GOSHEN — Roger and Joyce Metras both grew up in the East. They married 34 years ago, but moved to their condo at Waterford Crossing south of Goshen seven years ago.

Roger grew up in Bedford, Mass., where his father worked in the textile mills and drove truck. He worked in a grocery store and “Simonized” cars with his father before joining the U.S. Army in 1957.

He served in several posts in the Army, including construction work at Fort Breckenridge, Ky. His overseas duty included assignments in Germany and 13 months in Korea during the Vietnam War era. He returned to the United States and taught ROTC at Fort Knox and also taught for a time at West Point when Gen. William Westmoreland was commander.

Roger attended 13 military schools, he said, and earned the Meritorious Service Medal.

After his discharge in 1977, he worked in sales of beverages and tobacco, then was a bank courier before he was moved into accounting at Summit Bank in New Jersey. After several mergers, it became Bank of America, from which he retired after 15 years.

Roger and Joyce enjoy traveling and make friends where ever they go.

“The best thing in the world is friends,” he said. “We have them all over.”

It was a friendship they struck up with another couple from Shipshewana, when both couples were at Mall of America in Minnesota, that brought them to Goshen. That couple mailed information about Country Crossing, the Shipshewana community where they lived, encouraging the Metras to visit.

When Roger and Joyce visited this area, they picked Waterford Crossing at Goshen as their place to settle down because it is larger than Shipshewana.

“We just love it,” Roger said. “I want to advertise for Goshen. All the stores, the Olympia Candy Kitchen, the South Side Diner. They have the best food there.”

He said he took Joyce’s parents to the Soda Shop when they visited and his mother-in-law really enjoyed the rhubarb pie, which is not made with strawberries. They even took a pie to Florida for her.  

Now the couple travels around Michigan and Indiana.

“My goal is to visit all of Indiana,” Roger said.

They visit St. Joseph, Mich. about four times a year, he said.

“We go all over Michigan and Indiana,” Roger said. “We spend 10 hours one day at the county fair. We go to the Kendallville Apple Festival. First Fridays (in Goshen) is the greatest.”

Roger encourages everyone to get to know others across Goshen.

“Goshen has so much to offer,” he said. “My idea is to meet everyone I can, to get to know everyone in town.”

And Roger learns much by visiting local barber shops. After years of frequenting Scott’s Barber Shop, Roger learned about local politics.

“I learned a lot from Paul.,” Roger said. “He and his brother, Lanny, worked a lot of years together before Lanny retired.”

This week Roger joked with Rod Miller at Miller’s Barber Shop and through Rod he then met Realtor Vance Weaver.

Roger has been active in the Lions when in New Jersey and for a time was a member of the Sunrisers Kiwanis Club. He is a life member of the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars. The couple attends First Baptist Church in Goshen.

Lifelong stamp collector

Roger explained he started collecting stamps when he was 9 years old and continued the hobby all his life.

“I never stopped,” he said.

He has a whole book of stamps from his time in Germany and an album of just Bobby and John Kennedy stamps from around the world. (He attended JFK’s inauguration.)

People have given him stamp collections and he inherited a couple collections when relatives died.

In addition to the stamp hobby, Roger explained he has collected ball point pens, key chains, refrigerator magnets, pencils, ball caps, anything with an eagle on it, light houses and nautical items, knives, wallets, Bibles and New Testaments. Joyce has more than 100 horses and the couple has a shelf full of Teddy bears.

They often visit a Teddy bear factory in Vermont that features a “hospital” for bears, where the bears may be “healed” or repaired.

Roger said he has 9,415 pens and 282 key chains. But he pointed out a woman in Germany holds the world record as she has amassed 211,104 pens.

To give program Wednesday

Roger is slated to give a program Wednesday morning at Waterford Crossing on his hobby of collections. The “Koffee Klatch” program is planned at 9:30 a.m. in meeting room B at Waterford Crossing.

“I’ll have to plan this,” Roger said. “I only have an hour. I tell people I have these hobbies. They think I’m nuts. You’re never too old to have a hobby. I will be 74 on Veterans Day.”

He said the public is welcome to attend the Wednesday morning program. He is inviting fellow member of his church.

Resumes massage business

While still living in New Jersey, Roger said he completed an 18-month course in massage and worked for a time there in that job. He said he is completing his Indiana paperwork to get a license here and plans to work part-time at Bill McDonald’s Salon 1005 on South Ninth Street.

“My target is to start March 1,” he said of the arrangement with McDonald. “It is a beautiful deal.”

And just before going back to work, Roger said, he has scheduled surgery to remove cataracts in February.

“Then I can go back to reading, which I enjoy,” he said.