Mark Laky has reasons to smile. He’s retiring after 34 years as a driver for UPS. Staff photo/Brian Larsen
It’s been quite an adventure for Mark Laky, but after 34 years, the hard-working, likable Laky is retiring from his UPS parcel delivery job, and boy, oh boy, is the community going to miss him.
Mark’s last day guiding the steering wheel of a UPS truck will be January 10, 2020.
Mark figures he averaged 130 miles per day on his routes. Over that period, he hit two deer and was credited with one accident; he slipped, caught a snowbank and broke a mirror on the UPS truck.
“I had been telling my supervisor I needed new tires. There wasn’t much tread on my tires, and that’s what led to the accident,” he said.
As far as missing work, Mark never missed a day. “The Lord blessed me with good health, and I try to take care of myself,” he said, adding at times he went to work while feeling a bit under the weather.
If you do the math, allowing two weeks for vacation and no extra days- -that means Mark worked 8,500 days and drove 1,105,000 miles. Each day he estimates he distributed on average 350 packages which figurers to be just shy (2,975,000) of three million parcels delivered over his career.
Mark’s route has changed a lot over the decades, especially in the last few years, he said. “I don’t go to Grand Portage anymore. In the last couple of years, there’s been an increase in online shipping. That has led to my route becoming smaller, but the amount of packages I deliver has been increasing. I think this is a trend that is going to continue.”
Small town deliveries vary quite a bit from deliveries in cities, said Mark. “Customers become your friends in small towns. They trust you. I have 62 keys to stores, I have swipe cards and passcodes and never had anything stolen.”
Before the introduction of GPS and computers, Mark had to memorize addresses and mail box numbers. His high-tech tools were a number two pencil and lined notebook paper.
“At times, a package wouldn’t have an address. It would be marked to an Anderson or a Smith or a Johnson. I would go to an Anderson and ask if it (the package) was for them, or did they know where the package should be delivered? Sometimes they would answer, “Yeah, that’s my cousin, they live up the road a piece, turn right by the big pine tree and so on. After a while, I memorized where people lived.”
Technology hasn’t always made things better, he said.
“Today, Amazon might tell you there is no such address when you have a package from them with a name on it. GPS isn’t always reliable, and cell phones don’t always work. I guess I still miss working with paper and pencil,” he lamented.
Driving in the winter provides plenty of challenges. Mark starts his route around noon and sometimes works until midnight. That’s a lot of driving in the dark, often down narrow gravel roads located far from town.
“If it’s icy and a driveway is steep, I learned it’s often best to walk the package to the house or cabin. Sometimes there isn’t enough room to turn the UPS truck around, and backing up is very difficult. Even if you put chains on the tires, you can get stuck on some of these driveways. Then you have to ask, can a tow truck even pull you out of the spot you are in? Maybe. Maybe not. I’ve learned to walk a lot even if it’s a long walk because it’s often the quickest way to get a delivery made.”
Growing up
Mark grew up in Westchester, a western suburb of Chicago. Following high school, he attended college in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and then attended one year of college in Kalamazoo, Michigan. “I was studying engineering, but college wasn’t for me. I worked in the summers for my uncle near Allegheny, Wisconsin. He had a trailer park, and I worked outside a lot. Sometimes I worked in his tool and die shop, making tools. But it was during that period that I discovered that I liked to be outside and live in the country.
“One of the guys I worked with told me they had cheap land in northern Minnesota. We drove his 1960 Cadillac to Eveleth and looked at property. I could lay down in the backseat of his Cadillac to sleep. It was that big. We pulled over and slept in gravel pits as we traveled around. He never did buy any land.
“We traveled to International Falls and Baudette and various places. I purchased 80 acres in Eveleth and decided I would build a log cabin. It was a dream of mine. While I was building, I slept in the back of a Chicago Sun-Times delivery truck my dad used when he worked for the paper.
“I built a 24 by 32-foot log cabin, and we (Laura, his wife) lived there for six years. When I was building it, I would have to stop and work to make money. I would work in the woods or trap or find some job. One time I returned to Chicago and shoveled snow for seven weeks. There were back-to-back snowstorms. I would go home to my parent’s house each night exhausted from shoveling snow.”
United Parcel Service (UPS)
Mark began his career as a UPS driver on May 1, 1985, in Eveleth, Minnesota. “I started part-time. I worked until Labor Day and then took another job in the winter. On April 28, 1986, I started fulltime for UPS in Duluth. I was there six weeks before a position came open in Grand Marais.
“I had never been to Grand Marais. My wife, Laura, was hesitant. It was far from shopping, far from malls. We decided to go check it out, and all we saw was fog. Still, we could tell Grand Marais was a nice town. When the route came up for bid, I bid on it and got the job.”
What’s next?
Mark and Laura were married on August 1, 1980. They will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary this summer. All of their three daughters, Hannah, Becca, and Leah, live in the area. Mark and Laura recently bought a house in Colvill. The property also holds a second house, and that’s where Hannah, her husband Carlos and their two twins live.
“Now I will have a chance to spend time with my kids and grandchildren. My job was often demanding, and a lot of the time I would get home very late. I missed a lot of time with my kids and Laura.
“I have made a lot of friends through my job at UPS, and I hope to spend time with them, to help them if they need help. I was blessed to work for a company that offered a good pension so I won’t need to work for money.
“I also hope to get time to hunt, fish and hike, and do things I like to do but haven’t had much time for.
Mark’s Christian beliefs are essential to him. He has been a stalwart member of the Evangelical church in Grand Marais, holding a raft of leadership positions, and his wife Laura has played piano and sang hymns, filling the church with her majestic voice. They are a faith driven couple.
But many don’t know one part of Mark’s faith. He often visits the jail, meeting with people when they are at their lowest or when others won’t come to see them. “My jail ministry is important to me. I will continue to minister to people in jail. I have never been one who likes to watch TV and I like to stay busy, so my goal is to be available to help the community.”
A retirement party will be held for Mark on Saturday, February 1, at the Cook County Senior Center (The Hub), from noon to 3 p.m. Stop by to wish him well. This time it will be your chance to deliver something to Mark. Maybe it’s good wishes or a card, just nothing in a brown box. Mark’s seen enough brown boxes to last three lifetimes.
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