At this point, my siblings are scratching their heads wondering where I could possibly go with this. We covered the girls, we covered the boys, there aren't any steps or halves, so what is she up to? Actually, we had a stepfather at one point, but he brought no children into the union and by the time he came along my mother was no longer into birthing babies so he got stuck with the six renegades she already had. Maybe I should revise that a bit. Four renegades and two sweet little girls who had not yet hit their stride. And I have a theory about half-siblings. I believe I probably have a slew of them, but I've not ever met any. I think if we did a DNA test on every child born in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas from 1938 through 1964, we would find we are closely related to an amazing number of people. My father was a "traveling man" and he had the morals of a jackrabbit. I chose those years because my oldest brother was born in 1938 (a mere 12 months after my parents were wed), and my father died at the age of 49 in 1964. I will assume he was no longer capable of procreation after his untimely departure.
But, I digress...this post should most likely be subtitled "And then there was Joe". Joe was, in fact, a sibling. He was closest to me in age, in that he was only three years older. He was actually closest to Glenn in age, being only two years younger, but Glenn and Joe are totally different personalities. Joe and I had a lot in common and I had a much closer bond with him than I did with my other brothers.
How to describe Joe? He was a combination of Fonzie from Happy Days, James Dean from Rebel Without a Cause and Elvis in his early years. He was handsome in a "bad boy" kinda way. He was skinny, but he always wore "pegged" black pants -- no baggies for him (that just wasn't cool). He would use a fine-toothed comb (which never touched anyone's hair) and run it down the crease of his pants to make certain the crease was razor sharp. He wore pointed-toe black shoes and he combed his dark hair into something he called a Venetian Waterfall. It was the 1950's; pre-Beatles. Almost no males had long hair. Most young boys had crew cuts. But Joe's hair was his pride. It was short on the sides and back, but long on top. He combed it up from each side in such a way that it fell into a wave in the center of his head and cascaded down onto his forehead in a devilish lock. The girls swooned and I idolized him.
When our parents finally split for the last time, each of us had a different way of dealing with the enormous changes in our lives. Joe's reaction was to see this is an opportunity to grab the world by its tail and see if he could shake it up some. Our father had provided little enough supervision, but now that he was gone completely, this was Joe's opportunity to go for it. I'm not gonna lie. Joe was trouble. He didn't always agree with some of the rules (or for that matter laws) that people were always laying down. He bent them all and broke a few. But, he paid for his mistakes and went on to break a few more. To my knowledge he never killed anyone. He had a mean streak sometimes, but he just wasn't a killer. I'm sure there were numerous people who would have loved to have eliminated him, though. Few people were ever ambivalent about Joe -- you either loved him or you hated him. In spite of it all, Joe was warm and loving and funny and quick-witted and the world is a better place for his having lived here.
Joe taught me to change a tire, change my oil and clean a carburetor. He said if I was going to drive a car, I needed to know how to take care of it, and he didn't want me to ever be stranded. Joe could literally tear a car completely apart and rebuild it, with no parts left over. He tore our mother's washing machine apart once. She had a fit, so he put it back together and it ran perfectly. I can no longer change a flat because lug nuts are put on with hydraulic wrenches, I don't change my oil because of environmental regulations regarding the disposal of used oil, and cars don't have carburetors any more. But I will forever be grateful that I had a brother who taught me to take care of my car and myself.
When Joe met his future wife, Martha, he knew almost immediately she was the one and there was no more chasin' women for him. I can't say married life calmed him down all that much, but somewhere along the way he started to live what most people would have called a "normal" life. He and Martha and their two sons bought a home and Joe got a white-collar job. There are a lot of reasons why that lifestyle didn't work but that's another whole book itself. Suffice to say, one day when Joe had had enough, he bought an old school bus, tore out the seats, built in some beds and storage space and a small kitchen area, packed up his family and drove off into the sunset.
There is so much that could be said about Joe. His life was filled with funny stories, some not so funny stories, and a whole lot of stories of love. But his life was also filled with serious health problems and a lot of pain, both physical and mental. He left us unexpectedly one cold January morning when he was just 58. I guess, once again, he had just had enough. I sure hope they were prepared on the other side.
love how you captured his spirit
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