At 102, paperboy still going strong

ST. CHARLES, Mo. -- At 5:30 in the morning, 102-year-old Homer Plackmeyer can't just roll over in bed and sleep in.

The residents on the second floor of Building D at Parkside Meadows Retirement Community in St. Charles depend on him. They want their newspaper, and he's their paperboy.

Actually, he doesn't have to deliver the papers. He volunteers. When he moved to Parkside nearly three years ago, a woman delivered them, and he didn't think that was right, he said.

"Those ladies can't handle those papers," he said. "Most all of them, they're not kids anymore." So he gladly took control.

Plackmeyer grew up in St. Charles and worked as a salesman and manager for the Rauch lumber and development companies for 51 years before retiring in 1983.

Still, he does have delivery experience on his resume. About 90 years ago, when he was 12, he handed out fliers advertising silent movies playing at the St. Charles Opera House.

He walked his route then, and he walks it now. In the mornings, he usually takes his walker from his second-floor apartment to the lobby on the first floor. That's where the newspaper carrier leaves copies of the Post-Dispatch on a table.

The carrier labels them with room numbers and Plackmeyer stacks them up according to the order of the rooms. He piles the papers in a little shopping cart, takes the elevator upstairs and rolls his way down the halls placing the newspaper in front of the residents' doors.

In 15 to 20 minutes, he delivers 25 to 30 papers.

He doesn't deliver to the first floor because those residents walk to the lobby to do their daily "check-in" anyway. He figures he'll save the second-floor residents the trip and they can check in a bit later.

Orville Ermiling, 90, lives down the hall from Plackmeyer. They knew each other about 50 years ago when Ermiling worked as a milkman in St. Charles. He appreciates not having to walk downstairs to get his paper.

"We're kind of old for that," he said. "He's just so spry. He's great."

As for Plackmeyer's own reading habits, he looks at the sports section first. He played semi-pro baseball in St. Charles as a young man and is a big Cardinals fan.

He always throws away the auto section. He stopped driving two years ago. "I'm not going to buy another car," he says.

Plackmeyer will turn 103 on Oct. 28. His wife, Helen, died in 1990. His daughter, Diana Thomas of Chesterfield, calls every day and visits every week. His son, Jerry, died about 20 years ago at age 48. He has five grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and two great-great grandchildren.

Plackmeyer graduated from St. Charles High School in 1922, and believes he's outlived all the members of his class. He's outlived his six brothers and sisters, too. That's tough, he says, but he tries to stay busy and enjoy himself.

"I wonder myself what I'm doing here," he says. "I make do. I'm not a complainer. If you do, you just make yourself miserable and everyone around you."