Retirement serves as early Christmas gift for longtime employee

Forty years of getting up early to smell the coffee comes to an end this morning for Carolyn Peterson, who has spent most of her life serving fresh donuts to grumpy customers who would prefer to be home with the covers pulled over their heads.

That the end of her working life comes on the 24th of December is not a coincidence, for retirement is her Christmas gift to herself. It isn't a present wrapped in pretty paper or one she'll have to exchange. This gift will keep on giving and on Christmas morning she'll say thank you that her alarm didn't explode at 4 a.m. and that she doesn't have to face a line of zombies searching for a jolt of caffeine.

She has been serving folks at the Dunkin' Donuts on Manchester Expressway for 16 years and simply put, "It's time." Carolyn will be 76 years old in a few weeks and she's tired.

Before donuts she was a waitress -- a single mom working two other jobs in Albany, Ga. She took a job on the night shift at Krispy Kreme and before long she quit the restaurant and the oyster bar and worked full-time at the donut shop.

"And I had never been in a Krispy Kreme before I went to work there," she said in a conversation this week after settling up for her early morning shift.

All together, she has spent more than 40 years serving donuts glazed, filled and sprinkled and keeping up with hot cups of coffee with and without. She can't imagine how many donuts she has sold and served for in the beginning she worked all night packing box after box for corporate and charity sales.

Back then she was known to eat a few donuts herself.

"When they were hot, I could eat six of them," she said. "Now I only eat them once in a while. I might eat an apple-spice donut hole, but that's all."

Police officers are known to eat a few donuts while on patrol, which Carolyn could testify about in a court of law.

That's where she met Cecil, her second husband and an Albany cop when they met at Krispy Kreme.

He retired after 21 and a half years on the force, and they moved to Massachusetts where Cecil took a job teaching school. After two years they moved to Columbus, across the river from his hometown of Phenix City.

Back in Georgia, Carolyn got a phone call mothers never want to receive.

"My daughter's so-called boyfriend had murdered her. Children aren't supposed to die before their mother, but she did. I've never gotten over it."

A week later, a brother called to tell her another brother was dead. She visits their graves often when she and Cecil go back to Albany for dinner with a group of retired lawmen.

When the Petersons moved here in 1999, there wasn't a Krispy Kreme in Columbus so she joined Dunkin' Donuts. She ends her career today around 11 a.m., with a pair of tired feet.

She'll miss her morning regulars. She knows their faces and what they want in their coffee. She'll miss them, but she doesn't intend to get up early enough to join them at their favorite table.

Thus ends her extensive study of how America eats their donuts.

"Every person eats them differently. Some use a fork. Some eat them with their hands. How they chew them is different too. Some people eat them in two bites. I eat them one small bite at a time," she said.

Don't expect her to be back soon.

"They still smell good," she said. "I'm just tired of them."

This story was originally published December 23, 2015 at 8:58 PM with the headline "Retirement serves as early Christmas gift for longtime employee."