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Postal Worker Endures Heat With Positive Outlook

CHICAGO (CBS) -- With a heat index in the neighborhood of 100 degrees, who would want to spend eight hours walking, block after block, carrying a heavy bag?

Emanuel Pender, that's who.

"We just take the bitter with the sweet," Pender said.

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Emanuel Pender is a guy who loves his job. He's a mail man, walking his route on the South Side.

"We got a couple seasons in the letter carrier craft, we got normal, then we got cold as you can get, then we got almost hot as you can get," he said.

"Now, obviously, you dress for it."

Pender is wearing postal-issue shorts, a light and loose short-sleeve shirt and a mesh pith helmet.

"I'm on safari man," he said.

He's been delivering mail for 40 years.

"I got the best of two worlds right here. I get paid and I have a automatic health club membership."

Taking the bitter with the sweet, as he says, delivering the mail in the heat.

There are dogs barking in the background. Pender is asked if he likes the dogs better than weather or weather better than dogs?"

"I tell you about the four-legged animal, you know, he's just protecting his own. He barks every day."

Yes, he's been bitten. Once, he says, in 40 years.

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