Larry Sylvia: Signed, sealed, delivered
At 4:20 pm, Friday, May 1, Larry Sylvia delivered his last package for United Parcel Service (UPS), and, after delivering roughly 200 packages a day, 235 days a year for 33 years, retired.
"I figured that I delivered around 15 million packages in my 33 years working for UPS," Mr. Sylvia says. "Give or take a million."
Photo courtesy of Larry Sylvia
Mr. Sylvia has driven a UPS delivery route in Vineyard Haven for the past 25 years. "I could have pretty much picked any route on Martha's Vineyard," he said in a conversation this week, "but Vineyard Haven just seemed like a natural choice. That's where I grew up and where I raised my family. I've worked in Vineyard Haven almost my entire life."
During high school, Mr. Sylvia worked caddying at Mink Meadows golf course, washing dishes at the Mansion House and delivering for Cronig's grocery store when it was still on Main Street.
In the late 1960s, after three years in the United States Marine Corps, he returned to the Vineyard, and drove a cement truck for the Goodale Construction Co. "But job security wasn't very good in the construction business on Martha's Vineyard back then," he said, "so I started looking around for something else [and in 1976], I lucked into a job with UPS."
Mr. Silvia remembers "driving in a foot and a half of snow during the blizzard of '78" on the Cape and on cobblestones when he drove on Nantucket for a year - "a lot of tourists and traffic congestion, but the beaches were beautiful." And then Mr. Sylvia was assigned a full-time position on the Vineyard.
"In my 33 years I watched the company grow from a domestic delivery service into a huge international network," he said. "We used to mostly deliver for mail order businesses like Sears, L.L. Bean and Montgomery Ward. When I started, three drivers could cover the entire Island year-round. Now it takes 12 in the summer and at Christmas."
Mr. Sylvia remembers when he began working for UPS, "I thought, how hard could it be to deliver packages?" But the weight of the packages that the drivers carried changed, from 50 pounds to 70, and eventually to 150. It wasn't just the lifting and carrying - boxes of books, computer paper and disassembled furniture. The company was always mindful of the bottom line and he was on a tight schedule, always feeling that he had to perform all day, every day.
"Larry has an exemplary work ethic," said Scott Cambra, Mr. Sylvia's supervisor at UPS. "Actually, I can't ever remember him missing a day of work."
Mr. Sylvia remembers driving around downed trees on West Chop during Hurricane Bob until the roads were closed and he had to go home. Then after the storm there were the yellow jackets to contend with. "They got blown out of their nests in the trees and they were everywhere," he recalled.
Driving in the summer was a challenge too, with the congestion down-Island. And the trucks were hot. "Thank God for the UPS shorts," Mr. Sylvia said.
And then there were the dogs to deal with, every day-barking, nipping and biting. "There isn't a UPS guy out there who hasn't been bit," Mr. Sylvia said.
The company's technology has also changed. When Mr. Sylvia started he used to keep track of his packages with pen and paper, but by the time he retired he was using a hand-held DIAD device (delivery information acquisition device).
"The technology is mind-boggling if you actually think about it," he said. "I can scan a bar code on any package and the information is instantly relayed to a company office, I think in Pennsylvania, and then the customer can look it up online two minutes later and know exactly where their package is."
The part Mr. Sylvia will miss most about his job is the people. He delivered to the same stores for many years. Many of them no longer even exist. He regularly delivered to summer clients on West Chop and what he refers to as Writers' Row in Vineyard Haven: Lillian Hellman, Art Buchwald, John Hershey, William Styron, and Mike Wallace.
Mr. Sylvia recalls making a delivery at Mink Meadows and stopping to watch Bill and Hillary Clinton playing golf. "Actually, he was really just trying to show her how to swing the club," he recalls. "And then three secret service agents popped out of the bushes near my truck," which reminded him of a time when he was in the Marines and he pulled guard duty on the beach in front of President Richard Nixon's home in San Clemente, Calif.
Mr. Sylvia's plans include spending more time at his second home in Fryeburg, Maine, "a quiet place in the woods" - and spending more time with his three grandchildren on Martha's Vineyard.
"He had a hard job for a father," said his wife, Pat. "He always had to work until the last package was delivered, so he missed a lot of after-school functions with our daughter over the years. So he's definitely looking forward to playing with the grand-kids."
Earlier this month, Mr. Sylvia summed up his feelings in a notice he placed in The Martha's Vineyard Times: "To all my UPS customers in Vineyard Haven. Thank you all for your cards and well wishes upon my retirement after 33 years of service. A special thanks for all your generosity at Christmas time. I will miss seeing you all on a daily basis, but I won't miss your dogs. Thanks again, Larry Sylvia."
Charlie Cameron is a freelance writer living in Vineyard Haven.
