Floyd Price: A Navy Man's Journey

Meet Floyd Price, a 98-year-old Navy veteran whose remarkable life spans nearly a century of American history. Born in 1927 during the Roaring Twenties, Floyd's journey takes us through the hardships of a disrupted childhood, his service during World War II, and his postwar success as both businessman and family man.

Floyd's early years weren't easy—his parents divorced when he was seven, leading him to live with his grandparents. Without educational stability (he attended twelve different schools and never graduated), young Floyd found his path through determination and hard work. When World War II called, he answered, joining the Navy in April 1944 despite weighing only 118 pounds, below the service's minimum requirement. "We'll fatten him up," the examining doctor said, revealing the urgent need for personnel as the war intensified.

Aboard the USS Riverside, Floyd served as a radar plotter during the Okinawa campaign, experiencing combat conditions that tested even the bravest souls. His vivid descriptions of daily life—from general quarters at four in the morning to sitting in impenetrable smoke screens while Japanese planes searched overhead—provide a deeply personal window into what our Greatest Generation endured. Floyd's candid storytelling includes moments of danger, discipline (including his five days on bread and water for telling an officer to "kiss my ass"), and the camaraderie that sustained servicemen through unimaginable challenges.

After his discharge in 1946, Floyd built a 45-year career in window cleaning, eventually founding Capital Window Cleaning Company and maintaining landmarks like the Michigan State Capitol. Perhaps more impressive than his professional accomplishments is his personal life: his marriage to Alfreda has flourished for nearly 75 years, producing two daughters, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren—a living legacy that spans multiple generations.

Floyd's philosophy remains simple but profound: "Do the best you can, don't look back, look forward." His remarkable resilience, humor, and perspective offer wisdom that only comes from nearly a century of lived experience. Listen now to connect with an authentic piece of American history through the voice of someone who lived it.

Transcript

Meeting Floyd Price, Navy Veteran

Speaker 1 0:33

Today is Monday, april 14th, and we're talking with Floyd Price, who served the United States Navy. So good afternoon, floyd.

Speaker 2 0:41

Good afternoon to you.

Speaker 1 0:43

All right, great to see you this afternoon on a nice sunny day.

Speaker 2 0:47

It's wonderful to be here.

Speaker 1 0:50

Yep, yep, it's always good to be seen, isn't it? Yes, yeah, so we'll start out today with when and where were you?

Speaker 2 0:58

born. I was born April 25th 1927 in Foote Hospital in Jackson Michigan.

Speaker 1 1:07

Okay, so you're coming up on a birthday, yes, all right. Well, happy early birthday.

Speaker 2 1:13

I'll be 98.

Speaker 1 1:14

Oh my gosh. Well, you don't look. 98.

Speaker 2 1:19

Sometimes I feel it, sometimes I don't.

Speaker 1 1:21

Oh, that's true. That's true. So did you grow up in Jackson?

Speaker 2 1:25

No, we left there when I was five years old.

Speaker 1 1:29

Okay.

Speaker 2 1:30

I started school there and work was scarce, and work was scarce. My dad worked for a company that made rims Kelsey Hayes and they closed the factory, I think, there in Jackson. He went to Detroit for a while and then he transferred to Motor Wheel here in Lansing and we came here. We lived in several places. Then my folks divorced when I was seven years old, okay, and I went to live with my grandparents. They were wonderful people.

Speaker 1 2:18

And then, where did your grandparents live?

Speaker 2 2:21

At that time it was in Ovid.

Speaker 1 2:23

Okay, and did you have brothers and sisters too?

Speaker 2 2:27

No, I had a brother and two sisters that died at birth Well the one sister that was younger than me lived three months. We lived in a log cabin with my great-grandmother in south of Jackson and she was born in October and the cabin wasn't very warm and I don't know. She got pneumonia and died.

Speaker 1 3:02

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 3:03

She was exactly the same age as my wife.

Speaker 1 3:05

Really.

Speaker 2 3:06

My wife's birthday was October 26th and hers was October 31st.

Speaker 1 3:13

Oh, my gosh. You know, my younger brother was born on October 26th.

Speaker 2 3:18

A few years later. Yeah.

Speaker 1 3:22

So you went to live with your grandparents in Ovid. Yeah, did you see your parents much after that.

Speaker 2 3:28

Not a lot. My mother ran off with some guy and my dad was still working. My grandfather also worked at Motor Wheel. Okay, so on Friday nights I'd ride in. He worked a late shift, went in and worked at 10 o'clock and I'd ride in with him on Friday nights and my dad would get out of work at 10 o'clock and then go home with him and he lived in a boarding house. But I never knew. Actually I never knew my real name until I was about to get going into the Navy. I went by the name of Lloyd McQueer. That was my. I think he was my father. He's the only man I ever called father. But when I found out that my birth certificate said I was Floyd Price, Okay, and so Price was your mom's maiden name then.

Speaker 2 4:43

No, that was her first husband Okay, okay, I understand. And she was married three times. Oh, all right All right In my age they moved a lot. I went to 12 different schools and never graduated.

Speaker 1 5:04

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 5:07

I left home. I was back home. I didn't get along with my stepfather and I was in junior high school and I worked at Sparrow Hospital. I worked in the kitchen. I started out washing pots and pans. I got 22 and a half cents an hour.

Speaker 1 5:31

That was big money, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 5:34

And then they found out I was working too many hours going to school and I'd worked from 4 to midnight and I wasn't supposed to work past 10 o'clock, so I quit school. I went part-time to Central High School in Lansing, which is LCC now.

Speaker 1 6:00

Yeah.

Speaker 2 6:06

And then a year later I got a job with a dry cleaning company in Lansing. It was a plant. The chemical they used was outlawed in the city because it was toxic. So I worked there nearly a year and then I asked my mother to sign for me to go in the Navy.

Speaker 1 6:40

Okay, and that would have been.

Speaker 2 6:42

That would be April of 1944.

Speaker 1 6:46

Okay, so the World War II was going strong yeah.

Speaker 2 6:53

They were looking for warm bodies, so they didn't. They were looking for warm bodies, so they didn't. I took my first examination. I only weighed 118 pounds.

Speaker 1 7:03

Really.

Joining the Navy During WWII

Speaker 2 7:04

And they had a 120 limit. But doctor said, well, we'll fatten him up. You'll make weight soon enough right, yeah, so I went in. Soon enough, right, so I went in. I took my basic at the Naval Station in Green Bay. Okay, and we usually it's a 12-week deal, but they were wanting bodies real fast, so it was around about five weeks all I was training at.

Speaker 1 7:46

Yeah.

Speaker 2 7:47

I left there and went to Shoemaker, california. They used to say it's the only place in the country that you can stand up to mud, up to your ankles and have sand blow in your eyes at the same time.

Speaker 1 8:03

Sounds like a great place, Floyd.

Speaker 2 8:06

It was a German prisoner camp besides a military camp or prison. The German prisoners walked around free, and the American prisoners were locked up.

Speaker 1 8:22

The Germans are probably thankful to be there.

Speaker 2 8:24

The Germans. You couldn't have chased them out of there.

Speaker 2 8:26

We had a guy that spoke German and he talked to a lot of them. They were building. Every place you went from building to building had boardwalks to get there and they were building covers for these boardwalks and so I left there and they went to yes, treasure Island, okay, yes, treasure Island, okay. And then I was assigned to the ship Riverside, the APA 102 Riverside. It was a new ship, it hadn't been only commissioned for six months and after I was there for a while they called five of us in and sent four of us to Treasure Island. After I had been aboard, the ship sent back to Treasure Island to train to be radar plotter.

Speaker 1 9:42

Radar was pretty new. Right it was a new.

Speaker 2 9:44

Well, it was. That's the principle of it. That's still the same.

Speaker 2 9:52

I guess, but the equipment is altogether different. I trained mostly for surface plotter that's what I wound up being, but I went aboard the ship as part of the command. It was a command ship. I think there was a. I got a note there was 51 officers and 524 enlisted on the ship, but under the command there was 43 officers and 108 enlisted. I was a part of the command. They had built a special right behind the stack a special area for this command. We left out of San Francisco and I was on watch. I sat up on a high stool with headphones on and when we went out of the Golden Gate Bridge, under it was stormy. The ship was doing a lot of moving.

Speaker 1 11:18

Really.

Speaker 2 11:22

And I got sick and I couldn't wait. I kept watching the clock, waiting for my relief to come, and when he showed up he was as sick as I was.

Speaker 1 11:31

Oh, no so.

Speaker 2 11:33

I spent the next four hours relieving him, but anyway we went left. There we were hauling a load of ammunition. We had a load of torpedo warheads and 16-inch shells. Unfortunately we took a crew member on that had just got off in a ship that had fallen ammunition that had been hit.

Speaker 1 12:08

So was he bad luck.

Speaker 2 12:10

And he just got off in a 30-day leave and when he found out what we saw and he says, how lucky do they think I'm going to get? We only we took it to Pearl, unloaded it. Pearl, or we didn't unload, stephen Doors unloaded it. And then we left and we went into the marshals. I very seldom knew where I was Back then. They didn't reveal, they didn't want you writing home and telling, oh yeah, so all our mail was censored. So you don't write on both sides of the paper because they may cut something out of it.

Speaker 1 13:04

I didn't think about that, but you're right, you're right.

Speaker 2 13:07

So once in a while we'd know. I remember we'd talk and we'd talk after the war was blown up by a test atomic bomb. I guess it still doesn't exist, and when we traveled around I don't know how it was at Mog Mog Island. Mog Mog Island was a beer island.

Speaker 1 13:45

Oh, tell me about this.

Speaker 2 13:46

Navy does not allow beer or any drinking on a ship.

Speaker 1 13:51

Right.

Speaker 2 13:52

So what they do is give you three cans of beer and send you over to an island and you get your three cans of beer and back again and Mog Mog happened to be the island I think it's still in the Marshalls, but then we wound up in the Philippines Philippines was. Then we wound up in the Philippines. The Philippines was just being occupied and it had already been taken back, and that's where we wound up loading troops, army troops, for the invasion of Okinawa. Okay, we took 32 ships, apas, most APAs we were. The Riverside was the largest APA other than its sister ship. The sister ship had was I can't even remember what the sister ship's name was. Most APAs were about 62 foot wide and Riverside was over 90 feet wide and a little longer. We hauled about 18 LCVPs and four Mike boats. Them are landing craft boats. They were landing craft. We hauled, I believe was 1,200 troops that's a lot of people.

Service on the USS Riverside

Speaker 2 15:46

We left the Philippines with three columns of APAs loaded. I don't know if they were all. I know some of them were just supplies and and we weren't the first there at the Philippines or Okinawa, we weren't. I went in the second day. I can't remember we took. I think we were just loaded with supplies. I went in the second day, I can't remember, I think we were just loaded with supplies. Of course, I never set foot on the island. I can remember in the distance of a water tank and the water tank was up on legs and one leg had been shot. It leaned over and it looked like you couldn't lay your hand on a place that didn't have a bullet hole in it. I think that was the only thing that stuck up on the beach everybody shot at it yeah but anyway, the landings at Okinawa were not real bad.

Speaker 2 17:00

The Japanese had went inland and dug in, and the worst fighting was later when the troops had to try to take out them. Of course it wasn't too long after that that they dropped the atomic bombs. Both bombs we were set in Buckner Bay, which is in Okinawa it was named after. That formed the invasion and we would get then. Of course, shortly after the second bomb was dropped the Japanese surrendered, but all Japanese didn't realize it.

Speaker 1 17:55

Especially on Okinawa, right, right.

Speaker 2 17:57

They didn't get the word.

Speaker 2 17:58

The people of Okinawa were committing suicide. They're jumping off on cliffs, things. I didn't see any of that but found out later. They were scared to death. I was thinking that the things were going to torture them and everything. Right they were.

Speaker 2 18:24

But as we sat in Buckner Bay, we would general quarters, would go off about at four o'clock in the morning and stay till about 10. And so we used to say we'd get breakfast with an apple and GQ and that went on. One morning we had a three torpedo or night fighters was returning and a Japanese torpedo plane was following them in and they never knew it. He dropped a torpedo on the Pennsylvania which was anchored out and the Pennsylvania, it hit the stern and it didn't sink it but it put the stern down underwater. Yeah, we happened to have a second-class bosun's mate that his father was a first-class bosun's mate on the Pennsylvania and he got to go over and see his father and see if he was all right. First class boatswain made on the Pennsylvania and he got to go over and see his father and see if he was alright and everything. The ship survived and later was blown up by a test of atomic bomb.

Speaker 1 19:55

Really.

Speaker 2 19:56

But I have run into several people in different places that said their father or brother or somebody was on a Pennsylvania when they heard that I was in Okinawa. But we stayed. We were there a good three months or more and we never fired our guns. The shore battery took care of anything like we got raided. We put up smoke screen so when the general alarm go off, you didn't go to your battle station, you went to your fire station. Oh okay, and you sat there in the smoke and you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. It was more worrisome than you know. I got thinking well, all he's got to do is drop it in the smoke and he's got you. But it never happened. Well, after three months or so, my first days, on the first day on the Riverside, they made me the head of our command group, which was a Commodore. But he didn't wear Commodore stripes, he wore captain stripes. He was a retread from World War I.

Speaker 1 21:42

Oh, so he'd been around for a little while.

Speaker 2 21:43

Yeah, he was a wonderful person a wonderful person, and our executive officer was also a captain. And then the ship's commander was a captain. So we had three captains, captain stripes, and they told me where to set, and when the captain came out, all I did was follow him.

Speaker 1 22:10

That was your job to follow him around. I didn't know, yeah.

Speaker 2 22:14

Well, that lasted two days and he says I don't need you.

Speaker 1 22:19

Right.

Speaker 2 22:20

I said I didn't think, so Let me uh.

Speaker 1 22:23

Yeah.

Speaker 2 22:26

At first I didn't know which captain was what, but anyway he was a very wonderful man. He wasn't very gung-ho. Messenger would come up and salute and click his heels and the Commodore would say don't break your arm, son.

Speaker 1 22:49

Kind of a down-to-earth person, then huh, yes.

Speaker 2 22:53

The Riverside was an attack ship. It had two 5-inch guns, two twin 40s and 18 20-millimeter cannon. I was assigned I tried out once for a hot shellman on the 5, and I didn't work out very good. You had a pair of asbestos gloves that come up to your elbow and you're supposed to catch the shell empty casing. So it didn't get banged around Because Navy in a 5, the Army is a 105. Didn't get banged around because Navy in a 5, the Army is 105.

Speaker 2 23:48

They use fixed ammo or not fixed ammo. Navy uses fixed ammo. The Army uses projectile and powder bags behind it and the way the Navy uses their big 16-inches Right, and so these casings come. When they come flying out of the gun you're supposed to catch it and most of them go rattling across the deck. But anyway, I wound up being a loader for the 20 millimeter. I wound up being a loader for the 20 millimeter. But after the war ended and we came back, we went to come into San Pedro. I can remember a banner that had been tacked up on a building and one end of it had kind of fallen down.

Speaker 1 24:43

Welcome home.

Speaker 2 24:44

That was our only welcome, we ever got. They used to talk about the Vietnam warriors that weren't appreciated. But we didn't get much of a welcome. The welcomes were all over with because more had been over for three months or four months.

Speaker 1 25:06

Right, right, and most of the big things happened in New York City, right.

Speaker 2 25:10

Yeah. So they were no use for the command anymore on the ship. So I was taken off in the riverside, uh-huh, and I was re-obsigned to Warren, an APA. Warren, which had Warren, had served very bravely in the Pacific. It was the same age as about the riverside, but it was a smaller ship. It had lost a few of its crew and we left.

Speaker 2 25:53

That was in San Francisco. We left out of San Francisco, we were on our way to Hawaii and we were out maybe five or six hours and we got orders to return. I don't know why, still don't know. And so we come back there in Frisco and we stayed there for two or three days and then they give us orders to go take the ship to the Panama Canal and up the Gulf into the Mississippi and return it to a merchant. They were selling it to a merchant and we worked on the ship for, oh, I don't know, a month or two months, taking all of everything off from it, putting cables into, greasing them and putting them away. And when we got down to the point where we couldn't live on the ship any longer, we lived in barracks on the beach and then we worked on the ship for I don't know another month or so. Well then, I was reassigned to Louisiana not Baton Rouge, but the main city there.

Speaker 1 27:34

New Orleans.

Speaker 2 27:36

I went to New Orleans and we every day we'd go down and check the billboard to see if. But my, what they called my deal was a diaper cruise. I was supposed to stay the duration of the war in six months. Well, the six months was up already, but I wasn't. They weren't in no way letting me out. Six months the six months was up already, but I wasn't. They weren't in no way letting me out. And so I have to travel, go down and look at the billeting board, see if I was going home or I was going someplace else.

Okinawa and Post-War Duties

Speaker 2 28:18

Well, I got in a little trouble. We was mustering and when we left muster, me and another guy was traveling back to the barracks and cutting across the lawn and some guy says, hollered, get off the grass. And I turned around and some guy in a T-shirt and I told him to kiss my ass. So he come and wanted my name and serial number and I wouldn't give it to him because he wasn't in uniform. So he called the guy over. It was in uniform and I gave it to them and I went up to my bunk and it wasn't only half hour. There was a call over the squawk box to report to the Master at Arm.

Speaker 1 29:12

Shack oh boy.

Speaker 2 29:14

So I reported and they said they had put me on a captain's mast. So I went to the captain's mast, two Marine guards escorted me in to a guy who was sitting there with all the brass you could muster Pulled in the letter reading it. He says this sounds kind of serious, son. I said yes, sir, I don't know what was on the letter, still don't know. He says well, I'm going to give you five days bread and water, solitary confinement.

Speaker 2 29:58

Wow for telling some guy to kiss your ass yeah so back to the barracks, repacked my stuff, got my sea bag and they marched me up to the. It was about a mile, mile and a half. It was a Marine prison. They took all my stuff away, took all my clothes, gave me prison clothes had P's written all over it, took me to a cell that wasn't any much bigger than two bunks wide and there was nothing on it, it was just no flatbed and there was nothing on it, it was just no flatbed.

Speaker 2 30:49

And they told me that at evening, chow time, which I got two slices of bread and all the water I wanted, and I got a blanket and a mattress. I served for three days that way and in the morning time they'd give us a razor and we could shave and we'd get our two slices of bread and water and talk to the guys and they said well, the third day they got to feed you. So third day come and you have to stand in front of yourself. There's a window in the door. It's only about eight inches tall and two inches wide, but they come along and tell you to get in line. Well, they went by me. I said, well, wait a minute. I said this is my third day. He says you got a straight five.

Speaker 1 31:55

Oh no.

Speaker 2 31:56

So fourth day came up and they says you're getting out today. Well, I'm not arguing with them. So I had to get dressed in my undressed blues, took me up to the guard shack. I stood at parade rest from 8 in the morning until 11. And then they said we're going back to the naval base. So I got all my stuff, my sea bag, everything. Marched me back to the master at Armshack. The phone was ringing when I got there and he says what's your prisoner's name? And he said Price. He says take him back, he's got another day to serve and I am just about not in. So they marched me back the guard up at the. He said hey, what'd you do? Run back. I said no. So he said I'm not going to put you back in prison close, because you're going to get out tomorrow.

Speaker 2 33:16

So I went through the same routine the next day. Well, the first thing I headed for was a. It was noon. I got chow and of course I'm wanting more and more of everything. I couldn't eat half what I took, but anyway, it wasn't only about two o'clock in the afternoon I got orders that I was going to be shipped out.

Speaker 2 33:49

I was going to the same place that I'd already been assigned before I got in trouble and the others had already left. I was going by myself. I was assigned to two destroyers which were tied together in the St Johns River in Florida Green Grove Springs, florida. So I went there and we was putting these destroyer escorts into mothballs. But anyway, when I was taking my amphibious training in San Diego at the Marine base, there I took up boxing and some of these guys that I sparred with I only weighed 128 pounds and oh, they bragged me up how good I was, you know. And my first fight I about got killed. But anyway, I had got hit in the chest and it got real sore and it didn't never quit being sore and through the years I didn't have no problem with it when I was wearing dungarees and Cambry shirts, yeah.

Speaker 2 35:27

But when I would get dressed in my dress uniform it was so tight then it would hurt. Well, I lived with it. I didn't go to sickbay until I was aboard this destroyer escort or DEs and finally it got so bad that it was getting larger. I went to sickbay and the doctor says oh, you got it, that's got to go. So they called in an amphibious truck out to the ship and it took me to Jacksonville Naval Base in Florida and they operated on me and took it out. It was the size of a chicken egg.

Speaker 1 36:41

Oh my gosh, that was from the boxing.

Speaker 2 36:45

Well, that's the only thing that I could lay it to.

Speaker 2 36:48

Yeah, boxing, well that's the only thing that I could add to it. So then I went back. After I had recuperated at the hospital, they went back to ship and put me on light duty and I wasn't doing nothing. We had three Chief Boatswain's mates on the two ships and all I did was see if they were fed, and a lot of times two of them would be on Liberty and the other one would say I'll go to the chow line, you don't have to do nothing. But then all of a sudden I got orders to go back to Green Bay and I was going to be discharged.

Speaker 1 37:33

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 37:36

So that was in June of 46.

Speaker 1 37:40

So you were in for quite a while then.

Speaker 2 37:45

From April of 44, my time didn't start until I was out of boot camp.

Speaker 1 37:52

That was in June, June sometime.

Speaker 2 38:03

But I went through that getting out of the Navy well before they they'd make you sit there, and the ones that were going to re-up you'd have to make you sit there and go through their re-up before they'd let you go. But anyway they I got out. I was down at the train station to catch a train back to Chicago, mm-hmm, and there was an officer, started talking to me and I of course was addressing him as sir and he says you don't have to do that anymore. You know, I said no, I guess I've got to have it.

Speaker 1 38:54

That's kind of how you do it right. Call everybody, sir, yeah.

Speaker 2 38:58

But then I left and went back here to Lansing. We lived in the South End. We lived in the south end and I could have stayed off for six months and drawn to unemployment. But one of the guys that I went in with had been a window cleaner before he went in and he went back with that company. So I thought they said they needed somebody that could run either a bosun's chair or something like that, and they knew I had done that. So my first job with them I went to work with Lansing Window Cleaning Company. My first job was a Kellogg Center and they just built it.

Speaker 1 39:54

Oh, there in East Lansing.

Speaker 2 39:57

In MSU.

Speaker 1 39:58

Yeah.

Speaker 2 39:59

And they hired another guy out of Chicago to work with me on it and he was a little scary because he'd lost most of his fingers on his right hand and he had a hard time holding a rope. I'll bet he did he used to take it and put it under his foot to tie off, I'd say, on the other end I end, I wouldn't let go until he got title.

Post-Navy Career and Family Life

Speaker 2 40:32

But anyway, I worked for them for 12 1⁄2 years. Then I went into business for myself. I went with a partner. He'd also been in the Navy but he was nine months younger than me and he didn't go in until November of 44. And he'd kind of started up a little business of his own and he asked me one day if I would come with him and I finally said, yep, I'll do it. So we were together 12 and a half years and we separated and I started up Capital Window Cleaning Company and I run that for over 20 years.

Speaker 1 41:25

Oh my gosh, so you had.

Speaker 2 41:27

I had 40, putting there 45 years in in window cleaning. We did. I did the state capitol. I did all the state building Did city hall for years and the tower I did that tower for 12, 12 and a half years.

Speaker 1 41:47

You're talking about the Michigan National.

Speaker 2 41:49

Tower yeah.

Speaker 1 41:50

I've always been fascinated by that building.

Speaker 2 41:52

Yeah, that was the same age as I am.

Speaker 1 41:57

Oh goodness.

Speaker 2 41:58

The Elfrida. My wife was in high school at that time and she used to walk downtown to catch the bus out to the south end and she'd see me hanging out in one of them windows on the tower and she of course. We wound up on a blind date. That's this friend that was a window cleaner that before went in the navy. His girlfriend was alfreda's girlfriend. So they set us up for a blind date.

Speaker 2 42:40

We, I guess I think we went to a movie or something yeah then I asked her to later to go to on a hayride with us later, and so she finished high school, she worked for a company in the office and then in 47, we were married. Okay. So you got married before you started your business and pardon me, you got married prior to starting your business though. Yeah, yeah, uh, yes, she was a good part of it, uh-huh and, but we've been married 75 years Wow.

Speaker 1 43:34

Congratulations. Wow, that's a long time, yeah. So have you celebrated your 75th anniversary yet?

Speaker 2 43:44

No, the kids are waiting. They're not going to do it. I think my birthday's coming up on a Friday or something, but the kids have got it all planned. My older daughter's coming home from Florida next weekend and then they've got something planned. My youngest daughter she lives out by Portland. At my youngest daughter, she lives out by Portland, and a big dinner for all my all my grandkids and great-grandkids, except the ones Army.

Speaker 2 44:33

She stood there 20 years, come out a major and her husband a lieutenant colonel, and he flew the Black Hawk helicopter and she went to Texas A&M for culinary school and now she teaches. She's got a school of her own and she teaches cooking.

Speaker 1 45:04

It must be pretty amazing to be old enough to see your great-grandchildren have careers. I mean, that's incredible.

Speaker 2 45:15

My oldest great-granddaughter or granddaughter is in her 50s. My two daughters are in their 70s. I got a great-granddaughter that's 34 or 35. Grandson it's 30. Another one it's 22. One in Texas that's where the granddaughter has her school, and the one in Texas graduated from Texas A&M great-granddaughter.

Speaker 1 45:58

So you have how many children do you have?

Speaker 2 46:01

Two daughters, two daughters, okay, two daughters, two granddaughters and two great-granddaughters and a grandson. He was the first on my side of the family born since I was.

Speaker 1 46:15

Wow, male yeah.

Speaker 2 46:19

He works for a company that sells these belts that run equipment across, you know.

Speaker 1 46:32

Oh, like conveyor belts, conveyor yeah equipment.

Speaker 2 46:35

He lives in Grand Rapids and he's single and his mother keeps begging him to get married because her daughter has already confessed that she's not going to have any children. She's in her 30s.

Speaker 1 46:53

Uh-huh. So he's the only option, he's the only option.

Speaker 2 46:57

Yeah, Seems like he gets a girlfriend and something happens, he had one that was a nice girl and she wanted him to move to Alaska. And he's mama's boy and he ain't going to leave his mama.

Speaker 1 47:14

Yeah, yeah, that happens, that happens. So you said you were in the window cleaning business for 44 years, so you must have retired in the 80s, then the 1980s, 91. 1991. What did you do after retirement?

Speaker 2 47:33

I worked at a golf course Really.

Speaker 1 47:37

Which one?

Speaker 2 47:38

Bronson Bay and the one on South Washington. They owned both of them.

Speaker 1 47:43

Yeah, Bronson Bay, that's a nice golf course.

Speaker 2 47:45

Yeah, it's gone now. This guy bought it and wanted it for hunting. Oh, but yeah, I worked there over 20 years. I took care of their driving range. I didn't get paid or anything. I was a volunteer, but I got all the golf I wanted. You know, that's paying off. I was still able to go to Florida and spend the winters and then come back and go back to work on the golf course and I don't, I only worked three days.

Speaker 2 48:16

I only worked half a day, three days a week, and so it was wasn't where. Like took all my time right, uh, right.

Speaker 1 48:25

Well, you rode motorcycles too.

Softball, Racing, and 75 Years of Marriage

Speaker 2 48:27

We were talking about that, about that before that was right after I got out of the Navy, my neighbor bought a new motorcycle and I bought his old one. Okay, and then after Alfred and I got together, After Alfred and I got together, her dad was deadly against me because he didn't like. He used to call me the damned old window cleaner. Oh boy. You were the damned old window cleaner huh yeah, and it happened to be that we bought a. I bought a Starfire Oldsmobile Starfire one of the first ones.

Speaker 2 49:12

They only built them about four or five years, and so I traded the Starfire in for another one. It wasn't a couple of weeks. I went over to my father-in-law's in-laws and it sat in the driveway. He'd went down and bought it after I'd sold it. Why would he want a car from some damned old window cleaner? Well, his brother-in-law came up here from Ohio and that's the first thing he said why would you want a motorcycle or a car from a damned old window cleaner?

Speaker 1 49:51

That's funny.

Speaker 2 49:53

But mother-in-law died when she was only 62 or 42. Nice lady, nice lady. Father-in-law was like my dad and my stepdad. They were weekend drunks.

Speaker 1 50:11

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 50:12

They were all the same age and they always worked. They always kept their job, but from Friday night till Monday morning they were drunk.

Speaker 1 50:27

Oh geez.

Speaker 2 50:28

And that's why I couldn't get along with my stepdad. My dad was a jolly drunk, oh geez. And that's why I couldn't get along with my stepdad. My dad was a jolly drunk. Of course he'd remarried and the woman had two girls and he kind of faded out. I went to see him a lot, even after my dad had passed away. I even went and would go and fix my stepmother's medicines and stuff for him. Me and her was pretty good together, but my stepdad until he quit drinking he did. Later years he quit drinking, but he was bad. He was very good, he was a merchant marine and he worked on the Great Lakes for. But he soon as he was drinking he was mean. I couldn't get. I don't know how many times he chased me out of the house and we'd go around around the house and told the neighbor lady would open her door and just holler. Next time around I'd go across the street and up on her porch and then she'd order him off on her property. Then they'd call my grandparents and they'd come and get me.

Speaker 1 52:01

Oh my gosh. Thank God for that neighbor lady right.

Speaker 2 52:05

Yeah, she was a tough little gal too. Well, you've lived quite a life. Yeah, it was not a good childhood. I never was able to. I played ball until I was 55 years old.

Speaker 1 52:30

Oh.

Speaker 2 52:31

I never played any sports when in school because I had to work.

Speaker 1 52:35

Right.

Speaker 2 52:36

I got out of school at 3.30 and went to work at Sparrow Hospital at 4 o'clock. Worked till midnight, but I played ball. I started out playing fast pitch and I got hurt a little bit. That was after I was ball. I started out playing fast pitch and I got hurt a little bit. That was after I was married. I got hurt, nothing serious. So I thought, eh, I better quit. Well, it wasn't only a year or two. Somebody come along and said, hey, they got a new game, it's called slow pitch. Oh, I said what Slow pitch? He said, hey, they got a new game, it's called slow pitch. Oh, I said what it's slow pitch? He said you come, you ought to try it, I don't know. Finally they taught me and I went and tried it. I fell in love with the game and then I played.

Speaker 2 53:25

I belonged to the Moose Lodge. I was an officer at the Moose Lodge. I was an officer at the Moose Lodge and I played for the Moose team. And then, when the manager there resigned, the guys all made me manager. I was a playing manager and my biggest thing was that I could outrun everybody on the team. I was 10 years older.

Speaker 1 53:54

Yeah.

Speaker 2 53:58

But I had a guy that I still keep in contact with him. He was one of our outfielders and he challenged me every spring to a race and he never did beat me.

Speaker 1 54:13

He didn't learn his lesson the first or second time, did he?

Speaker 2 54:16

No, he was a great guy. Yeah, his last name is Neese.

Speaker 1 54:24

Uh-huh.

Speaker 2 54:25

Uh-huh, yeah, he was. I played for the Moose Lodge there until I resigned and the bad thing was that we I'd have we built a ball diamond behind the lodge there in Logan and we'd have tournaments there and to make money, well, I'd turn all the money that I made into the lodge and then when I needed equipment and stuff I'd have to go to the lodge and get it. And then there was always some members saying, oh, we're spending too much money on the ball team. You know.

Speaker 1 55:11

Right.

Speaker 2 55:12

And it was our own money. So I told them I said I'll stay, but I'll run my tournaments and I keep all my money and I'll buy my equipment out of it and at the end of the year, whatever's left, I'll turn over to the lodge. Oh, we can't do that. So I said oh, I'm done. So it wasn't only two or three months they called me up and said hey, what you suggested. We decided that maybe we could do that. I said no, I'm all done.

Speaker 1 55:53

You had your chance, yeah.

Speaker 2 55:54

I'm done.

Speaker 1 55:55

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 55:58

I played for the Emory County News for a while, for a while, and then the editor of the news played on the team and then the guy that owned Dart Insurance, one of the owners, he played on the team and they were all arguing about which one was the slowest. One would say that the other one run with a piano on his back and they were going to have a race. They'd challenge each other to a race at the high school track there in Mason. And I did a lot of work in Mason and I wrote to them and said I think they both were pikers and that I challenged the winner and it was $100 to charity. Uh-huh. Well, it was way ahead of time to do it. So it got a lot of publicity out of the paper. So the day of the race, the high school it was just a mob of people showed up. John Dart was there. I don't know if you knew John Dart.

Speaker 1 57:18

I did not.

Speaker 2 57:20

He's part of LCC deal. He was an attorney and an insurance agent, but anyway he was there and he says we can't get this many people to show up to the high school team track team. But anyway, the two guys that would argue and the insurance man and the editor had their race.

Speaker 2 57:56

the editor fell flat on his face coming out of the block oh no so they waited a while and then I was going to race the insurance man. Well, I had never run out of blocks before. I think that was the other guy's fault insurance man. Well, I'd never run out of blocks before. I think that was the other guy's fault or problem. So I said no, I'm not going to try it. He did so. When the race started they had a guy with a timer and another one with a camera and he got a little jump on me coming out of the blocks. But the last 10 yards I passed him and the photograph they took I think every store in Mason had it plastered on there you couldn't see my one leg, it was up like yeah, like you were running.

Speaker 2 58:53

Part of the picture says one-legged window cleaner beats insurance executive. I still got the picture.

Speaker 1 59:08

That sounds like a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 59:10

Yeah, we did have there. I've had a good time, I've had a good life, yeah it sounds like, my childhood wasn't what you'd call fancy, but you made the best of it. You made a good life for you and your family, yeah.

Speaker 1 59:26

Yeah, was there anything that we haven't talked about that you want to talk about?

Speaker 2 59:32

Oh, I don't know Just that, how many years my wife has kept me going and how much I care for her.

Speaker 1 59:46

Yeah, yeah, she's a good woman.

Speaker 2 59:51

My two daughters and I've got two son-in-laws that are. I'd take them as sons any day.

Speaker 1 1:00:07

They're great, mike and Bob. Well, really, I just have like one last question for you then. You know, like, like you said, you things didn't start out so great, but you certainly uh have have uh come out pretty good with your, your big family and your and your wife and your marriage of almost 75 years. That's incredible. You know, when someone listens to your story years from now, what message would you like them to take away? What message do you have for people?

Speaker 2 1:00:36

I don't know, I don't know. Just the only thing I can think of is, you know to do the best you can, and don't look back, look forward, and I don't know how much time I got left, but I'm going to try to enjoy it.

Speaker 1 1:01:13

Well, none of us know that, right no we don't.

Speaker 2 1:01:16

Yeah, there's so many you know nearly every old friend of mine. They're all gone. You know Navy buddies they're all gone. I don't know of one of them that's alive. I used to have a friend. He was a barber in Mason. He owned a Cessna. When I was out there working, he'd holler across the street you want to go to lunch? I said yep, I knew what he was talking about. We'd go out and jump in a plane, fly over to one of these little towns around it had restaurants on the airstrip, have our lunch and fly back. It was really enjoyable and I forget our 50th anniversary. I got a card from him. I just read it the other day. It said you're lunch, buddy.

Speaker 1 1:02:25

You're flying lunch buddy.

Speaker 2 1:02:27

That's pretty awesome. He was 103 the last time I heard anything about him, but I think he's gone now. Him and his wife were married 78 years.

Speaker 1 1:02:45

Wow, that's just incredible. That's just incredible. Wow, that's just incredible. That's just incredible. Well, Floyd, thanks for taking time out of your day to sit and talk with me. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 1:02:57

Well, I enjoyed it too. I hope I got everything in that was necessary, but I'm sure I'll think of something that I didn't say later on.

Speaker 1 1:03:16

I think we all do yeah.