James Lee Brice has shown up to Cary Elementary School at 6 a.m. every school day for the past 33 years. As their head custodian, he's swabbed floors, swept halls and scraped gum off of desks without complaint.

On Oct. 30, he'll retire. He's so beloved that staff and students nominated him for the Custodial Hall of Fame in Wake County, an honor he shared with nine others in 1990.

A kindergartner at the time, quoted in a Cary News article in June 1980, said Brice is someone who "takes care of us."

Staff writer Vickie Jean DeHamer asked him to reflect on his time at the school, where he has barely missed a shift and will be missed for his notorious practical jokes.Weeks before saying goodbye, Brice said he doesn't regret a day he spent among the staff and children, cleaning up, keeping them laughing. "They say I liven things up," Brice said.

Here's an excerpt of his conversation with DeHamer:

Q:How did you come to work at Cary Elementary? My brother in law, he told me in 1976. Before that, I drove a truck for five years.

Q: What's the best part of being a custodian? Once I started, I kept on staying. I guess the children. The handicapped children especially -- I got to know them really good.

Q: Now for the worst part -- what's the grossest thing you've ever had to clean up? I guess the worst part of it was the snow, because you have to shovel the sidewalk.

Q: What's the hardest to clean: the boys' bathroom or girls' bathroom? Boys' bathroom for sure. Yeah, they'll get ketchup and smear it all over the walls. I don't think I did that [when I was a boy] though.

Q: What's it like being a part of an elementary school so long? Some of them I can't recognize. They recognize me. They say, 'I know you.' I say, 'you know me?' It's a surprise.

Q: Do you keep in touch with students and see them as adults later in life? No, I see some every now and then.

Q: Are you happy you stayed at the job so long? Yeah. If I had to do it all over again, I guess I'd do it. I never thought about doing something else for a living.

Q: What might people be surprised to hear from a custodian? I think about me playing jokes on people. I've played a joke on a whole lot of teachers, I guess. I guess the best one I told one lady, she had just came and set her room up and I told her she'd have to move to another room.

Q: Did you ever tell her it was a joke? I didn't tell her, she found out from someone else. I don't know what possessed me to do it, I just did it and she fell for it.

Q: Are you sad to be retiring? Yeah, a little bit.

Q: What are your plans? I'll probably work on trying to get one of my cars worked out.

Q: How does the wife feel about the retirement? She's all for it!