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The Lusty Life of Loon Lake Lloyd: WWII Marine, Logger and Resort Owner
xiv, 382 p. : ill. ; 23 cm. by Lloyd Keeland ; chronicled and illustrated by Ellen Keeland.
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
412 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 10, 2019
Once in a while I find a book of local interest. The Lusty Life of Loon Lake Lloyd is such a book. The book is a series of stories, most by Lloyd Keeland and a few by others. Ellen Keeland is the one who wrote them down and got them into a book. The book was published in 2000 and has gone through two editions and three printings. It is a chuckle.
Loon Lake is in the coastal mountains of Oregon between Reedsport and Elkton and off the highway about ten miles. Althea & her first husband, Pierce, built Duckett’s resort, but Pierce died of disease, and Lloyd married Althea. Lloyd logged during the day and ran the resort in the evenings. It was a destination place for fishing and camping and still is today.
The book’s stories are roughly grouped into sections. A very few stories are from his early days, then his time in the Marines during WWII, a section after the war, and then his coming to Loon Lake and the resort days, and finally a very few stories of his later life. Lloyd was a big man, 6 feet 2 inches tall and 230 pounds, tough as nails with a big heart for people. There are 207 stories in the book, some as short as half a page, and few that run a couple of pages. They involve critters, mostly wild like elk and deer and otters, along with some about cows. There are also stories of fights and floods and shootings. It was a rough and tumble existence, and Lloyd was up for it. He was with I Company, 3rd Battalion, 23rd Regiment, 4th Marine Division; he hit the beach at Iwo Jima and made it to the end of the battle, only one of thirteen out of 350 men to do so. He was one tough hombre.
Lloyd liked his friends, stood up for what he thought was right, and took no guff from anyone. He was a great friend but not a man to cross. In a few stories he has some run-ins with government agents, and it is clear that he respects the law but doesn’t tolerate foolishness or those in authority making life difficult for regular citizens. The whole book is a picture of life on the lower Umpqua from the 1930’s to 2000. There were some real characters, bigger than life you might say.
It is an easy reading book. A person can pick it up and read a few stories at a time. There is little continuity and no real progression from story to story. I liked it.
Loon Lake is in the coastal mountains of Oregon between Reedsport and Elkton and off the highway about ten miles. Althea & her first husband, Pierce, built Duckett’s resort, but Pierce died of disease, and Lloyd married Althea. Lloyd logged during the day and ran the resort in the evenings. It was a destination place for fishing and camping and still is today.
The book’s stories are roughly grouped into sections. A very few stories are from his early days, then his time in the Marines during WWII, a section after the war, and then his coming to Loon Lake and the resort days, and finally a very few stories of his later life. Lloyd was a big man, 6 feet 2 inches tall and 230 pounds, tough as nails with a big heart for people. There are 207 stories in the book, some as short as half a page, and few that run a couple of pages. They involve critters, mostly wild like elk and deer and otters, along with some about cows. There are also stories of fights and floods and shootings. It was a rough and tumble existence, and Lloyd was up for it. He was with I Company, 3rd Battalion, 23rd Regiment, 4th Marine Division; he hit the beach at Iwo Jima and made it to the end of the battle, only one of thirteen out of 350 men to do so. He was one tough hombre.
Lloyd liked his friends, stood up for what he thought was right, and took no guff from anyone. He was a great friend but not a man to cross. In a few stories he has some run-ins with government agents, and it is clear that he respects the law but doesn’t tolerate foolishness or those in authority making life difficult for regular citizens. The whole book is a picture of life on the lower Umpqua from the 1930’s to 2000. There were some real characters, bigger than life you might say.
It is an easy reading book. A person can pick it up and read a few stories at a time. There is little continuity and no real progression from story to story. I liked it.
March 3, 2023
I found this book on a park bench. It was brand new, signed by the author, and nobody was around, so I'm assuming it was left there intentionally to be picked up (if it wasn't, I'm sorry I took your book). The cover and title of the book seem delightful, and flipping through it, there's some pictures (both photos and drawn), as well as some captions that were simply too wild to pass up. "We've been fishing-Frank Kallinger and I. He was crippled up the rest of his life from grabbing the Samarai [sic] sword." My curiosity was piqued.
It's a collection of short stories told by Lloyd himself, transcribed by his wife, with fun illustrations to go along with them. Usually when you get a book like this, it's full of old-timey, folksy wit, wisdom, fables, and foibles, chock full of charm and good humor, and maybe a little bit of racism but it was a different time so you let it slide. This was not one of those.
The titular Lloyd is a grumpy old fuck who is bad at story telling and worse at being a decent human being. The stories are dryly told and full of irrelevant or confusing details; One story starts, "Ben and I went up there when Fred Lang was killed." Who is Ben? Where is "there?" Why did the story start like this? These things are never addressed. The stories are devoid of any mirth or wisdom, or sometimes even a point. Quite a few times I had to wonder if Lloyd was lying - not telling a tall tale, or exaggerating for effect, but simply lying to make himself look better, or to justify his behavior (more on that later). Many of the stories are just things that Lloyd observed and regurgitated. For example:
"I can't remember who it was, but somebody told me that he came across a beaver squashed by his own tree. The tree wasn't barber chaired either, just fell on him and squashed him dead. That's pretty unusual."
That's it. That's the whole thing. Someone told him about a thing that happened and it was weird. No joke, no moral, no point, barely an opinion. Or howabout:
"I remember Wes Phillips being down on the dock. He had a power saw, laid it down on the dock running, idling along, and then went off and left it. I was scared to death some kid would run into it or something."
That's the whole story! That's it! It had a title and illustration and everything! Again, no real point or reason, just something that happened. Succinct, I suppose, but even the short amount of time I spent with it was too much. Even stories that should be humorous or exciting (like when someone flew a plane under a bridge) are ruined by Lloyd's dry and unimaginative narration. There are many stories within that will leave you wondering why someone felt it needed to be told, why someone else felt it needed to be written down, and why a third person felt it needed to be published in a book.
One last one, to demonstrate how his story-telling style can spoil a fairly straightforward joke:
"A hippie with a tee shirt which read across the back 'Shit happens,' was in the Loon Lake Lodge.
I said, 'Oh my God, it did. Here's a big pile of it right here!' pointing at the guy."
That's the whole thing. I'm assuming he left out the part where everyone laughed and clapped and carried him on their shoulders and gave him a sash. However, some of these stories aren't so short; Lloyd, at one point, felt it necessary to dedicate six pages to complaining about road-side signs. You see, Lady Bird Johnson passed a bill that prohibited private businesses from putting signs on the side of scenic highways. Since Lloyd owned a resort, he relied on signs guiding people to his business. Now, only boring, ugly government signs can be posted, and you better believe he has a FULL PAGE listing all the government signs along one highway. Just a list of signs! Riveting reading, to be sure!
Lloyd solves most of his problems through violence, or the threat thereof. The introduction tries to make him out to be a loving man, happy to help his community, but the book only tells of a grumpy, spiteful asshole who'd rather punch someone than look at them. They try to frame his violence as a, “Aw shucks, rough-and-tumble, tough-times-calls-for-tough-measures,” sort of thing, but all told, it seems like Lloyd's just an asshole, a bully, and might be a sociopath to boot.
A handful of these stories - at least five - are about assaulting hippies. Lloyd does not like hippies and - by his own telling - has accosted quite a few. One such story has him and his friends forcing a hippie to the ground and cutting their hair. Lloyd goes on to say that the hippie came back years later and thanked Lloyd, because getting his hair cut turned his life around, and he has a fancy business job now. And if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. I don't know why he felt it necessary to lie about this, as most of his stories about the various crimes he's committed lack the retroactive justification. In other stories, he pulls a gun on several hippies, threatening to shoot them or shooting at them. What a big man.
A number more of these stories are about assaulting non-hippies. Lloyd, or Lloyd's friend (who may just be Lloyd using a different name trying to avoid being pinned for the crimes), has punched a girl's father because the girl rode her skateboard into the road and nearly caused an accident, then threatened to punch the girl's grandfather when he protested; Three paragraphs are dedicated to the telling of how one of Lloyd's friends backhanded a woman because she was talking about the "evils of men;" One story tells of the time he poured gasoline on rats, then lit them on fire and watched them scurry away; One more tells of how he chased away female Jehova's Witnesses by exposing himself and soliciting them. He threw someone off a train because he thought they might be gay. None of these stories express an ounce of remorse, regret, or repentance. One can only conclude that Lloyd feels justified in his actions, that he approves of all of this violence and sexual assault, and would gladly do it again.
I'm truly confounded as to why anyone thought this book was fit to be published. Instead of glorify him, it makes Lloyd Keeland out to be a petty, spiteful, abhorrent, vile human being, and a bad story teller on top of all that. This is a collection of dry, witless, pointless, unfunny stories that will often make you feel squeamish if you have an ounce of conscience in your body. Avoid this book at all costs
It's a collection of short stories told by Lloyd himself, transcribed by his wife, with fun illustrations to go along with them. Usually when you get a book like this, it's full of old-timey, folksy wit, wisdom, fables, and foibles, chock full of charm and good humor, and maybe a little bit of racism but it was a different time so you let it slide. This was not one of those.
The titular Lloyd is a grumpy old fuck who is bad at story telling and worse at being a decent human being. The stories are dryly told and full of irrelevant or confusing details; One story starts, "Ben and I went up there when Fred Lang was killed." Who is Ben? Where is "there?" Why did the story start like this? These things are never addressed. The stories are devoid of any mirth or wisdom, or sometimes even a point. Quite a few times I had to wonder if Lloyd was lying - not telling a tall tale, or exaggerating for effect, but simply lying to make himself look better, or to justify his behavior (more on that later). Many of the stories are just things that Lloyd observed and regurgitated. For example:
"I can't remember who it was, but somebody told me that he came across a beaver squashed by his own tree. The tree wasn't barber chaired either, just fell on him and squashed him dead. That's pretty unusual."
That's it. That's the whole thing. Someone told him about a thing that happened and it was weird. No joke, no moral, no point, barely an opinion. Or howabout:
"I remember Wes Phillips being down on the dock. He had a power saw, laid it down on the dock running, idling along, and then went off and left it. I was scared to death some kid would run into it or something."
That's the whole story! That's it! It had a title and illustration and everything! Again, no real point or reason, just something that happened. Succinct, I suppose, but even the short amount of time I spent with it was too much. Even stories that should be humorous or exciting (like when someone flew a plane under a bridge) are ruined by Lloyd's dry and unimaginative narration. There are many stories within that will leave you wondering why someone felt it needed to be told, why someone else felt it needed to be written down, and why a third person felt it needed to be published in a book.
One last one, to demonstrate how his story-telling style can spoil a fairly straightforward joke:
"A hippie with a tee shirt which read across the back 'Shit happens,' was in the Loon Lake Lodge.
I said, 'Oh my God, it did. Here's a big pile of it right here!' pointing at the guy."
That's the whole thing. I'm assuming he left out the part where everyone laughed and clapped and carried him on their shoulders and gave him a sash. However, some of these stories aren't so short; Lloyd, at one point, felt it necessary to dedicate six pages to complaining about road-side signs. You see, Lady Bird Johnson passed a bill that prohibited private businesses from putting signs on the side of scenic highways. Since Lloyd owned a resort, he relied on signs guiding people to his business. Now, only boring, ugly government signs can be posted, and you better believe he has a FULL PAGE listing all the government signs along one highway. Just a list of signs! Riveting reading, to be sure!
Lloyd solves most of his problems through violence, or the threat thereof. The introduction tries to make him out to be a loving man, happy to help his community, but the book only tells of a grumpy, spiteful asshole who'd rather punch someone than look at them. They try to frame his violence as a, “Aw shucks, rough-and-tumble, tough-times-calls-for-tough-measures,” sort of thing, but all told, it seems like Lloyd's just an asshole, a bully, and might be a sociopath to boot.
A handful of these stories - at least five - are about assaulting hippies. Lloyd does not like hippies and - by his own telling - has accosted quite a few. One such story has him and his friends forcing a hippie to the ground and cutting their hair. Lloyd goes on to say that the hippie came back years later and thanked Lloyd, because getting his hair cut turned his life around, and he has a fancy business job now. And if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. I don't know why he felt it necessary to lie about this, as most of his stories about the various crimes he's committed lack the retroactive justification. In other stories, he pulls a gun on several hippies, threatening to shoot them or shooting at them. What a big man.
A number more of these stories are about assaulting non-hippies. Lloyd, or Lloyd's friend (who may just be Lloyd using a different name trying to avoid being pinned for the crimes), has punched a girl's father because the girl rode her skateboard into the road and nearly caused an accident, then threatened to punch the girl's grandfather when he protested; Three paragraphs are dedicated to the telling of how one of Lloyd's friends backhanded a woman because she was talking about the "evils of men;" One story tells of the time he poured gasoline on rats, then lit them on fire and watched them scurry away; One more tells of how he chased away female Jehova's Witnesses by exposing himself and soliciting them. He threw someone off a train because he thought they might be gay. None of these stories express an ounce of remorse, regret, or repentance. One can only conclude that Lloyd feels justified in his actions, that he approves of all of this violence and sexual assault, and would gladly do it again.
I'm truly confounded as to why anyone thought this book was fit to be published. Instead of glorify him, it makes Lloyd Keeland out to be a petty, spiteful, abhorrent, vile human being, and a bad story teller on top of all that. This is a collection of dry, witless, pointless, unfunny stories that will often make you feel squeamish if you have an ounce of conscience in your body. Avoid this book at all costs
May 14, 2020
I enjoy books like this because you can learn very random bits of history that you never could have guessed at. It was a different time, and life could be tough and harsh. I would have appreciated better chronological order to the stories. But thanks for sharing parts of your life in a book!
November 19, 2007
This is a great collection of tales, the illustrations are great as well. I am glad to have met Ellen and Lloyd. Ellen is a great lady who is talented at writing. She wanted to get out the great stories that Lloyd has come across in his times. The various stories are interesting and draw you in. This a definite read for anyone who studies Northwest lit. Lloyd is a great man, former marine, logger, and lodge owner, a great man to look up to.
quote by Lloyd
Had some rough times, and good ones. Always laughed at them the same; that's the main thing.
quote by Lloyd
Had some rough times, and good ones. Always laughed at them the same; that's the main thing.
July 31, 2014
Lloyd was a great storyteller. A little crass and a fighter but a bunch of fun stories in a beautiful setting.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews