“He just can’t retire. There’s no way I could have another Lendell doing the lawns, the bus driving.”

Cyr Martin, town manager of tiny Ashland, Maine, expressing his worry that 65-year-old Lendell Tarr, the town’s recreation director who not only drives Little Leaguers to away games but also cleans the town office, takes seniors out for meals, mows the cemetery lawn, and pitches in driving ambulances and school buses, might retire. Ashland is one of many small rural towns with aging populations and limited resources where hard-to-find municipal workers multitask at several jobs. (Wall Street Journal — July 28, 2024)