Admiral Heights salutes a retiree

Admiral Heights residents looked forward to seeing Steven Gray. He came to our homes every day with letters, magazines and parcels.

A letter carrier, he became part of the Admiral Heights community by walking our streets almost every day for 26 years. Gray delivered mail first to Sumner, Gibson and Ludlow and then expanded his route to Dewey, Porter and Sampson. He was always there, always essential, even during the pandemic.

His last day of delivering mail to the community was Feb. 28. He retired after almost 40 years of working – 29 with the postal service and 10 in the military.

Gray was born in Annapolis where he lived first on Pleasant Street near downtown and later on Madison Street in Eastport. Most landmarks he remembers are long gone … the coal yard (where Timothy House is today), the Submarine Haven (his favorite eating place), the bus terminal, and the old Firehouse. One that remains is the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium where he attended some football games. He liked sports and played basketball, baseball and football with the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County Recreation and Parks leagues.

A 1982 graduate of Annapolis High School, he was debating between going to college or getting a job when he saw the Army’s recruiting slogan, “Be All You Can Be.” He decided he could do it all … get an enlistment bonus, take some college courses, work, travel and serve his country.

Other than a trip to Atlanta with the Asbury United Methodist Church Choir, he had never traveled beyond Annapolis. His first stop as an Army recruit was Fort Sill, Okla., where he went through basic training. After that, he became a Lance missile crew member with the 83rd Field Artillery Division in Frankfurt, Germany.

A part of a German-American partnership, he spent two tours of four years each in Germany with a one-year stint in between at Fort Sill. He finished up his ten years in the Army with a year in Holland.

“It was a great experience,” he said. “I spent the Christmas holidays with a German family and lived on the economy as I attained a higher rank. I had a freezer, but the Germans didn’t. All their meals were prepared fresh. I learned to use the train system and shipped my 1986 Monte Carlo over there. When I found out it wasn’t fast enough for the Autobahn, I bought a Dodge Daytona. That kept up.”

Gray kept busy there, working toward the rank of staff sergeant, traveling, and taking correspondence courses for an associate degree from the City Colleges of Chicago. Gray admits he’s still eight credits shy of getting that degree, and now that he’s retired, he plans to get it. “No excuses!”

When he left the military, he planned on getting a job at Homestead Air Force Base (now Homestead Air Reserve Base) in Florida, but then Hurricane Andrew blew through. It destroyed his home, flooded his car, and left he and his family with only “the shirts on our backs.” They stayed first in a shelter and later in a hotel room with the necessities provided by the Red Cross.

“As soon as the insurance claims came through, I came home to Annapolis,” Gray said, “and my first wife., who was from Holland, went back to her country.”

In 1993 one of his neighbors retired from the Post Office and encouraged Gray to apply. He did and was hired as a “casual worker.” For three years he worked for six-month periods with short breaks in-between. While in this temporary position, he gained good evaluations, on the job training, and proof that he was a hard worker, willing to do any job … sort the mail, janitorial, truck driving, and odd jobs.

When he attended the Carrier Academy and became a letter carrier in 1996 with a route in Admiral Heights, he was ecstatic. He loved his first route so much that when he married Joy Wilson Gray and moved to Baltimore in 2009, he kept the route. “I loved my route, so I’ve been driving the 97 Beltway to work each day since I met my soon-to-be-wife in 2008,” he said.

Retiring is one of the hardest decisions Gray has ever made, and although he can’t imagine what retirement will be like, he’s determined to stay busy. He’s going to get that associate degree and he’s going to return to his Bowling League which he didn’t have time for when he began commuting to work. He’s thinking of taking up golf, and at some point, he and his wife are planning to move to North Carolina where they have some family and friends.

Before COVID, he and his wife had taken about six cruises, including some to the Bahamas. “We love cruises and the way they cater to you with the shows, restaurants and excursions,” Gray said. “Once we saw a man take back-to-back cruises. That’s what we would like to do.”

While he may move and he may cruise, Gray plans to maintain his ties with Annapolis, “It’ll always be home, and I have family and friends here that I’ve promised I’ll never be out of touch with. I’ve told them I’ll always be just a phone call away.”

Gray’s goals in retirement are the same as his goals in the Army and in the Postal Service. Whatever he does, he wants to do his best. He wants to live each day to the fullest because he’s not promised tomorrow. He wants to put smiles on other people’s faces and give thanks for each new day. He doesn’t have to wait for a special day to celebrate with a party, because each day he celebrates being alive.