THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 2, 1995 TAG: 9504020010
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: PAUL SOUTH
DATELINE: MANTEO LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
As Friday's sun kneeled slowly to end the long day, Gene Garrison set about his daily business of lowering the Stars and Stripes at the Manteo Post Office.
It didn't take long to get it down.
``We had the flag at half-staff today,'' the postal clerk said. ``It was for Mr. Mose. We didn't ask anybody's permission or anything. We just did it.
``The tourists have been asking us about it, but the locals, they know.''
``Mr. Mose'' was how everyone from Manteo to Engelhard knew J.O. Basnight. For four decades he ran the rural mail route from Manns Harbor to Engelhard and back, even to the little communities of East Lake and Stumpy Point. For these isolated Outer Banks communities, he was a connection to the world.
On Thursday, an automobile accident took his life. He was 85.
Talk to his colleagues in the U.S. Postal Service, and they'll quickly tell you Mose Basnight was more than a mailman seeing to his appointed rounds.
Much more.
And that is why they honored him Friday by lowering the flag in the same way we do when presidents, senators, governors, statesmen, war heroes and other beloved servants of our nation pass away.
``He didn't just deliver the mail,'' said Patty Callum, a clerk at the Manteo branch. ``He was a taxi service. He'd do errands for people. If one of the ladies in Stumpy Point needed a ride to the grocery store in Engelhard, or to the doctor, he'd take them. He did anything he could to help people. He was their lifeline.''
Basnight retired in 1994, two years after the death of his wife, Mabel. She left her own legacy of service, as a fixture in the front office at ``The Lost Colony.''
``Mr. Mose really pined for his wife,'' Callum said. ``Sometimes, he'd come in the office and just be sobbing. He really missed her. I'm sure he's happy now.''
Even after his retirement, Mose Basnight came back every day to the place he loved, the post office. A smile lit Garrison's bearded face as the memory emerged.
``He'd come in every morning, and say `Well Alllll Right!' '' Garrison recalled. ``His trademark was a rubber band. He'd always want one to put around his mail.''
He had stopped in as always on Thursday to pick up his mail.
``He came in, and reminded us about the meeting in Stumpy Point,'' Garrison said. ``He really cared about that. He had been ill, and I told him he was looking well. A lot of people couldn't believe he was 85.''
The meeting in Stumpy Point was to help save the tiny waterfront village's post office. He was en route to that meeting when his car went out of control and he was fatally injured.
News of ``Mr. Mose's'' passing spread immediately through this town of 200. A moment of silent prayer was called for. Mose Basnight wasn't just a mail carrier in Stumpy Point. He was a friend.
``He'd give you the shirt off his back,'' Garrison remembered.
But his friends at the Manteo Post Office, and those all along the seldom-traveled roads he rode to deliver a piece of the outside world, will remember him more in a way we would all wish to be remembered when we leave this place. Gene Garrison said it simply.
``He was a good man.'' by CNB