Longtime USPS Carrier Retires

Vince Herne began his career with the United States Postal Service (USPS) in 2001, but he learned his work ethic from working on his father's farm as a young kid. Fast forward 22 years and Herne has returned to his first passion – farming.

Like many postal carriers, they start out as substitutes – subbing for someone who can't fulfill their duties for the day or filling in while someone is on vacation. Vince subbed for his mother Priscilla Herne for nine years. And before that, the late Mrs. Herne subbed for Akwesasne' first postal carrier Vernie Herne.

Vince shared his experience with Indian Time, saying, "At first, it's overwhelming. You need to know all the roads and streets, everyone's address and who receives mail under that address. As you gain more experience, you become more efficient and faster. Just being a part of this community helped – knowing people and where they lived."

When Vernie Herne started out delivering mail, Akwesasne had only 200 mailboxes. Vernie would drive a school bus in the morning taking young Akwesasronon kids to school, then he would deliver mail throughout all of Akwesasne. In the afternoon, Verney would return to the St. Regis Mohawk School and drive the school kids back to their home.

By the time Vince started delivering mail, he was delivering to the 500 mailboxes his Mom had delivered to. With persistent work from then Tribal Chief Alma Ransom, State Road mail delivery became within the boundaries of Akwesasne and no longer used 'Bombay' as their home address. The number of mailboxes had risen from 200 over the years to close to 1500. Vince regularly delivered up to 760 mailboxes on any given day. He wanted to shoot for 1000, but with the USPS rules and regulations, Vince had to max out at 760.

Vince delivered mail on time, efficiently and with an air of professionality mirroring his solid work ethic – giving Akwesasronon their letters, magazines, checks, medication, and packages. On an average day, Vince would deliver 80 to 100 packages. During the pandemic, the number of packages delivered on any given day shot up to 400 packages a day, six days a week.

Mail used to arrive at the USPS office "raw", meaning the mail was unsorted and carriers had to sort the mail themselves. This could take hours at the post office and then carriers would set out to deliver the mail. About ten years ago, the USPS instituted a delivery point sequence (DPS) – already sorted and placed in bins. This made the delivery of mail faster.

Vince said, "After DPS was instituted, I would spend about two hours at the post office, then head out and deliver the mail. Before that, we had to sort everything myself."

Throughout the years, Vince has seen a lot of things while delivering mail. He once saw a man walking down the road in his underclothes. Vince stopped to help him and called for assistance from the police. Luckily, the man walking as if nothing was wrong, walking in his underwear turned out ok.

Vince said, "I've been very lucky with the things I've seen while delivering mail – different wildlife, birds, rabbits, and foxes. And to see a deer or a group of deer – that's always nice to see and consider myself lucky to have seen them."

He's also seen his fair share of knocked down mailboxes – mostly on Frogtown and St. Regis Road, for some reason. He added that was years ago, and now, rarely sees a row of fallen mailboxes.

Herne said, "Throughout the years, the community has been very good to me, giving me homemade cookies and gift cards. Venita Loran always gave me a gift card at Christmas time, saying, have a coffee on me. Another would leave a small container of hot soup or stew if it was cold out."

As time went on and we all survived the former US president, Trump had already left his mark on the USPS with the appointment of Louis DeJoy. DeJoy initiated micro-managing policies and systems for each post office and carrier, including a deliver point sequence, recording each movement of a carrier and what is being delivered.

Vince said, "I just wanted to do my job and get paid for it."

Echoing a sentiment other USPS service worker have said – DeJoy took away the trust between the employer and employee.

Vince knew it was time to move on – and return to farming. Vince started growing strawberries in the fields behind his home. The strawberry fields are in honor of former residential school students.

"The residential school kids worked the fields, and the kids would get nothing. Everything went to the priests and the nuns. This will honor the kids who never got any strawberries. I want to produce strawberries for residential school survivors for free. And to give strawberries to our elders and our longhouses. I'm going to eventually start a petting zoo for the little ones. Now, I wake up and think – what can I do today."