Oakton mail carrier retires after 32 years
By Layla Wilder
When Mark Lowe became a rural route carrier in the Oakton area, he started delivering mail to people who became his friends.Now as he prepares to retire from a 32-year career as a carrier with the Oakton post office, Lowe says he is leaving a job that has become a lot more impersonal.
“The whole mentality of the area has changed,” he said.
Lowe, a Herndon High School graduate and a lifelong Chantilly resident, began working for the postal service because he was broke.
Oakton residents used to be just “good, old country people” who trusted their mail carriers, Lowe said while sitting on the post office's loading dock at the start of his last week at work.
For his first 27 years, Lowe's rural route was in the area of Fox Mill Estates. During the last few years he has delivered mail in the Miller Heights area.
People used to leave house keys with the mail carriers, Lowe said. One time, customers on his route asked him to drive them to their New Jersey beach house.
But Lowe, 55, said the best part of his job has been getting to know the customers and working with the “best people on earth.” His co-workers have always been close enough to party and raise children together.
Bill Fagan, who has worked with Lowe for several years, joked that he will likely need a new liver, thanks to Lowe.
Just before Lowe went into the Oakton post office to finish his last Monday, Erick Kea, a former boxer and fellow co-worker, came out of the building and stopped to give Lowe a hug.
“There are a lot of good memories with this guy,” Kea said.