After almost 20 years delivering The Bayonne Community News, Sal Lupo became something of a fixture to his beat.
“People didn’t see him as the person who delivered his newspaper,” said Roberto Lopez, Lupo’s supervisor. “They saw him as a friend – and looked forward to his coming the way they did the mail man.”
When Lupo did not come one week, residents began to ask where he was, Lopez said. For many to whom he delivered, Salvatore M. “Sal” Lupo’s passing at age 83 is a sore loss.
“For me he was more like a brother than a brother-in-law,” said Barbara Procop, one the family members who recalled Sal during an interview last week. “He was a fabulous man and a friend to all.”
Born in Bayonne, Lupo moved to Bayonne when he was 13 years and remained here for seven decades. For 35 years, he worked as a foreman for Best Food Companies on Avenue A, from which he retired in 1986. A few years later, he took up a delivery route for the Bayonne Community News where he became a fixture in the community.
“One look at him and you could tell he was a happy man,” Procop said, describing his popularity. “He was always very helpful. If you needed him, he was there.”
At the Bayonne Community News offices on East 21st Street, he was always the paper carrier who knocked before he came into the office, where Procop worked for a time
“When we heard the knock, we knew Sal was there,” Procop said. “He always told us, `I’m here.'”
Lupo said hello to everyone during his route, and won numerous admirers, who looked forward to seeing him. But he was also very active in the community, especially among senior citizens.
“He ran most of the trips for the seniors,” Procop said, describing him as an organized man, who once served as president to a condo board. He was deeply involved with the St. Joseph’s senior citizen community and the Holy Name Society. He apparently had a good voice because he was also a member of the choir.
“People loved him on his paper route,” Procop said. “He knew everybody and everybody knew him. He spread good cheer wherever he went.”
Procop said Lupo liked to do picture puzzles and would frame them when he was finished.
“He got me started on them,” she said.
A veteran of the Pacific combat theater in World War II and a scout leader in Bayonne, Lupo ceased his deliveries in the first week of November after starting chemo-therapy.
“He worked up until the first week in November and decided he couldn’t do it any more,” Procop said.
Lupo is survived by a daughter, Susan Suros; a son, Andrew Lupo; a sister, Mary Stehle; and three grandchildren. Jonathan, Ryan and Victoria.