Mark Scarborough has retired as Long Beach postmaster.

And he wants people to remember his service as setting the tone for a “friendly office.”

As he reflected on his accomplishments with the vital federal agency, one was steering staff through the pandemic.

“Covid was a crazy time for us in the post office,” he said. “While everyone else was facing decisions like ‘which sweatpants to wear today?’ as they sheltered in place, our workload actually dramatically increased.”

The volume of mail went up when brick-and-mortar retail stores closed.

“Everyone was shopping online and depending on us to get their necessities (and frivolities) to them. We were also one of the few businesses that stayed open, and I’m sure many people came in just to have some human contact.”

He commended those who worked with him and those he served. “I have been very blessed to have great employees and great customers.”

Favorite customer

He especially savored contacts with Betty Paxton, who worked at the Astoria Safeway store as a courtesy clerk until she was 99 and lived until 105.

“She would tease and tell me that if she was younger, she would be ‘chasing’ me. What a gift to have seen her almost every day, always in a crisp white shirt, hair coiffed, red lipstick, and wafting a delicate scent of lilacs. Such a special lady.”

The post office was a hub of other visitors, too. “We also had regular visits from baby goats (only a couple of hours old), baby pigs, and even a kangaroo,” he said.

‘Dark and dungeon-y’

Born on the East Coast, Scarborough was two months old when his family moved to Germany where his father spent four years stationed at a U.S. Air Force base near Frankfurt.

They returned to his father’s new duty station in Portland; he later worked in maintenance for the post office. After graduating from Parkrose on the city’s east side, Scarborough worked for three weeks at the downtown Portland post office but left with few positive memories.

“It was horrible. Dark and dungeon-y, filled with Muggles!”

‘The rag trade’

Instead, after a brief stint at a bank, the lure of exotic bright lights took him to New York City at 20. “All those years of my parents saying ‘Back East this,’ ‘Back East that,’ with the inference that it was somehow superior, more civilized than the ‘Wild West,’” he recalled. “I had gone on a Broadway theater tour in my junior year of high school and was intrigued with big-city life. I figured I’d give it a shot with the idea that I could always come back home if it didn’t work out.”

He studied fashion and landed a job in what insiders call ”the rag trade.”

“I worked under a high-end designer who soon went out on his own and asked me to join him,” he said. “That lead to about 15 years of what I have jokingly called my ‘formerly fabulous life.’ The best fabrics, superb quality garments, and lots of trips to Europe, including the best hotels and restaurants — on the company dime.”

9/11 ‘Catalyst’

He and Ivona married in 1995, moving from an apartment in Brooklyn Heights to a Georgian brick house in New Jersey with a convenient commute two stops on the subway to Penn Station in Manhattan.

“That’s where I was when 9/11 happened,” he said, recalling the 2001 morning that changed so many lives. “After that, we decided to leave New York. Our oldest daughter was just going into first grade and I wasn’t so keen on the public school options, anyway. But 9/11 was the catalyst.

“I worked on Fifth Avenue in Midtown, not far from St. Patrick’s Cathedral. There were firefighter and police funerals every day for weeks. Parades and bagpipes. It was surreal and heartbreakingly sad.”

‘Gut punch’

They sold their house in summer 2002, and with girls Victoria and Grace aged 6 and 2, and a third child on the way, they embarked on a cross-country adventure in a 36-foot motor home. The five-month trip covered multiple states, seeing relatives in New England and traveling as far south as Miami. Biltmore, the Vanderbilt estate in Asheville, North Carolina, parts of the Gulf Coast, and fun destinations like Tennessee’s Dollywood and Graceland were on their route.

But it was a more poignant stop that Scarborough recalled with detail.

“We headed west from there and stopped in Oklahoma City to see the bombing memorial,” he said. “It was a jarring sight, as we approached on foot, to see a chain-link fence with teddy bears, flowers, notes and pictures of the victims. It instantly transported me back to Penn Station, where the walls were covered with those kind of things and lots of ‘Have you seen me?’ fliers.

Pull Quote

‘Everybody should have a positive experience going into the post office.’

Mark Scarborough

Retired postmaster

“It was like a gut punch. Ultimately, though, the memorial itself brought a measure of closure. It happened to be early evening with its golden glow and all the silent chairs had a poignant beauty that was peaceful and comforting.”

Other Western locales followed, including the Grand Canyon, before connecting back with family on the West Coast. Eager not to settle in a city as large as Portland, they first landed in Medford, then he took a job in McMinnville doing creative work for an advertising agency.

The move here

In 2005, his brother, who worked at the post office, informed him the agency was holding tests. He was first hired at Carlton, Ore., then promoted to take charge at Government Camp near Mount Hood. When postmaster slots opened in 2010, he was pleased to move to Seaview. Just months later, Karen Harrell retired as postmaster of Long Beach, so Scarborough first moved there as officer in charge, then in 2012 became postmaster.

The past years have seen changes in postal operations, with carriers reorganized and more hired. Even before covid, the volume of parcel shipping mushroomed. Throughout it all, he said his approach has never changed. “My goal in this job was to treat staff and customers the way that I wanted to be treated. That was the most important thing to me about my job. It’s the ‘Golden Rule.’

“People would say this is the nicest post office. Everybody should have a positive experience going into the post office.”

In the last weeks of his career, he has been on leave and Tammy Haataja, postmaster in Ilwaco, has been supervising the Long Beach office.

For Scarborough, who just turned 63, his current priority is being a companion for his mother in Portland. His children are all grown. Victoria, now 26, bartends at the Pickled Fish; Grace, 21, graduated early from college and is backpacking around Europe this summer; and Nathaniel, 19, works at the ReachOut thrift store in Long Beach.