Date: Sunday, December 19, 2004
Section: LOCAL
By WILL VASH Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Memo: OBITUARY

Dateline: BOYNTON BEACH

Herbert Fastnacht spent a lifetime as a letter carrier but waited until late in life to become something of a man of letters.

The retired postman began writing poetry in his 80s on topics from current events to the gradual progression of age.The New Jersey native, who logged hundreds of miles slogging through snow to deliver letters before coming to Florida in the 1970s, died Monday in Boynton Beach. He was 103.

Among his poems was an ode to the state of his favorite sport:

Mr. Fastnacht was a New York Yankees fan.

“He had some really funny ones,” nephew Richard Fastnacht said of his poetry.

Dorothy Radzniak said her childhood memories include watching her uncle and one of his brothers rigging skis to his mailbag when the winter weather in New Jersey was at its worst.

“In those days, the postmen walked and delivered mail to each floor,” she said.

After work, Radzniak said, her uncle would head to the local ice rink to teach students to skate. That’s where he met his future wife.

“Almost every night he would take off skating.” she said. “I think that’s what probably kept him healthy.”

In a poem written on the eve of their 50th wedding anniversary, Mr. Fastnacht lamented the passage of time while fondly recalling skating with his wife, Edith:

In spite of all the fine things Life has to offer

We both thought there was nothing quite as nice

As a modern skating rink with a glassy, smooth sheet of ice

We are growing old in Florida

Where time flies, or so it seems

Now the only skating we ever do

Is once in a while in our dreams

Edith Fastnacht died in 2001 at age 91.

Family members said Mr. Fastnacht was conservative with his money and lived in his Boynton Beach home without an air conditioner or heater.

Radzniak said Mr. Fastnacht probably outlasted his contemporaries because he lived a clean life. He never smoked, drank alcohol, tea or coffee and stuck to healthy foods.

At 90, Mr. Fastnacht did acquire one vice introduced to him by friends – a taste for fast food.

When it came to his 100th birthday, Mr. Fastnacht celebrated at McDonald’s.

But for many in the family, it’s the poems that stand out, that will continue to remind them of the sharp mind Mr. Fastnacht possessed.

In 1997, Mr. Fastnacht, then 96, read one of his last poems to fellow members of the Poets of the Palm Beaches at the American Polish Club.

“I’m not a rhymester; I just have a grammar school education,” a humble Mr. Fastnacht said at the time.

The judges apparently disagreed and awarded Mr. Fastnacht an honorable mention for his work, which “had a feeling of time and place you could almost hold in your hand.”

Services were earlier this week.