MILFORD – The only medicine Horace “Spike” Moffatt takes are the vitamins his wife puts on the table each day, and at 72 he says slowing down isn’t in his plan to get to heaven.

Moffatt can be found Monday through Friday working at the Bangor Baptist Church unlocking doors, turning on the heat and making sure that all plumbing, electrical and mechanical devices are operating properly.

“When the Lord Jesus Christ takes me out, I want to be in midstride doing something for him,” Moffatt said.

The Milford resident claims that retirement isn’t his pace and doesn’t plan to try it again anytime soon.

“I think that’s for old people,” Moffatt said. “People ask me how it feels to be old and I say, ‘I never was old before so I don’t know what to tell ya.'”

His first and only attempt at retirement came in 1993. He had been teaching diesel, heavy equipment maintenance, Class I truck driving and other classes at what is now United Technologies Center since 1978 – two years before the vocational school was actually built.

Moffatt had previously worked at a maintenance shop in Brewer for 10 years and then for H.E. Sargent Construction Co. for another 15 as a mechanic and driver.

One of Moffatt’s most outstanding accomplishments is that he has driven 2 million accident-free miles for various companies.

“The only thing I’ve ever had is a flat tire,” he said.

After two back injuries forced him to leave H.E. Sargent, Moffatt was approached by one of UTC’s founders who asked him to teach. When the school came under new direction in 1993, there was friction between Moffatt and his new boss, who threatened to cut Moffatt’s program to half a day, Moffatt said.

Moffatt turned 62 that summer, so he told the director of the school, “I won’t fight you, I’ll just retire.” Moffatt also had been working nights and weekends driving for Merrill Transport. The company sold out the same year Moffatt left the school, so he went into full-time retirement.

“I just wasn’t happy being retired with nothing to do,” he said. “I decided to go back to work.” Meanwhile, Moffatt’s wife of 25 years, Sharon, had bought him a set of golf clubs. Moffatt had once told her he’d learn to golf someday when he retired.

Moffatt went to Hermon Meadows to work on his game, but instead was asked by the golf course staff if he wanted to work for them mowing the greens and lawns.

“Gosh, I’d never mowed before,” Moffatt said. But in typical Moffatt fashion he told them “I’d be tickled to death to try it.” The Milford man began working full time at the course in the summer and groomed 34 miles of snowmobile trails for the Pine Tree Snowmobile Club in Milford in the winter. But this was just the beginning of his un-retirement.

Moffatt credits his strong work ethic to his father, a master electrician and preacher.

“When World War II broke out on Dec. 7, 1941, I had turned 10 that August,” Moffatt said. “I can remember how devastated my dad was.” At age 58, Moffatt said his father attempted to enlist at the Navy base in Needham, Mass., a short distance from their home. He was rejected.

“I can remember he came home and he was madder than a wet hen,” Moffatt said. But his father wasn’t discouraged and returned to the base to work as a civilian electrical inspector. Throughout the war, he still made time to preach every Sunday.

“I was brought up in churches all over New England,” Moffatt said.

Immediately after the war, Moffatt’s father resigned from his Navy job and moved his family to Maine where he began preaching in the Wilton area. Spike Moffatt was 14 and has been a Maine resident ever since.

After searching for a church to attend for several years, Moffatt felt the need one Sunday in 1997 to answer the calling of the Bangor Baptist Church’s advertisement on radio station WVOM.

“You ought to come to Bangor Baptist Church and try it,” the ad said.

“I never felt so at home in my life,” Moffatt said. He and his wife have attended and been actively involved in the church ever since.

But it was Moffatt’s eager and unselfish “I’ll fix it!” that landed him the job as the church’s maintenance man.

“The toughest looking loader you’ve ever seen in your life” was giving the church some trouble and they asked me to take a look at it, Moffatt said. After assuring them he could repair it, Moffatt got the machine so it would “run like a clock.”

Now, five years later, he can be found at the church from 5:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday taking care of all that’s mechanical. He doesn’t have to be there until 6 a.m., but Moffatt’s always been a morning person.

He wakes at 4 a.m. every day without an alarm clock – another trait he inherited from his father.

“I don’t have the voice I once had and I probably don’t have the stamina, except I still go up the stairs two stairs at a time, every time,” he said.

In addition to working at the church, Moffatt drives buses part time for Cyr Bus Lines when they are shorthanded.

“I tell you what, I wouldn’t change where I’m at today; there is nobody this side of heaven that I’d swap with,” Moffatt said. “I just marvel at what I can still do.”

Sometimes Sharon Moffatt attempts to get her husband to slow down, but so far she’s been unsuccessful.

“I can either work and burn out or I can sit here and do nothing and rust out,” Moffatt said.

The Bangor Daily News is profiling people age 70 and older who choose to remain in the work force. We welcome suggestions for people to profile. Contact us at 990-8138 or e-mail bdnnews@bangordailynews.net.