parking lots and side streets in Hutton Ranch Plaza.

As a Kalispell mail carrier for 32 years with the U.S. Postal Service, Strong is a familiar face along his 800-stop daily route. Many know him by name; he has golfed with some of his patrons.

What they may not know is that Strong is an excellent driver.

The National Safety Council recently recognized Strong for driving one million miles — a distance to the moon and back twice — without an accident. Reaching this pinnacle requires at least 30 years of service along with an accident-free record.

“I’m pretty proud of this,” he said. “In this office, I think I’m the sixth one to accomplish this safety record.”

Even a slide into a mailbox on an icy road would have been enough to throw Strong out of the running for the safety honor. His busy route is a testament to his driving ability.

“It’s kind of scary,” Strong admits about the traffic pace in the North Kalispell area along U.S. 93. “That Walmart area is buzzing. You have to really be on the defensive side.”

Strong, 53, said the interaction with the public is the highlight of his job.

“You become friends with a lot of them,” he said. “You development relationships; that’s the enjoyable part.”

Strong remembers one old fellow on his route who didn’t have any family and wasn’t able to get out much. One Christmas he asked the man if he had a Christmas tree, and the man replied he didn’t do any holiday decorating.

“I told him, ‘You need a present. What do you want?’” he recalled. “He said a six-pack of beer.”

So Strong left a gift of beer on the man’s doorstep that year.

“You keep an eye on them,” he said about his elderly patrons. If mail sits for more than three days, he makes sure everything’s all right.

Strong started working for the Postal Service right out of high school in his hometown of Forsyth. The father of a girl he went to school with suggested Strong take the required test to get a job with the Post Office. It would be a good job, the man promised.

After a summer stint with the railroad working as a “gandy dancer” replacing rails, Strong was laid off, so he took the postal test and got high marks.

In a twist of fate, the man who had encouraged him to take the test died of a heart attack, “so I got his job,” Strong said.

He worked as a postal clerk for a year, boxing mail and handling window duty four days a week. A part-time job at a gas station helped make ends meet.

Strong transferred to the Kalispell Post Office in 1982 and started with routes on foot, paying his dues as a rookie on the job. He eventually worked his way into a driving route and now has one of the longest local mail routes.

He remembers delivering a lot of parcel packages to downtown businesses such as JCPenney and Woolworth’s, back when businesses largely still relied on mail service for their parcel deliveries.

Strong has seen some pretty dramatic changes in more than three decades with the Postal Service. The mail volume has continued to shrink as more people do business and pay bills online, and the Kalispell processing center was moved to Missoula not that long ago as a cost-cutting measure expected to save the Postal Service about $580,000 a year.

Strong plans to retire in another four years. He and his wife raised three daughters and now there are grandchildren to dote on. And there will be more time to be a Packer fan.

As the employee with the most seniority at the Kalispell Post Office, Strong gets a couple of perks. He gets to choose vacation time first and no longer has to work the Saturday shift that rotates among carriers.

“Other than that, they don’t salute me or anything,” he joked.

After a million miles of climbing in and out of his Jeep mail delivery vehicle, Strong said he feels it at the end of a shift these days.

“I’m kind of stiff when I get done,” he said. “Those trucks are not made for comfort. They’re a tin box with a seat.”

His mail truck has connected him with a lot of first-class friendships over the year, though, and that’s what keeps him going. 

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.