Society is funny. In my life I’ve chatted with congressmen, senators, governors, and scores of successful corporate executives, none of whom I respected more than Gisela Smit. (Norman Transcript reg.)

Driving. Lights on. Window down. Grab a paper – insert one, insert two – fold twice. Hit the brakes. Bag. Rubber band. Pull over. Throw.

Repeat (370 times) between 1 and 7 a.m.

For 32 years, that was Gisela Smit’s life as a newspaper carrier. Waking at midnight seven days a week, cruising east Norman on her rural route’s precarious roads, getting back to the sack as the sun rose and desperately trying to sleep until noon – praying the phone would remain silent for just a few more minutes.

But that career, which included only one tardy delivery and a stretch of four years without a single day off, ended just after dawn Thursday, when Smit stuffed her last insert in her last paper and watched it slip from her hand into a blue Transcript tube.

Reading the article, it’s apparent Gisela took pride in her job. And it’s folks like Gisela that make Oklahoma, and life, bearable for most of us.

It’s common people who bring richness to life: regular working stiffs that have as many problems as any honest businessman, but with much less resources to deal with those problems; folks you meet every day that manage a smile for a stranger when they have little to smile about; people who have to be more satisfied in their pride of work than their compensation for it. I’m lucky to rub elbows with people like Gisela Smit.

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