This is Patrick Kelker, who’s been a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service in Fort Wayne since 1977.

He’s been carrying the mail in the same area – around Lakeside, on the city’s near-northeast side – for 25 years, and in the neighborhood just west of Parkview Hospital for the past 18.

All those years, he’s been listening to his customers – hearing their stories, watching their children grow up, seeing people move away and come back.

He’s delivered their birth announcements, wedding announcements, bills, packages, foreclosure notices, prescriptions, magazines and thank-you cards.

On Wednesday, though, he walked his rounds for the last time.

Patrick Kelker, mail carrier, has retired.

But follow him on his route, and you’ll find that the man with the bright, slate-colored eyes that match his uniform has a lot to say himself.

“I figure I’ve walked over 40,000 miles,” he said. “In the ’70s, it was so much fun because each route had about a half hour of what we call ‘customer contact’ time. You could actually stop and talk to the lady whose husband just died. Now, there’s just time to say, ‘Hello, here’s your mail.’ ”

That’s because of the Managed Service Points – barcodes that he scans on seven mailboxes along his route so postal management can check the time in between scans and ensure he’s not dawdling.

“It’s become quite bothersome,” he said. “It’s a baby sitter is what it is.”

It’s especially annoying because Kelker believes his role is much more than just bringing this week’s copy of Time or the day’s offering of junk mail.

“A mailman, if he’s doing his job right, he does more than just deliver the mail,” he said. “We’re one of the last government agencies people still trust.”

And Kelker has done much more than just deliver the mail. The neighborhood he’s delivered in for the past 18 years is the neighborhood where he lives.

His first stop on his route, St. Jude Catholic Church, is where he attends and helps serve Communion. His first plan for retirement is to chauffeur St. Jude Associate Pastor Robert D’Souza, who no longer drives.

“What a blessing to not only have the route in my own neighborhood, but it’s where my church is, too. So I always say that I not only know the people at church, I know what they’re praying about,” Kelker said. “This neighborhood has been subjected to a very heavy dose of Patrick J. Kelker.”

Just ask Journal Gazette photographer Laura Gardner, who grew up on Pemberton with Kelker delivering her family’s mail.

“I love Patrick,” she said. “When I was little, I would follow him around on his route, pestering him. And he always acted like he loved it.”

He did love it.

“Those kids had an autograph book, and it actually had a spot for the mailman to sign. One day they come running out yelling, ‘Patrick! Patrick! Can we have your autograph?’ ” he recalled. “So I signed it for them. They were so excited you’d have thought Ronald Reagan had signed it.”

Spend any time with him and you quickly realize he is happy. Relentlessly happy.

That’s by choice, he says. He realized about 20 years ago he could be angry all the time or he could choose to be happy.

“You’re out here with yourself all this time, and you have waaaaaaaay too much time to think. So I made up my mind one day to not get angry out here, and it’s worked,” he said. “It was a big day when I decided I was going to be kind to everyone out here. It really made a difference.”

It especially makes a difference when he’s delivering bad news. He brings the letters from collection agencies. He brings the shut-off notices. He brings the letter that says you’re losing your house.

“You do have to have some people skills out here because you’re dealing with people’s anxieties. You’re bringing it,” he said.

“When you think about it, we deliver mail to everybody in the United States. Everybody. Well, you’re not going to please everyone. So I try to keep it at about 95 percent.”

When Margaret Potthoff’s husband died three years ago, Patrick was one of the first outside the family to know.

“He’s one swell guy,” Potthoff said. “I think he’s a saint, really.”

She’s not the only one. Early in his career, Kelker delivered to a woman who was overwhelmed with fear that a check she needed would not arrive on time. They prayed, and the next day, it was in Kelker’s sack for delivery.

“I put it in her mailbox,” he said. “I was three houses away when I heard her yelling, ‘Patrick! He heard our prayer!’ ”

But don’t worry. Your secrets are safe.

“I don’t want to say we’re like priests, but we do have confidentiality rules,” he said.

Whether you’re into hunting or cosmetics or those magazines that come in plain brown wrappers, the mailman knows. He sees all.

“I always say you can BS everyone but God and the mailman,” Kelker said. “Because everything you like is right there.”

dstockman@jg.net