I’m sad to say that an old friend, employer, and client has passed, Roger Lloyd. Roger was one of the first men who ever believed in me enough to give me a job. A job that allowed me to support my family my church and my interests. You see back about 1976 when I was a young man needing a better job and Roger needed an good employee, he allowed me to come to work for him driving an oil truck for five years.During that five years I worked side-by-side with him and Evelyn doing a lot of things that helped me develop the work ethic that I have today.Roger was the kind of guy who thought, if you want something you need to earn it, not have it given to you. That generation of men is almost gone. I can remember Roger and I working together on those fuel trucks of his during blizzards, 10 foot high snow drifts, 36° below zero temperatures, and at times when it didn’t get as warm as zero for weeks at a time. A lot of employers would just have had their employees go out and do it and sit in the warm and wait. Not him, he was always out there with me doing the same thing I did every day. I can remember one cold winter when he actually had to get out of bed every two hours and go out and start his oil truck and let it run long enough to get warm so that he could be sure it would start the next morning during temperatures that were 20 degrees below zero for several days in a row. All this just so he could make sure our customers were taken care of. I can remember working with him when the wheels literally came off the truck going down the highway.
He drove a tractor probably 15 miles to help me set my first tobacco patch, when I had no idea in the world what I was doing and of course wouldn’t take a dime. I helped him put up hay, unload train box cars of oil, even went to small claims court one time with him, to testify in front of Judge Ratts! LOL!
I am sure there were many families who stayed warm during the winter at Roger and Evelyn’s expense!
I remember one day when I got ran off the road over an embankment by a big semi tractor coming back from Starlight and ended up in a big cornfield. I called Roger he came down there, climbed up on the front bumper of the truck in standing corn and he rode on the truck out of there as I drove. He looked like the largest hood ornament I had ever seen as I sat behind the wheel of that truck with him in front of me standing on the bumper! Of course he paid the farmer for the corn that we destroyed in doing this. He taught me how to water ski, (not very well), and we even spent some nights together in the woods coon hunting at his farm where we nearly walked right off into Lake John Hay in the pitch black of a Rush bCreek night!
When Vicki and I found out we were expecting our first son, he was one of the first people I told, and he was nearly as excited as I was. He and Evelyn were generous enough to invite our family more than once to their homes at Beaver Lake for a week and what a grand time it was.
When I was given the opportunity to go into the insurance business and told him about it he encouraged me and told me that it was a great opportunity for me and I should take it. He had no intention of holding me back. I have a feeling he probably told Evelyn later that I had lost my mind! I had no idea that later on he and his family would become some of our most loyal clients. He and Evelyn were very good friends with Vicki’s parents and there were times in their lives when they were all battling extreme health care situations together. Roger was a survivor, a battler and I can remember him telling the story about being in the Marines and being lost on Mount Fuji in Japan for several days before they found their way. Guys like Roger leave a legacy that it’s hard to match. There were no plans for retiring in Roger’s life, just changing careers so he could do what he had always wanted to do, farm!
Just today a man who grew up in Westside Village told me that Roger took him on his first boat ride when he was a boy living there and also his first plane ride. I am sure that today he is doing things up there that he always wanted to do here but never got the chance.
Good bye for now Roger. We will see you again some day. What adventures await, old friend!