...especially when they're retired.<p>NALCREST — Welcome to Nalcrest, population 800 and ZIP code 33856, where the nation’s letter carriers come to retire when they’ve set down the bag for the last time. It’s a small town with plenty of mail bonding. Once potential residents get a look at the place, they’re signed, sealed and delivered. ... Pets, including mail carrier-chasing dogs, are forbidden. ... The postal workers’ union created Nalcrest more than 40 years ago for the couriers stayed not by snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night, but by age. And the grand finale: Kane, Nalcrest’s general manager, knows why the letter carriers stayed while Fedhaven’s residents didn’t. ‘‘We always deliver.’’<p>Ugh. For the love of the USPS, why so many cutesy references? I can't do anything about the first three grafs -- they're in the lede, and it's locally written. My paper's policy is that absolutely NO CUTS are made to local stories, barring extraordinary circumstances, especially in the lede. I've already been chewed out about that once, even though the bad math I pointed out stayed in. <p>This was a 39-inch epic that ran not in our features section, but in the Local&State section. To paraphrase ESPN writer Bill Simmons, I will now peel the skin off my body.
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