2008 Woodie Awards
City worker's life was a mystery to many
Brady Holt
Issue date: 4/7/08 Section: News
If you have ever gone to College Park City Hall to pay a parking ticket or to pick up a permit, you have probably met Daniel Carmody. He worked behind the main counter from 1:00 to 10:00 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, right until the week before he died of a massive heart attack on March 12 at the age of 74.
Carmody became a familiar sight around City Hall during the nearly twenty years he worked for the parking enforcement division. District 3 Councilman Mark Cook described him as "part of the character" of the facility, and City Clerk Janeen Miller called him "sort of like an institution around here."
The staff became the equivalent of Carmody's family, said co-worker Scott Osborn, since Carmody had a falling out with his family decades earlier. According to his former colleagues, Carmody knew all his friends from work but rarely associated with most of them outside of City Hall. He would walk to work everyday and typically get there well before his shift began. He never traveled - Osborn attributed this to no-smoking rules in trains and planes and said Carmody said he'd "seen enough of the world" in the Navy - and rarely used his allotted vacation days.
Staff members spoke of his love of reading - everything from spy novels to books about quantum physics - and listening to jazz, old-time country music and the blues. A co-worker drove him to the supermarket every Monday because Carmody didn't drive.
Carmody started coming to work sick in early March with what College Park Finance Director Steve Groh said he would call "just a cold," and he uncharacteristically arrived late the following Saturday. At that point, his co-workers persuaded him to stay home, and some came to visit him at his Wake Forest Drive apartment.
Groh said one of those co-workers, Parking Enforcement Manager Jim Miller, was about to drive the "stubborn" Dan Carmody to the hospital March 12 when Carmody's condition suddenly worsened. Miller called an ambulance, but Carmody died en route of a massive heart attack.
Carmody became a familiar sight around City Hall during the nearly twenty years he worked for the parking enforcement division. District 3 Councilman Mark Cook described him as "part of the character" of the facility, and City Clerk Janeen Miller called him "sort of like an institution around here."
The staff became the equivalent of Carmody's family, said co-worker Scott Osborn, since Carmody had a falling out with his family decades earlier. According to his former colleagues, Carmody knew all his friends from work but rarely associated with most of them outside of City Hall. He would walk to work everyday and typically get there well before his shift began. He never traveled - Osborn attributed this to no-smoking rules in trains and planes and said Carmody said he'd "seen enough of the world" in the Navy - and rarely used his allotted vacation days.
Staff members spoke of his love of reading - everything from spy novels to books about quantum physics - and listening to jazz, old-time country music and the blues. A co-worker drove him to the supermarket every Monday because Carmody didn't drive.
Carmody started coming to work sick in early March with what College Park Finance Director Steve Groh said he would call "just a cold," and he uncharacteristically arrived late the following Saturday. At that point, his co-workers persuaded him to stay home, and some came to visit him at his Wake Forest Drive apartment.
Groh said one of those co-workers, Parking Enforcement Manager Jim Miller, was about to drive the "stubborn" Dan Carmody to the hospital March 12 when Carmody's condition suddenly worsened. Miller called an ambulance, but Carmody died en route of a massive heart attack.
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