Floyd Norton was soft spoken, exceedingly polite and never once did I hear him interrupt another person while they were speaking. That’s why it was so surprising when he told a risqué joke.

He was one of the first people we knew to get cable TV. The first day that he tuned in, a comedian was telling a joke about a couple of guys walking through a park noticing a dog behaving the way dogs often behave. I can’t tell the middle of the joke here but the punch line was, “I’ll bet if you pet him on the head for a while he’ll let you.”

Floyd told the joke as an example of how cable TV way back then didn’t seem to have sufficient supervision. He had been eating his breakfast, sitting in front of the TV in the living room and unfortunately had a mouthful of Frosted Flakes when the punch line came. He burst out laughing. Frosted Flakes flew everywhere. Jan didn’t think that any of it was very funny at all. Floyd thought that the cable company should assume some of the blame.

Jan had a soft spot in her heart for cats. The cats were more interested in spending time with Floyd than he was in spending time with them. They had no regard for Floyd’s desire that his den would be a sanctuary for just Floyd. One of his many fishing boats was named No Cats.

Floyd, who died at his home on Feb. 14, surrounded by family after suffering a stroke. drove the Chappy Ferry for many years. He was very methodical about it and liked to keep things simple. One early morning, hurrying across the harbor with the high schoolers on board, running late as usual, Abby Southard asked Floyd if he had change. She had a five-dollar bill which she needed to share with her brother for lunch money. Floyd backed the throttle off to idle speed before reaching into his pocket. In unison, her classmates voiced their disapproval at her sense of timing in making her innocent request with “Abbeeee! Not now!” Floyd got the message and throttled back up. He was a very considerate gentleman. One day the power went out at the ferry. Floyd said that it reminded him off his days with Connecticut Electric. On a particularly stormy evening he found himself in the position of having to decide which sectors of the state to shut down when a generating plant breakdown caused a severe shortage of power. He said that it was the hardest day of his career. He felt so bad for plunging folks into darkness. If you knew Floyd, you knew how much he cared about making those decisions.