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My Friend Joe
My friend died yesterday, his name was Joe.
He was my neighbor on Hurley Hollow Road, in Tennessee, for 15 years or so. He was a quality human being, and the world was a better place with him in it. A lot of things worked, as long as Joe was around. Regardless of how smart, or accomplished, or worldly you think you are, please believe me when I tell you that you could learn a lot from my friend Joe. We all could.
When I moved into Hurley Hollow, I was one of the few people on that hollow that wasn’t related to someone else on that hollow. Joe befriended me, telling me that he wasn’t from around there, either. I asked him where he was from, and he said Estep Hollow. Which is less than three miles down the creek from Hurley Hollow. I was from Ohio. So Joe befriended a fellow foreigner. He never met a stranger. It sounds odd, but in that area, especially 80 years ago, it was a different world. Three miles was a long way.
Electricity was late getting to many of these remote hollows in southern Appalachia. His first job was in elementary school. The teacher would pay him 25 cents a month (or something like that) to show up early, and get a fire going in the woodstove in the one room schoolhouse he attended, before everyone else showed up. He felt wealthy, compared to his friends.
And he shared his wealth throughout his life. He had a large bandsaw, like a small sawmill. He’d cut lumber for people (he called it “Thick & Thin Lumber Company”), and use the excess to heat his house in his wood furnace. He also hauled loads of firewood all over Stoney Creek to old people and widows who couldn’t cut their own firewood. Mrs. Blevins would give him a fruitcake. He’d give her a year’s worth of firewood for her wood furnace.
As far as Joe was concerned, they were even.
But I never felt even with Joe. I always owed him. From my perspective. Which he found ridiculous. Joe always felt wealthy. And he shared his wealth.
He remembers his family farming in the mountains, when he was a young boy. They found a “hogsback” of limestone sticking out of the ground on a ridge. They cut oak trees and kept a fire going on top of it for a couple weeks, tending the fire around the clock. Then they cleared the ashes, collected the dolomized lime, and used it to buffer the acidic mountain soil. They then attempted to raise corn and various other crops up in the mountains using shovels instead of combines. One plant at a time. Between the rocks and the cliffs. They did the best they could, with what they had available.
And Joe learned to do the best he could, with what he had available.
Joe could fix anything, with whatever he had available. He served in the Navy in Korea. He said he joined the Navy to fight communists, but ended up spending several years traveling the globe fixing stuff he’d never seen before. He could fix electrical stuff, plumbing, hydraulics, diesel, plus the various doohickies, whatchamacallits, and gizmoes that he said a battleship is stuffed with. He could fix stuff he didn’t even understand. So he entered as a sailor, but pretty soon he was the guy on the boat that fixed the stuff that broke. Whatever the heck it was.
I asked what his mechanical training was like in the Navy. He said that an officer would say, “Hey Joe. That thing over there doesn’t work. Go fix it.”
And that was his training.
And he learned a lot. As he always did.
So after the war, he got a job in Elizabethton in a factory that made cardboard boxes. Fixing big, complicated machines that don’t have owner’s manuals or spare parts. They would break. And he would fix them. Using whatever he could find laying around the plant. God help whoever took over for him after he retired. There were no blueprints. But everything worked. As long as Joe was around.
He spent his retirement fixing everything on Stoney Creek. There were half-finished jobs laying all around his shop. He called them, “WPA Projects – We Piddle Around.” I even brought him a surgical table that didn’t work, and he fixed the hydraulics. Said he’d never seen anything like it. But it works now. Whatever the heck it is.
“Thanks, Joe.”
“It’s nothing, doc! I can’t thank you enough for taking care of my wife last year.”
In his family, in his church, in his neighborhood, even in his doctor’s office – a lot of things worked. As long as Joe was around.
A lot of houses were warm. A lot of repairs in various churches happened. A lot of people had old cars that actually ran. Even surgical equipment worked better. As long as Joe was around.
He died next to his wife of 60 years, in his small house, next to a small shop full of tools, on a remote dead-end back road, in a place that no one has ever heard of. And he was a great man. An absolutely great man. A hero of mine, actually. One of my very few heroes.
And nobody has ever heard of him. And nobody ever will.
A lot of things worked, as long as Joe was around.
We all have something to learn from Joe.
I miss you, Joe. We all do.
Godspeed, my friend.
Published in General
Yes, We have.
Those guys are rare, and wonderous.
Rest in peace, Joe. Thanks for sharing him with us, Doc. A beautiful tribute.
Joe was a wonderful man! And you wrote beautifully about your friend! I feel blessed to have read about such a man. Thank you!
What a lovely man. I can imagine that if you were to ask him about how you would go about fixing some whatchamacallit, he would tell you in fine detail and finessed gestures just how he would do it.
Well done, good and faithful servant.
Indeed they are. I have a neighbor like Joe. (He even has a small sawmill, and the same facility with whatchamacallits and thingummyjigs. He worked in the boiler room at the local hospital for decades, and although he’s been retired for years, he’s still on an informal “on-call” with them for really sticky wickets.) When we moved out to the country in 1985, Randy and Shirley adopted us. I’m not sure we city folk would have survived without their wisdom and kindness. And when anything goes haywire, out here on the ridge, I do what any sane person in the area does: I call Randy and he puts it right. (It’s my honor, since my hand is smaller than his, to be on call when his sow farrows, so I can cop a feel inside and see if all the little piggies have made it out into the world. It doesn’t quite square us up, but I do what I can.)
God bless Joe and all those like him, the people for whom the phrase “salt of the earth” was invented. Rest in peace.
Beautiful, just absolutely beautiful. Lucky you to have known such a man. Thank you for sharing him with us.
We have now.
God bless you.
Many men do much good for very little reward. I empathize with the yearning of those with faith for justice in the next life. Regardless of that undiscovered country, I am sure that he felt joy for his good works on this world.
Still in bed this morning . . searching the internet for something other than troubling news on politics and virus concerns . . and landed here. The pink glow of sunrise coming through the window . . and the warmest, loving elegy – throwing memories and light across the character, heart and hands of a beautiful fellow being.
I needed this, Dr. Bastiat.
Thank you.
I know Joe is smiling too.
Sounds like a great guy. I doubt if anything in Heaven needs fixing, but he’s gonna look around just in case . . .
So a man dedicates his life to serving Christ by helping others. And you respond to a tribute to his life with disdain for what you see as his foolish superstitions. He died two days ago. You read a tribute to him. And that’s how you respond?
C’mon, Henry. This is one of those times when showing respect for the views of others may be appropriate. Your views on God don’t matter right now. This is about Joe, and a tribute to life well lived. This is not about you.
Why ridicule his beliefs right now? Why?
Allow me to make a petty complaint. You’re welcome to scroll past this if you like.
For my opening paragraph, I wrote:
Before the post was promoted to the Main Feed, an editor changed this to:
Ok.
Not a big deal, right? I suppose it’s not.
But those who read my stuff know that I write rhythmically. I intentionally vary the length of my sentences and paragraphs to control the flow of the narrative, to create tension and interest, and to highlight certain points. I’m probably not as good at this as I think I am, which is fine. But that’s just how I write.
I don’t understand changing that. The editor might have thought, “Why not?” But I would then ask, “Yes, but why?”
It didn’t change the meaning of the paragraph or the essay. It’s just a stylistic change.
And I would prefer to maintain as much control over my writing style as possible.
If I mis-spell a word, or have a subject – verb disagreement, or get lost in my verb tenses, ok, fine. That’s what editors are for. But this? I don’t get it.
Ok, I’ll stop. I’m sorry to be petty. It’s not a big deal. To the editor, it was a minor change.
But it wasn’t to me. So I felt that I had to vent.
And here I’ve been trying to limit the length of my sentences.
The problem was that your opening was a comma splice. Any old-time English major would feel the need to change it. FWIW, the change didn’t alter the rhythm. (Otherwise, varying the length of sentences is a good thing, which should be encouraged.)
No, it wasn’t. My opening was two separate sentences. Which the editor then changed into a comma splice. Which sounds awkward, to my ear.
Ack. You’re right. I reversed it in my brain. Well, I got nothing. The editor made it wrong for no apparent reason.
Right. Why?
All I can offer is that it was ever thus. While I condemn violence and vengeance, I must say we writers can all feel a tug of sympathy for the fellow in this verse by the master, P.G. Wodehouse.
Printer’s Error
As o’er my latest book I pored,
Enjoying it immensely,
I suddenly exclaimed ‘Good Lord!’
And gripped the volume tensely.
‘Golly!’ I cried. I writhed in pain.
‘They’ve done it on me once again!’
And furrows creased my brow.
I’d written (which I thought quite good)
‘Ruth, ripening into womanhood,
Was now a girl who knocked men flat
And frequently got whistled at’,
And some vile, careless, casual gook
Had spoiled the best thing in the book
By printing ‘not’
(Yes,’not’, great Scott!)
When I had written ‘now’.
[Continued below]
The senior editor I first worked with drummed it into my head daily that it was immoral to make a change unless I had a good reason.
Unfortunately, editing is largely an apprenticeship trade, and lots of editors make arbitrary and indefensible changes. Sigh.
For all editors everywhere, I’m sorry.
[From post above]
On murder in the first degree
The Law, I knew, is rigid:
Its attitude, if A kills B,
To A is always frigid.
It counts it not a trivial slip
If on behalf of authorship
You liquidate compositors.
This kind of conduct it abhors
And seldom will allow.
Nevertheless, I deemed it best
And in the public interest
To buy a gun, to oil it well,
Inserting what is called a shell,
And go and pot
With sudden shot
This printer who had printed ‘not’
When I had written ‘now’.
I tracked the bounder to his den
Through private information:
I said, ‘Good afternoon’, and then
Explained the situation:
‘I’m not a fussy man,’ I said.
‘I smile when you put “rid” for “red”
And “bad” for “bed” and “hoad” for “head”
And “bolge” instead of “bough”.
When “wone” appears in lieu of “wine”
Or if you alter “Cohn” to “Schine”,
I never make a row.
I know how easy errors are.
But this time you have gone too far
By printing “not” when you knew what
I really wrote was “now”.
Prepare,’ I said, ‘to meet your God
Or, as you’d say, your Goo or Bod,
Or possibly your Gow.’
A few weeks later into court
I came to stand my trial.
The Judge was quite a decent sort.
He said, ‘Well, cocky, I’ll
Be passing sentence in a jiff,
And so, my poor unhappy stiff,
If you have anything to say,
Now is the moment. Fire away.
You have?’
I said, ‘And how!
Me lud, the facts I don’t dispute.
I did, I own it freely, shoot
This printer through the collar stud.
What else could I have done, me lud?
He’d printed “not”…’
The judge said, ‘What!
When you had written “now”?
God bless my soul! Gadzooks!’ said he.
‘The blighters did that once to me.
A dirty trick, I trow.
I hereby quash and override
The jury’s verdict. Gosh!’ he cried.
‘Give me your hand. Yes, I insist,
You splendid fellow! Case dismissed.’
(Cheers, and a Voice ‘Wow-wow!’)
A statue stands against the sky,
Lifelike and rather pretty.
‘Twas recently erected by
The P.E.N. committee.
And many a passer-by is stirred,
For on the plinth, if that’s the word,
In golden letters you may read
‘This is the man who did the deed.
His hand set to the plough,
He did not sheathe the sword, but got
A gun at great expense and shot
The human blot who’d printed “not”
When he had written “now”.
He acted with no thought of self,
Not for advancement, not for pelf,
But just because it made him hot
To think the man had printed “not”
When he had written “now”.’
Amen!
Doc, I’m right there with you. I’ll tell those *sshats what needs a rewrite, or not. It’s member-driven, not editor-driven. And considering the volume of posts, and what some of the folks who work on the site spend their time doing, THIS is what they find time to do?
Seriously. They need to take a step back. Scan it for naughty words and let it fly. I’m quite sure I can live and breathe with or without an inadvertent comma.
Thank you for this beautiful post.
I think you might have misread my comment. I have reread it a few times and I can’t read it the way you read it. It does come from an agnostic perspective but there is nothing making fun of anybody’s religion. There is a self-reference to my lack of faith but it remains neutral towards everybody’s faith and it ends with a sentiment celebrating Joe’s joy on Earth.
Sounds like Carter County, Tennessee has lost a valuable citizen.
Thanks Doc. Condolences to all of those that loved Joe. May he rest in peace.
Besides, the change was disgrammatical. I’ve used commas that way, but I was taught not to.
Yup. :-)
Living in rural Wisconsin and building and flying my own airplane, I can say I know a number of Joes. I’ve always felt more comfortable with them and in many ways respected them more than many of my physician colleagues. The sense of community around flying, building and maintaining airplanes brings together people with various backgrounds, from truckers to excavators, to machinists to wood craftsmen of very modest means but huge, generous hearts.
Here’s to all the Joe’s in flyover county!