Lloyd Farnham: The Man with the Crooked Cane

After he’d had a chance to read our first two volunteer profiles, AARP member Lloyd Farnham had let me know that he would be more than happy to be a part of our next piece. I’d suggested meeting in our Field Office or over coffee at a nearby café, but he was quite adamant about wanting to have the interview in his home. All seemed innocent at first. But as I walked through the front door of his Concord home, I smelled an ulterior motive in the air.

Specifically, what I smelled in the air were his wife’s pastries.

“Linda makes the best blueberry muffins,” he said with a sly smile “but she only makes them when we have company over. Come on in!”

And so went my first introduction to the character that is Lloyd Farnham.

An active member in AARP’s Take A Stand campaign, Lloyd’s baptism into the world of politics can be traced back to a chance meeting in 1968 while pursuing his degree at Wesley at American University.

“I got to know the Chaplain of the Senate who happened to be from Minnesota, and one day he arranged for two friends and myself to meet Hubert Humphrey in the Vice President’s office. So the Chaplain says to me ‘Come on Lloyd, see how it feels! Put your feet up on his desk!’ and just as I do, in walks in walks Vice President Humphrey himself!”

He would leave Wesley (unrelated to using the VP’s desk as a footstool) and return to his native Maine to begin a career as a high school teacher. But the looming specter of the Vietnam War would set Lloyd on a new course.

“I was going to student teach English after taking some post-graduate courses at the University of Maine,” he recalled. “But that’s right when the war in Vietnam started heating up. I was only carrying 25 credit hours at the time but wasn’t working toward a particular degree, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to defer a draft notice.”

The bloodshed that carpeted the nightly news reports about the war left Lloyd uneasy, but an intense desire to serve his country would drive him to enlist in the US Coast Guard where he’d work as a Morale Director. Lloyd took his responsibility for the high spirits of his crew seriously, noting his work to raise money for the Enlisted Man’s Club, as well as tickets for sporting events and other social activities for the men to enjoy.

After Lloyd's tour of service, his brother attempted to convince him to work for in the private sector. But driven once again by a desire to serve others, Lloyd Farhnam saw fit to follow a different way.

“My brother tried really hard to hire me, but a family member of mine with a serious birth defect inspired me to go to work for the New Hampshire March of Dimes,” said Lloyd. “I was the Regional Director in charge of operations for the eastern part of the country and spent nearly 22 years with them before going on to work for the State of New Hampshire’s Division of Elderly Services.”

He would work for the state for eleven years, but would take three year sabbatical in order to help the state’s Adjutant General to establish a Veterans Cemetery in Boscawen – an effort that Lloyd views as the hallmark of his career in public service.

He fondly remembers those years helping the elderly and disabled, but noted that he “never imagined I would be a poster child for them someday.”

Lloyd suffers from an advanced case of Charcot-Marie Disorder – a degenerative disease that has severely limited the use of his hands, feet, and legs. He had begun experiencing symptoms in 1997, and retired from his position with the state in 2004. Although Lloyd relies on leg braces and an offset cane to help him get around, his work with Take A Stand proves that his desire to help others remains in perfect health.

“When most people think of AARP, they think of the Bulletin, Drivers’ Safety courses, or the Tax-Aide program. But I didn’t know anything about Take A Stand and the real problems we’re facing with the future of Social Security.”

A father and grandfather, Lloyd worries whether or not Social Security will be there for his family in the same way that it is for him. While he states that he would like to see some changes to the system, he believes that Social Security is a central pillar of retirement that should continue to be built upon.

“What I like best about Social Security is that it acts as a discipline for one to save for retirement. You might miss that money in your paycheck at first, but then again you really won’t miss it.”

Throughout the course of Take A Stand’s work in the New Hampshire primary, Lloyd made hundreds of phone calls and criss-crossed the state to ask the presidential candidates tough questions on Social Security. But his greatest pride came from being asked to represent the state at the Democratic Presidential Debate in Durham. “A lot of people should have been there before me,” he humbly noted “but instead, there I was: the guy with the crooked cane.”

While he worries that priorities like Social Security are taking a back seat to political drama and horse race politics, he noted one conversation during the primary that gave him hope that real issues still mattered -- and that his work with Take A Stand was far from over.

“I went to meet Senator Sanders after his red eye flight to New Hampshire following the Caucuses,” he said. “We’re waiting for him to speak, and I start talking to a lot of the young kids about Take a Stand and Social Security, and they’re all telling me that the program won’t be there; they think there’s no chance in the world that it’s going to be there for them by the time they need it," remembered Lloyd. "I don’t think I gave an answer, because I’m not sure either. The only thing I’m ever sure of is what I have control of – I’m a better driver than I am a rider. It all depends on who gets in to office ... and if they’re willing to Take a Stand.”