I vaguely remember the day a few years ago when I happened to glance at a calendar, did some quick math and suddenly realized that I’d eclipsed the four-decade mark – yes, 40 years – as a humble, loyal member of The Telegraph family.

I’m pretty sure it was about then that I started paying more attention to the looks on people’s faces when I answered "oh, a little over 40 years … " to the question that seemed to come up so often: "So, how long ya been at The Telegraph?"

Fifty years ago, that answer would hardly have raised an eyebrow. But, as they say, this ain’t your grandfather’s generation.

My point: As someone whose single-employer career clock is fast approaching the 44-year signpost, I can’t say I come across a lot of people who’ve been at something longer than I’ve been chasing fire trucks, newsmakers and elusive public officials across the region.

But I finally got to sit down a couple months ago with one of those rare people, a man whose name you’ll almost certainly recognize, whose multi-page resume – not of employment, but public, civic and community service – began when I was still dipping girls’ ponytails in inkwells back at good old Mount Pleasant school.

It was the summer of 1963 and I had no idea who Maurice L. Arel was, never mind that he was walking around his neighborhood ringing doorbells and handing out handwritten, mimeographed (no Xeroxes back then) notes introducing himself as a 26-year-old, recently married Nashua native about to become a father for the first time.

Oh, and the guy who preferred "Moe" to "Maurice" also mentioned he would like to become the next alderman from Nashua’s Ward 8 – back then a giant ward that was so big it had two precincts.

Come November, in a little bit of a John Kennedy-Richard Nixon scenario, the young upstart unseated the incumbent, the late Bob Dion.

"He told me I was too young" to be an alderman, Arel said with a laugh as we sat and chatted a few weeks ago in his Nashua home.

Back then, city inaugurations happened on Jan. 1 – not the first Sunday of the year, as is the case now. It was Arel’s first of several inaugurations – and his most memorable, for more than one reason.

"We got into the elevator to go to the third floor, and halfway there it stopped. It got stuck," he said, again laughing at the sudden pickle he and his fellow stranded passengers suddenly faced.

They were promptly rescued, and the new kid from Ward 8 was on his way to becoming a household name in all nine wards.

It’s safe to say Moe Arel liked public service, and even safer to say Nashua voters – and more than a few associations, societies, trustee boards, foundations, councils, you name it – liked him.

For when he decided to step down several months ago after nearly 30 years as a Nashua Public Library trustee, Moe Arel had amassed a remarkable run of public service that fell just short of 52 years.

Such is the level of Arel’s seemingly boundless energy that, after leaving the library board, he actually told one of my colleagues that "I’m trying not to slow down."

Nobody would ever accuse Moe Arel of slowing down. Even now, pushing 80, with homes in Florida and New Hampshire’s Lakes Region as well as Nashua, he’s still the chairman of the board of St. Joseph Hospital and at Girls Inc., where he’s playing a crucial role in its capital fundraising campaign.

Moe and Joyce Arel – with Jocelyn on the way – lived on Park Avenue when, he recalled, he and Joyce one day began talking about community service.

"We said, ‘We’re not doing anything for this community … we need to do something,’" he said of their conversation. "Run for Ward 8 Alderman" won out.

Parts of the old Ward 8 belong to Wards 6 and 9 now, but in the ’60s its size required two polling places – Fairgrounds Elementary and the James B. Crowley Elementary, which today is occupied by the Adult Learning Center.

"Joyce would stand with a sign all day at one place, and I’d go to the other," he said. "It worked out pretty well."

And talk about the gift of recall. There can’t be many facts, figures, dates or names that have escaped Moe Arel’s memory, time notwithstanding.

He remembers, for instance, getting 6,666 votes in the 1966 election to win his first alderman-at-large seat.

Around that time, a huge November snowstorm hit Nashua. It brought with it a lesson for city officials: Your plow trucks are in bad shape and you need to rework your plow routes.

In the meantime, Arel said, a truck broke down; a second; then a third. Then an epidemic. "They were breaking down all the time," he said, adding that the ones that were left were on the roads 12-14 hours a day.

Desperate, they borrowed a couple of trucks from the late George Law, then head of the transportation firm his descendants operate today.

"The first day, we burned up one of George’s trucks," Arel said, laughing now, but he wasn’t then.

Moe Arel’s years as mayor are chock full of interesting tales and anecdotes – ditto for his post-mayoral career, and his rather unique path to the presidency of Pennichuck Corp.

Those, as they say, are stories for another day.

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears Saturdays in The Telegraph. He can be reached at 594-6443, dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com or @Telegraph_DeanS.