USPS carrier Charles Griner trades one passion for another

ALBANY — When Charles “Sonny” Griner had hip replacement surgery a year and a half ago, he figured something out during the six weeks he lay around the house recuperating.

“Those were the longest days of my life,” Griner, a United States Postal Service employee for 54 years in September, said as he and wife Carolyn reminisced about his career. “That’s probably the main reason I haven’t gone ahead and retired. I’ve got the paperwork done, but I just can’t seem to pull the trigger.”

Griner, who was born and raised in Tifton, always figured he’d be a teacher/coach, he loved sports so much. But when life threw him a curveball with an opportunity to work with the postal service, those dreams of the fields of glory slowly faded away.

“Look, I just knew I would teach and coach some day because sports were so important to me,” Griner said. “But, you know what? I bet if I’d gotten into coaching I’d be dead by now. I am the world’s worst loser, and I’m sure that would have gotten me.

“As it is, I ended up with the greatest job in the world, working with the greatest people in the world. And I’ve always had my sweetheart right here beside me, so life’s been pretty good.”

As the Griners talk about their life together, which started in 1955 when they were sophomores at Tift County High School, it becomes apparent that Charles Griner wasn’t kidding when he says his continued involvement in sports might have been fatal. One of the University of Georgia’s biggest fans, he recalls events during the famous Buck Belue-to-Lindsey Scott game that is arguably the greatest in UGA football history.

“Lindsey ran right into our arms; we were sitting in the end zone,” Carolyn Griner says.

“Yeah,” her husband picks up the story. “Florida had just scored to take the lead, and there was this guy sitting in front of us who turned around, put his drink under my nose, put his finger in it and started stirring it. He said, ‘Go Gators!’ Carolyn grabbed my arm because she knew what I might do.

“But when Buck Belue threw that pass to Lindsey Scott and he started running down the field, it was just wild. When he got into the end zone, we were all celebrating. I saw that guy just standing there, so I pushed him about four rows down from where we were.”

Griner may not have realized his dream of coaching athletics, but he certainly stayed involved. He refereed football for 20 years and drove buses that took Dougherty County athletic teams to and from games for 15 more.

“He coached Little League while our son, Tim, was playing; he always stayed involved with Sports,” Carolyn Griner said.

But starting on Sept. 29, 1962, Griner took that passion he carried and directed it toward a new career.

“I worked at a clothing store — O’Bryan’s Men and Boys — for a short while after graduating high school, then I was on the first highway department crew that did the surveying on I-75,” he said. (“He hated that job,” Carolyn says.) “Then someone that Carolyn knew suggested that I apply for the civil service test to work with the post office. This lady was the TyTy postmistress, and she told me to put Atlanta as my first choice for a job and I’d get one quicker.

“Sure enough, I was offered a job three months later.”

Griner planned to attend Georgia State University while he was working in Atlanta, get that degree that would allow him to coach. But the USPS had different ideas.

“They worked us like dogs,” he said. “We worked from 3:30 in the afternoon until 3:30 in the morning, seven days a week. There was no time to go to school. I told them to get me back to South Georgia as quick as they could.”

Griner had that wish granted four months later when he was transferred to the Albany post office. He’s been there ever since.

“Mr. Griner is the patriarch of the Albany Post Office,” that facility’s postmaster, Gene Lofton, said. “Man, when you talk about the dedication and commitment it takes to work at a place for 54 years. That speaks of loyalty, of service.

“Look at this guy; he dresses so professionally and carries himself in a way that is a tribute to him and to our organization. Our post office has gone from the last-ranked Level 22 post office in the Gulf Atlantic District to first, based on things like work hours and customer service. Mr. Griner’s a big part of the reason.”

The Griners moved to Colquitt Circle in Albany when they first arrived and 21 years ago found their dream home in southeast Lee County. Over the years they raised Tim and his older sister, Kathy, who are both now in their 50s. Grandkids Jennifer, Wesley, Carly and Brandon occupy a great deal of their free time.

“Being there for our kids has always been important, and Carolyn’s been a great mother,” Charles Griner said. “When we got married — we were both 19 — she had planned to go to school in Jacksonville and I was going to go to ABAC (in Tifton). Carolyn ended up going to business school, and she got a job as a secretary. One day she told me to drop Kathy off at the nursery. When I started walking away, Kathy started screaming, ‘Daddy!’

“I picked her up, went to Carolyn’s job and told her to tell her boss she was quitting.”

Griner worked as a clerk in the downtown Atlanta post office during his first go-around, but when he came south he became a carrier. And except for a brief period in which he worked as a supervisor, he’s been delivering the mail.

“I love talking to the people on the route, getting to know them,” he said. “I’m just a people person. I’m a little too high-strung for administrative work, so when the opportunity came for me to go back to delivering mail, that’s what I did.”

Griner delivered mail in south Albany (“Cotton, Corn, Cherry, Holloway and Burke”), in East Albany (“Nothing but Marines and Air Force personnel, the best people ever”), downtown Albany (“Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth, from Slappey to Dawson”), and finally along Ledo Road.

He’s delivered on bicycle, in the old standard Post Office Jeeps and now in one of the box-life trucks made especially for postal carriers.

“I’ve had routes with 572 customers and others with 1,200,” Griner said. “We deliver between 1,500 and 1,800 letters a day and three or four flats of magazines, so I can’t even guess how many deliveries I’ve made over the years. I did get a million-mile award recently, though. I’ve also received three superior accomplishment awards.”

Charles Griner might have thought fate was unkind when it kept him from pursuing his early passion. But most who know him and know of his career would argue that he’s been right where he belongs all along.

“I feel sorry for people who have to go to work at jobs they hate every day,” he said. “I’ve never felt that way, I’ve never dreaded a day of work. I love my wife and I love my home more than anything in the world. But come 7 o’clock in the morning, I’m ready to go to work.”