“Northwest news: Oregon tells 80-year-old Sherwood barber to head back to school after license expires; lazy mailman ...”

Northwest news: Oregon tells 80-year-old Sherwood barber to head back to school after license expires; lazy mailman ...

Posted: 20 Jan 2011 09:18 AM PST

Published: Thursday, January 20, 2011, 9:09 AM Updated: Thursday, January 20, 2011, 9:15 AM

Greetings!

We've got two news headlines fresh-picked for you this morning, beginning with one that may well give bureaucrats at the Oregon Health Licensing Agency headaches. Both stories are about trials facing a working man, but that's all they have in common.

But first, remember this: we scour newspapers, television networks, and online magazines for articles of interest to folks around the Pacific Northwest. Then we collect snippets of articles (below in italics) from our fellow reporters for you to enjoy. So read up, click over and then come back and share your thoughts with your online community here at OregonLive. Stay in your lane: we appreciate remarks that are relate directly to the subjects at hand and that employ good grammar, common sense and solid logic in equal measure.

Now onto the story of Dale Smith, reported this morning on Portland's KATU:

Dale Smith says he's followed the rules for 50 years but the 80-year-old barber has been told he has to go back to school because his license has expired.

Smith says he was caught off guard because the state never warned him his license was about to expire. He says he would have renewed it if he had known it was up.

Smith loves his work and has been a staple in town. And in the summer, when he's not cutting hair, he sits out front of his barber shop and socializes.

Since it's been more than three years since his license expired, Smith faces retaking a written and practical test. Supporters hope for an exception for the octogenarian barber.

From a long-working barber we turn to the story of the lazy mail carrier.

Forget the saying, "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." The seattlepi.com reports on an Olympic Peninsula mailman sentenced by federal prosecutors for showing "extreme laziness" by destroying or hoarding thousands of letters he was supposed to deliver:

According to court documents, the Postal Service began investigating (Richard) Farrell after other employees found a load of letters he was to deliver dumped in a recycling bin.

Investigators followed Farrell on a route, watching as he spent his day at a tavern before taking the mail to his home and burning it in a fire pit. A search of Farrell's residence uncovered nearly 8,000 letters.

Farrell, it turned out, had no malicious reason for keeping the mail. He just didn't feel like doing the work he was paid for.

Farrell pleaded guilty to one county of delaying or destroying mail and was sentenced to 120 hours of community service and a $25 fine. Two things: A.) isn't delivering mail sort of a service to the community, and 2.) didn't Farrell fail to do that for a salary?

Just sayin'.

Check out more news with a Northwest focus:

» Front pages from 18 newspapers in Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, Washington and British Columbia.

» Stories from today's edition of The Oregonian.

» More of our headline picks from Northwest news sources.

-- Kimberly A.C. Wilson

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Thursday, January 20, 2011