Handling nature's special delivery

KETTERING, Ohio (WDTN) - The completion of their appointed rounds is as sweaty as it is swift on this day.

"I try not to think about it a whole lot," says Dorothy Wright, who was delivering letters in Kettering Friday.

It's hard to keep the heat off your mind when it's on every other part of your body, although Wright has seen plenty of days when the temperature readings start looking too much like zip codes.

"I always say I've been through worse," Wright says.

That bit about neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night isn't just talk on days like this when the sun is hotter than the latest Cosmo issue.

"No deliveries have been curtailed or stopped because of the heat, so they're out doing their jobs," says Robert McDaniel, a customer relations coordinator with the U.S. Postal Service.

But letters aren't the only messages being delivered. The letter carriers are on the front lines in the battle against heat, warning and watching out for their customers.

"They get familiar with their customers and their neighborhood and they can tell when things are out of order," McDaniel says.

If letter carrying is anything it's about keeping things in order, but when it comes to the calendar most would rather shuffle out summer.

"Most carriers prefer winter over these hot summer days because there's only so much they can do to cool down," McDaniel says.

But above all there's one thing that keeps Wright going on these hot days.

It's not the water or the breeze, although those help.

It's not even the next address.

It's the name above that address.

"They come out and offer me water and in the winter time coffee, so it's my customers," Wright says.