…in which I offer my tribute to the tireless workers without whom there would be no Christmas cards, no love letters, no Publishers' Clearinghouse, and no junk mail--the American postal worker--for whom neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor SWAT teams shall stay the mail carrier from his appointed rounds…

so here’s a handy list of postal workers going… postal!

April 11, 2001- - A former postal worker was shot and killed by police after he walked into a Postal Service facility in Kearny and stabbed four people, none fatally, authorities said. The man had quit his temporary job there last month after a personnel dispute, and he may have returned to retaliate against other employees, a prosecutor said. The man walked into the bulk mailing facility with a .380-caliber handgun and two knives.

By The Associated Press and Reuters

	December 17, 1998- DALLAS -- A female clerk was shot to death at a post office today and police were holding a possible suspect identified in broadcast reports as a part-time mail carrier.
	Dec 24, 1997-- Officials in Denver said the gunman holding up to five hostages at a postal mail-sorting facility had been taken into custody and the hostage situation was over. The gunman, a former postal employee fired more than a year ago for threatening his supervisor, had held the hostages for more than nine hours.
	December 19, 1997--A postal worker in Milwaukee who had been turned down for a transfer to the day shift opened fire in the main post office early today, killing a co-worker and wounding two others before killing himself as a colleague pleaded, "Don't do this."
	July 9, 1995 -- A postal worker walks up to his boss in a processing center in City of Industry, Calif., pulls a handgun from a paper bag and shoots him to death. Bruce William Clark, 58, was sentenced in 1996 to 22 years in prison without parole after pleading guilty to second-degree murder.
	Mar. 21, 1995 -- Christopher Green, 29, a former postal worker burdened with ``a mountain of debt'' kills four people and wounds another during a holdup at the Montclair, N.J., post office. Green was sentenced to life in prison on Sept. 20.
	May 6, 1993 -- Postal worker Larry Jason kills one and wounds two at the post office garage in Dearborn, Mich., before killing himself.
	May 6, 1993 -- Fired postal employee Mark Richard Hilburn kills his mother then walks into a post office in the Dana Point community near Los Angeles and shoots two workers, killing one. He was convicted in 1996 of murder, attempted murder and other felonies, but a mistrial was declared in the sanity phase of the trial.
	Nov. 14, 1991 -- Fired postal worker Thomas McIlvane kills four supervisors and wounds five employees at a post office in Royal Oak, Mich., and then killed himself.
	Oct. 11, 1991 -- Joseph M. Harris, a fired postal worker, kills a former supervisor and her boyfriend at their home in Wayne, N.J., then goes to the Ridgewood post office where he kills two mail handlers as they arrived for work. He was sentenced to death and was on death row when he died in 1996 after suffering a seizure in his cell.
	Aug. 10, 1989 -- Postal worker John Merlin Taylor of Escondido, Calif., shoots and kills his wife at their home, then drives to the Orange Glen post office, where he shoots and kills two colleagues and wounds another before killing himself.
	Aug. 20, 1986 -- Patrick Henry Sherrill, a part-time letter carrier in Edmond, Okla., kills 14 people in the post office there before taking his own life. Sherrill had a history of work problems and faced the possibility of being fired.

and lastly...

A disgruntled former Parks and Recreation employee went on a shooting spree in Riverside City Hall Tuesday, wounding the mayor, two city council members, a police officer and several others. Authorities identified the gunman as Joseph Neale, a former city employee who sued the city in 1994 for firing him from his part-time job with the city Park Department. ok, beyond the fact that it took him two years to snap ("What?--I'm still fired?), you might say 'Hey, this isn't supposed to be about crazy Parks and Recreation employees--but wait, there's more...
He was recently employed as a postal worker in Fontana.

ah, now it makes sense!

now back to the news...