His Good Deed Is Stamped Out

A mail carrier’s good deed has brought a reprimand from his bosses for participating in an “unsafe act.” Gary Craycroft, 37, was using a telephone outside a convenience store in Satellite Beach, Fla., when he saw an unoccupied car rolling backward toward a pair of gas pumps. “I tried to jump into the vehicle but lost my footing, then tried to pull myself in by the steering wheel,” he said. “By pulling on the wheel, it changed the direction of the vehicle--avoiding an elderly lady and the gas pumps.” Craycroft said he was thrown from the vehicle before it came to a stop, injuring his left leg and right elbow and tearing ligaments in his ribs. Jim Danahy, branch manager of the Satellite Beach Post Office, wrote Craycroft a letter of reprimand that could remain in his personnel file up to two years. The letter charged Craycroft with “an unsafe act resulting in personal injury” while on duty as a postal worker. Danahy refused comment on the letter. William Duvall, shop steward of the National Assn. of Letter Carriers, said the union is filing a grievance over the letter.

--Actress Mariel Hemingway has given birth to a girl, the first great-grandchild of the late author Ernest Hemingway, a press agent said. The baby, named Dree Louise Crisman, was born Saturday at a hospital near the Hemingway ranch in Ketchum, Ida., publicist Matthew Rich said. She weighed 5 pounds, 2 ounces. Stephen Crisman, Hemingway’s husband of three years, was at the birth. Hemingway and her husband own Sam’s Cafe, a new Manhattan restaurant. The actress has starred in “Manhattan,” “Star 80” and “Personal Best.”

--Santa Claus traded in his sleigh for a motorcycle and led a convoy of 1,000 other motorcyclists through Albuquerque in an effort to improve the image of bikers and collect 3,000 toys for needy children. “We’re not some heathen cloud coming to destroy the town,” said John Oakes of the Vietnam Veterans Motorcycle Club. “We have a heart too.” The club sponsored the fourth annual motorcycle parade through the city to collect donations for Toys for Tots and the All Faiths Receiving Home. About a dozen off-duty police motorcycle officers cleared a parade route. The convoy, led by John Zaluga dressed as Santa, stretched nearly three miles. “We’re trying to dispose of the notion that everyone that rides a bike is an outlaw or bad,” said Dianne Rainey of the Christian Motorcycle Assn. “We’re all here together for one cause, and that’s to help needy kids.”