anndody

*After 30 years, local postal carrier trades foot route for one on French Island By CHRIS HUBBUCH | La Crosse Tribune file:///Users/jaybowers/Desktop/Picture%20clipping%202.pictClipping . Jay Bowers has lived for decades in a farmhouse outside Onalaska, but some of his closest neighbors are in south La Crosse. Bowers is a mail carrier, one of 62 who deliver to 48 routes in the city of La Crosse. After 30 years as a United States Postal Service letter carrier in La Crosse Jay Bowers has given up his foot route for a driving route. PETER THOMSON photo “We’re the face of the federal government,” he says. For the past 16 years, his office has been route 23, a 15-square-block postage stamp nestled between Cass and Market streets under Grandad Bluff. Five days a week — in the proverbial snow, rain, heat, gloom of night — Bowers hiked upwards of 10 miles carrying letters and bills, birthday cards and catalogs to 401 front doors. It wasn’t his neighborhood, but the gregarious postman knew his ...