Ten years ago, Lloyd and I met on Match.com and were engaged, unofficially, 3 weeks later. I wasn't sure that he was proposing when he asked, "Are you going to marry me?", which implied that I could if I wanted to, but my answer was a certain, "Yes," anyway.
This wasn't the easiest of romantic situations to find ourselves in.With 4 kids from his first marriage, between the ages of 15 and 20, and one daughter, age 15 from my first marriage, we had 5 young people between us who would need to adjust to our relationship. In addition, his business was located in Front Royal, Virginia, which is close to an hour and 45 minutes away from Germantown, MD, where I lived, so he had quite a trek to come see me at the end of the day. He lived in Virginia as well, where his parents, siblings and children lived also. On our first date, I explained that I could not leave Maryland because my disabled daughter needed the support services that were provided by Maryland, and which she would lose if I moved out of state. He knew that a future with me meant relocating his home and business to Maryland and taking on the lifetime commitment of caring for my daughter.
He continued the drive from Front Royal to see me, sometimes not arriving at my house until late at night, and, although I had to be up early for my teaching job, I waited up for him. We were finally married 15 months after we met.
His living and his passion, when we met, were jukeboxes. I knew nothing about them. His Front Royal main street store front shop had rows of them. There were also rows of pinball machines and neon signs on the walls. In one corner was a pile of what looked like scrap metal to me. They were the parts that go inside the machines. He told me that if he had someone to list those parts on Ebay for him, and ship them, they were worth a lot of money. That pile looked like something that someone should take to the dump to me. Later, I learned the value of the coin boxes, motors, power supplies, amplifiers, speakers, etc that lay in that pile of "junk".
I think of Front Royal as the "early days" of our business. It was just Lloyd, a relatively small building, and one pickup truck. His son, Ben, would help him when he was home from college, or on his occasional weekend visits home from his school in North Carolina. Although those were the early days of Coinopwarehouse, the truly early days of the business were long before I knew Lloyd. In the beginning, he was a garage guy, picking on the side in his spare time, while raising a family and working full time at his job as a principal of a private school. It was a way to supplement his income, and to indulge his love of the beautiful "boxes" as the collectors refer to them. Well, those really early days are another story. In the days of Front Royal, it was lonely work for Lloyd. They were long days of riding the roads in his truck by himself, working the phones while he drove to make the deals, and hard physical labor. He had a dolly, but no liftgate on the truck at that time. He would use his body to push the jukeboxes and pinballs machines off the ground and up into his pickup bed. His poor back has paid a price for that. Now, younger men do most of the manual labor of moving the equipment around, and they have better tools for the job. Now there is a liftgate on one of our 3 pickups, 2 trailers, a small forklift, and loading docks on our 40 thousand sq ft warehouse. We are a long way from Front Royal now. It didn't happen overnight.
After we married, he moved the business from Front Royal to Mulberry Street in Hagerstown, MD. I resigned from my teaching job. It made it possible for me to ride the roads with Lloyd some days to keep him company. It slowed him down, as he had to stop more often for me than he would if he were alone. We would play a game of listening to the radio and guessing the band or singer of each song that played. When he bought equipment out of private homes he would take me inside with him to put the owners more at ease. I talk to strangers easily, and would chat while he loaded up. When it comes to business, Lloyd is all business. Get in and get out fast is his way. Chatting with strangers is not really his thing. He has endless patience with family, but when it comes to work he is all about keeping things moving and making it happen. He doesn't love the money. He loves the action, the deal, the treasure hunt, and he loves the history and the art of the inventory he deals in. While he wants to make a profit, he is always fair and tries to leave something on the table for the next guy so that it is a win-win for everyone. Riding the roads with Lloyd is an education in business and in coinop. Speaking of coinop, I have to wrap this up for today because we are painting the offices of our warehouse on West Antietam Street in Hagerstown, and I told Lloyd I would come up to help this afternoon, so I had better get going!
This wasn't the easiest of romantic situations to find ourselves in.With 4 kids from his first marriage, between the ages of 15 and 20, and one daughter, age 15 from my first marriage, we had 5 young people between us who would need to adjust to our relationship. In addition, his business was located in Front Royal, Virginia, which is close to an hour and 45 minutes away from Germantown, MD, where I lived, so he had quite a trek to come see me at the end of the day. He lived in Virginia as well, where his parents, siblings and children lived also. On our first date, I explained that I could not leave Maryland because my disabled daughter needed the support services that were provided by Maryland, and which she would lose if I moved out of state. He knew that a future with me meant relocating his home and business to Maryland and taking on the lifetime commitment of caring for my daughter.
He continued the drive from Front Royal to see me, sometimes not arriving at my house until late at night, and, although I had to be up early for my teaching job, I waited up for him. We were finally married 15 months after we met.
His living and his passion, when we met, were jukeboxes. I knew nothing about them. His Front Royal main street store front shop had rows of them. There were also rows of pinball machines and neon signs on the walls. In one corner was a pile of what looked like scrap metal to me. They were the parts that go inside the machines. He told me that if he had someone to list those parts on Ebay for him, and ship them, they were worth a lot of money. That pile looked like something that someone should take to the dump to me. Later, I learned the value of the coin boxes, motors, power supplies, amplifiers, speakers, etc that lay in that pile of "junk".
I think of Front Royal as the "early days" of our business. It was just Lloyd, a relatively small building, and one pickup truck. His son, Ben, would help him when he was home from college, or on his occasional weekend visits home from his school in North Carolina. Although those were the early days of Coinopwarehouse, the truly early days of the business were long before I knew Lloyd. In the beginning, he was a garage guy, picking on the side in his spare time, while raising a family and working full time at his job as a principal of a private school. It was a way to supplement his income, and to indulge his love of the beautiful "boxes" as the collectors refer to them. Well, those really early days are another story. In the days of Front Royal, it was lonely work for Lloyd. They were long days of riding the roads in his truck by himself, working the phones while he drove to make the deals, and hard physical labor. He had a dolly, but no liftgate on the truck at that time. He would use his body to push the jukeboxes and pinballs machines off the ground and up into his pickup bed. His poor back has paid a price for that. Now, younger men do most of the manual labor of moving the equipment around, and they have better tools for the job. Now there is a liftgate on one of our 3 pickups, 2 trailers, a small forklift, and loading docks on our 40 thousand sq ft warehouse. We are a long way from Front Royal now. It didn't happen overnight.
After we married, he moved the business from Front Royal to Mulberry Street in Hagerstown, MD. I resigned from my teaching job. It made it possible for me to ride the roads with Lloyd some days to keep him company. It slowed him down, as he had to stop more often for me than he would if he were alone. We would play a game of listening to the radio and guessing the band or singer of each song that played. When he bought equipment out of private homes he would take me inside with him to put the owners more at ease. I talk to strangers easily, and would chat while he loaded up. When it comes to business, Lloyd is all business. Get in and get out fast is his way. Chatting with strangers is not really his thing. He has endless patience with family, but when it comes to work he is all about keeping things moving and making it happen. He doesn't love the money. He loves the action, the deal, the treasure hunt, and he loves the history and the art of the inventory he deals in. While he wants to make a profit, he is always fair and tries to leave something on the table for the next guy so that it is a win-win for everyone. Riding the roads with Lloyd is an education in business and in coinop. Speaking of coinop, I have to wrap this up for today because we are painting the offices of our warehouse on West Antietam Street in Hagerstown, and I told Lloyd I would come up to help this afternoon, so I had better get going!
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