Bill’s Story - Chapter 21, 22
Chapter Twenty-One
Because of the small successes I built one after the other, learning new chords, putting songs together, then playing and singing in public for money, I was ready for one more step in success. “Okay, I think I can do an insurance agency. I can create my own job.” This was a decision I made because the insurance agency I worked for wasn’t taking me back. They’d already hired someone else.
In overall life and success, I have done better since I lost my sight. I’ve done more and accomplished more than I had prior to my sight. I’ve just continued to grow.
Part of the reason is that I was 34 years old. I was still growing.
When worked with people through my twenties, when I only had sight in one eye, if I looked in another direction, my right eye was not coordinated to follow. When I worked sales at Skaggs in Ogden, I would talk to people, and I could see them react with my one eye, so I’d sometimes go cross-eyed while talking to them. I’d just make a joke out of my single eye sight,
I wanted to continue in the sales game, but it’s a lot harder when you don’t get those visual cues from whoever you’re talking to. You don’t get the feedback. You miss the body language.
I used the small steps to success idea in the early ‘80’s, living with the guitar and performing, but also building the insurance agency the same way. One client builds to the next client.
Since I’ve had my glass eyes put in, I’m very conscious of my salesman role and having people sitting across the desk from me and act as though I’m sighted. What funny is that sometimes I get upset that they don’t pick up that I’m blind.
That happens more in restaurants. I’ll hold my hand out for the glass of water and the waitress will expect me to take it, so they aren’t very careful handing it off to me, and sometimes I don’t catch it.
The reason I do my best to act as though I can see is in order to put people at ease. If they don’t catch it, then I often times think, “How come you didn’t know I was blind?” It’s funny how you strive to do something and then you wonder why it works so well.
My wife says that I sit behind a desk, I look up when they come in, I stand up and put out my hand, so it’s no wonder they don’t realize I’m blind.
More people think I’m sighted now than when I wore dark glasses. They were a dead giveaway.
Chapter Twenty Two
Ed “Big Daddy” Roth came into the old building and sat down. He started talking to me about health insurance. I asked him, “What is it that you do for a living?”
He said, “Oh, I make T-shirts.”
He’d handed me a business card but my secretary, Mary Wooten, had reached out and taken it. As soon as he said, “Oh, I just do T- shirts,” I was turned off because I’d seen so many people come into this town and do some off-the-wall business that they thought was going to make it big, but failed.
I said, “And what was your name again?”
He said, “Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth.”
I said, “Who?”
He said, “Oh, Ed Roth. People call me ‘Big Daddy’.”
I about fell out of my chair. I had grown up reading about him in car magazines. Mary took another look at his card. It had the Ratfink character and everything.
Big Daddy said, “The main reason I came in here is that I want to make a sign for you. You have the ugliest sign out in front that I have ever seen. If I’m going to live in Manti, I’m not going to keep driving past and look at that ugly sign.”
I said, “I can’t afford to pay you to do a sign.”
He said, “No, this is my gift to you. I’ll do it for you.”
The thing I always regret is that I told him, “I want you to come in here and sign that and we’ll get a picture of us together.”
But he never did.
After Big Daddy died, I put the sign inside. It means a lot to me.
Most of the Pals signs Big Daddy made got destroyed because they were out on the fire engine and took the brunt of the weather.