Not Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Getting On in Years : Milestones: At 80, Les Oliver is one of the Postal Service’s oldest letter carriers. His long-deserved rest starts next week.

James (Les) Oliver figures he’s walked enough miles with a bag on his shoulder to circle the globe once or twice.

Not unusual, perhaps, for a mailman. But Oliver, who didn’t begin his second career until the age of 54, will hold the distinction of having been the oldest letter carrier in the West when sore knees force him into retirement at the age of 80 next week.

“If I had 150 like him, we could fire the phone-answering person because there never would be any delivery problems to complain about,” said Leroy Correa, General Supervisor at the Huntington Beach post office. “He never calls in sick, and he’s on time and cheerful. He never asks for special treatment.”

“Without doubt he’s our best ambassador,” said Sal LaPaglia, another supervisor. “Our customers can set their watches by him.”

Oliver, who’s lived in Huntington Beach since 1922 and in the same house since World War II, said he made his decision after 26 years of carrying the mail because the pain in his knees can become excruciating at times.

The death earlier this year of his wife, Dorothy, also played a role, prompting him to seek more time with his children and grandchildren during the “time I have left.”

Oliver, who came to Huntington Beach with his family to escape freezing Wyoming winters, owned and managed restaurants in the city before he retired from that business.

Looking for something else that would allow him to stay busy and work outdoors, he rejected offers to become a post office supervisor and went to work delivering the mail. Bartending and mail carrying are not without their parallels, he said.

“You’ve got to have quick hands, spend a lot of time on your feet and have a good memory,” he said. “But most of the people I deal with now are sober.”

They are people like the woman on his route who would write checks for bills on the same day Oliver delivered them. She would chase him down so she could send in her payments immediately. “She didn’t want to die and owe anyone anything,” he said.

Or the couple who for years ordered two sets of the same magazines. “I always wondered why,” Oliver remembered. “The wife told me later that she was always reading a magazine when her husband wanted it. He had a short temper and would throw a fit, so she ordered doubles. Can you believe it?”

Or the child who delivered a warning on Oliver’s last day delivering mail to her home. “A little girl about 6 years old came out and said, ‘Thank you, Mr. Postman, and don’t get into trouble by strangers,’ ” he said. “I’ll always remember that.”

When Oliver isn’t delivering mail, he’s growing tomatoes and cucumbers that he gives to the homeless along with other vegetables he collects from fellow carriers.

He delivers to 130 businesses and 218 homes on his Bolsa Chica Street route, between Warner and Edinger avenues, about 2,300 pieces of mail a day.

Except for the bad knees, he feels great, he said, because he’s working in the fresh air. “And I don’t drink or smoke, and I only have two meals a day.”

Even while working in “mugging and stabbing” parts of town, Oliver has faced no more trouble than dog bites that amounted to a nibble or two on the ankle.

The Postal Service doesn’t have a mandatory retirement policy. Retirement decisions are determined by whether employees can do their job well, according to communications specialist Christine Dugas.

According to Dugas, records show that Oliver is the oldest active letter carrier in the Postal Service’s western region.

When his last working day ends next Saturday, Oliver will receive an unexpected bonus: six months’ pay, part of Postmaster General Marvin Runyon’s retirement incentive program. Runyon’s effort is designed to reduce the Postal Service work force.

Oliver said he’ll give what remains after taxes to his church and his family.

“It was my wife’s way of life,” Oliver said Friday of his passing the money on. “I am carrying on in her name. It was her birthday today. She would have been 77.”