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Every day, when Carrie Johnson pulls into the parking lot of Tom Thumb at Mockingbird and Abrams, she says a little prayer.

And every day, when she walks inside, she knows she’s exactly where she wants to be.

Johnson has worked for Tom Thumb for 35 years, and she started at this store 20 years ago.

Why so long with Tom Thumb?

Part of it is this: “I love this job. I love what I do,” she says.

It’s a convincing answer. Johnson is so friendly and outgoing that her kids make fun of her for it. She loves being around people, but that’s not the whole story.

Johnson was a single mother of four in 1992 when her oldest child, Larry, was shot in the head in a random incident. He was taken to Parkland Hospital, and he wasn’t expected to survive the night.

Hospital employees assumed he had insurance through his mom’s employer, but he had just aged out of Johnson’s insurance plan. Since he wasn’t insured, the hospital wanted to move Johnson’s son from the sixth floor, which was VIP at the time, to the fourth floor, which was reserved for indigent care.

She didn’t know what to do, so she called her store director. He called Jack Evans Sr., the former Dallas mayor who was president and CEO of Tom Thumb at the time. Evans called Parkland and told them not to move Johnson’s son.

Now Larry is 40. He lost his vision in the shooting, but other than that, he is healthy and independent.

“To this day, I have never seen a hospital bill,” Johnson says. “I’ve never seen a bill, but they tell me it was over $150,000.”

That’s not something a person forgets, know about Harry the UPS guy: He and pal Rob Peebles are the 2010 TVP World Horseshoe Tournament champions.

“They give you a big trophy,” he says. “It’s like the Stanley Cup of horseshoes.”

Harry Scoville, 42, has been delivering UPS packages in Lakewood for about 10 years. He started working for UPS about 23 years ago as a part-timer, while he was in school at the University of North Texas. After graduation, he decided to stay on as a driver.

“I didn’t want to work inside my whole life,” Scoville says. “I love to be outside.”

UPS trucks don’t have air conditioning, but that doesn’t bother Scoville.

“I don’t mind the heat at all. If it could be 105 degrees every day, I would take that,” he says. “People think I’m crazy for it, but I don’t like the cold at all.”

Occasionally, he’s been known to thwart the efforts of thieves in our neighborhood. Last year, he caught a guy stealing UPS packages from doorsteps on Gaston Avenue. He ran after the thief and held him until police came.

Scoville’s Lakewood and Old East Dallas route is tame compared to his previous route in South Dallas.

“I used to see all kinds of stuff,” he says. “I’ve seen prostitutes stark naked in the middle of the street who don’t know where they are. All kinds of stuff. But I think South Dallas gets a bad rap. It’s not as bad as people think.”

Scoville lives in Lakewood Heights with his wife, Julie, and their kids, 11-year-old Peyton Rylee and 5-year-old Brady Coogan.

He likes to fish and hunt, and he collects guns: “I’ve probably got 60 or 70 firearms.” He’s into old cars, and he owns a 1969 Dodge Coronet that a neighbor is restoring for him: “It’s more of a hot rod.” And he has plans to buy a fully restored ’69 Coronet this summer.

Most days, he drives an ’89 Chevy pickup that’s been stolen twice and broken into at least three times. The locks don’t even work any more.

“I just keep driving that,” he says. “I like to have something fun to drive on the weekend.”