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| Vi and Lloyd Buck, 7.10.2011 |
We went into Cleveland on Tuesday, attended the wake, met up with five couples, all who played on our 1964 championship team. We get along really well and Lloyd was one of the mainstays. We spent the evening at the Buck's house, catching up and helping Vi, Lloyd's wife stay centered. Then, today we attended the burial in Chardon, where I gave the eulogy, and we then all went to Hellriegal's restaurant in Painesville for lunch. About 1:30, we along with the other couples said our good byes and headed home, one to Florida, one to Texas, the other two to southern Ohio. Our group's attending both wake and funeral really meant a great deal to Vi and her family. My eulogy follows:
Lloyd Buck led a hardscrabble
early life in West Virginia,
unimaginable to most of us, then spending
his high school career in an orphanage before matriculating to Ohio
University
For me, he was always the big
guy, in fact, the biggest basketballer I had ever seen, 6’7, 240 pounds, a
rock.
He was the kind of guy you
wanted on your team; I learned that early when I undercut him.
He had a nice way of telling
me to not do it again or else: I didn’t.
He was easy to underestimate,
the big dumb jock, but he breezed through his classes, played basketball for
four years (held NBA star Nate Thurmond under his average), led ROTC, loved
reading, and remembered everything.
He seemed older than the rest
of us freshmen, more confident, more responsible and independent. He had to be: he was literally on his own.
He fell in love his sophomore
year, married the beautiful Finn,Virpi
Pakala, the summer before his senior year. We envied him.
He graduated, then taught and
coached, then decided on a career with the FBI.
He moved around with the
Bureau, then settled and raised his family in Painesville.
We were out of touch for 30
years, then reconnected a number of years ago and found we had much in common: great
wives, family, grandchildren, Ohio University, and a similar view of life, but
not politics!
We would meet in Athens, for
Ohio University basketball games.
We gathered at Ohio Hall of
Fame Banquets in Columbus, with teammates and wives.
A couple of times a year he and
Vi would visit our house on Lake Chautauqua and eat at the cowboy place. Good fun.
The last time he came out was
July 8th---three months ago…he seemed fine. Brought his own chair!
We let our wives go shopping
that day and we sat in lawn chairs, contemplating the lake, and laughed at how
smart we were to stay behind and let our wives shop to their hearts
content. We talked, as always, of our
grandchildren, what a joy they were, how life was moving quickly, and politics,
of course, as he always good-naturedly mocked my liberalism.
Mostly, I loved to hear Lloyd
talk about his grandchildren, Nate and Catherine, how proud he was of them,
their grades, successes in the swimming.
We didn’t know it but this was
his last time at the lake.
He went into the hospital 45
days later. The day after his operation, he texted me: News Sucks, Talk
Later----vintage Lloyd
The last time I saw him,
lying semi conscious in the hospital, he managed to give me that Lloyd smile,
ironic and dry, as if to say: GET ME OUT OF HERE, the Lloyd I loved.
When Kelly, Nate and
Catherine, walked in, He lit up.
That’s the last time I saw
him alive.
Later in the week, when the
Doctor told him his cancer was terminal, he said, “I want to live, what can I
do?”
Resigned to the inevitable,
he went to physical therapy to placate his family, died two hours after his
last session.
Lloyd was a wonderful
husband, a loving father, most importantly a living example for Nate and Catherine,
of a father, grandfather, a man, fearless and independent, yet generous and
caring
And he was a loyal friend to
all, especially his Bobcat buddies.
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We will miss him dearly.
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