As Eugene Sellers drives his Volkswagen Jetta each morning from Lock Haven, it is almost certain that most of the people he delivers mail to are still in bed.

Empty streets and a gray sky welcome Sellers' stroll through the parking lot as he checks into work at 6:15 a.m at the State College Post Office, 237 S. Fraser St. The peacefulness of the snow and the mostly-sleeping town is contrasted the moment he steps into the clamorous mailroom.

As he collects stack after stack of mail, he focuses through his square wire rims to pick out each address on his route. Sellers begins walking his route between 10 and 11 a.m., when most of his recipients are just starting to roll out of bed and head to class.

"College kids are a challenge," he said with a smile.

"I like 'em actually," he added. "Ninety-nine [percent] of them are good kids. I was a college kid once. That's the way I look at them."

Sellers is responsible for such a large volume of mail that he has to box it by building. Another mailman distributes some of the boxes to locations closer to their final destinations for Sellers to pick up later on his route. The mail is then dropped off around town in apartment building mailrooms.

Because he carries to several high rises, Sellers deals with a large amount of mail. It's not only the job that is taxing, but also the particular route. He has 808 actual deliveries, mostly to students, leading to an incredible amount of grief -- junk mail, credit card applications, wrong addresses and the chore of about 2,000 address changes each year.

"About 100 percent of my people move every year. It's a real pain," Sellers said. "A lot of carriers probably don't see that many in their lifetime."

As he heads down the street, he greets people by first name or with a nod, popping into shops to deliver mail. Sellers likes to chat, but every time he stops for just a few seconds, he has to rush later to make up for it.

"He's a quirky, funny guy," said Chrissy Mitinger, an employee of Hair Loft by Charles, 419 E. Calder Way. "And we always get our mail."

In each mailroom along his route, one constant is the mass of paper tags taken from the hods -- the plastic boxes known for being stolen from the Postal Service. Most students in his region have at one time or another received one of his notes written on these recycled cards, perhaps with "No mail to unlocked boxes," or "package" inscribed on them.

"I guess I just do it to irritate people probably," he said jokingly.

While other postmen tease him about his fondness for the tags, Sellers likes to retort that the day he retires, they will find one mailroom completely full of the roughly two-by-three-inch cards.

At the end of his workday, Sellers returns undelivered mail, then routinely visits his mother in her apartment on the outskirts of State College. After the visit, he makes the long drive home to his brick house on a side street in Lock Haven.

Sitting in his kitchen under warm lamp light on a cold night, Sellers seems in his element. A completely different person, here he is quiet and listening to his wife Ricky speak. Though Sellers has one son with her, he also has three stepchildren and four grandchildren.

"Gene's a great guy with my kids, he really is," she said, admiringly gazing at her husband of 15 years.

The two continue talking and telling stories well into the night, and soon it's time for bed and another day. More mail, and one day closer to retirement for the 52-year-old.

The students along his route are working on term papers, probably oblivious to the fact that their mailman has a dream to someday own a vanilla bean plant in Tahiti.