Deaf Joe

Based on his children’s memorial plaque at Noonday Baptist Church in Marietta his name is John. We called him “Joe”. Maybe his name was Joseph John.

Joe was a deaf mute. He wouldn’t have told us the details in his name. But again, he wouldn’t let a voice barrier prevent him from doing it. Joe was an excellent pantomimist.

With his body language he could carry on a long conversation with a hearing-talking person and you would have no misunderstanding what he was telling you by his pantomiming.

He had an excellent sense of humor. He had a Harpo Marx style about him that could crack me up.

He also had a temper. If he got mad you would know it. He would bark like a dog.

He was a good gossiper. He had a sense about him that could sense things about people others could not – and his senses proved him right more than once.

Joe was hired in the early to mid 80s. He was hired about the same time the Postal Service hired some other deaf people. In a short time we got to know him well.

His wife, somehow or another I got to know her. She was a postal employee also, in Atlanta. I don’t remember how I got to know her, but it is a small world. His wife could speak normally, but had a problem in that area. They met at the Cave Springs School for the Deaf outside of Rome, Georgia.

I also got to know Joe’s wife’s sister. She was fine in the hearing department. She lives nearby. She worked for Delta Airlines as a flight attendant and got laid off not long ago and went to work for the Post Office as a rural route carrier in nearby Roswell, Ga. She was having a hard time, being a new hire and came by to ask me if I had any connections to either have them ease off or to transfer to Marietta. No, I had no strings to pull any longer, if I ever did.

Joe hummed as he worked. It would not be a tune, but just a constant hum sort of like a cat purring. He was a good productive worker.

Looking at the marker again, I see that one of his kids died the next day. That was a terrible thing he and his wife had to go through.

As I mentioned in the another entry, Joe’s wife claimed her innocence but everybody believed she did not fasten those kids in the seatbelts. Less than a year after the accident Joe asked for a divorce.

He grew a beard. He took up motorcycling. I suppose he just wanted to lose himself.

He went up in the mountains of north Georgia, near Ellijay, and bought a few acres of land. He bought a pickup truck with a cover on the back. He essentially moved to his property, sleeping inside the truck every night.

Other than his dog, he just wanted to be alone.

His dog, an ugly mutt he adopted wanted to be by his side all the time. A very devoted dog that loved his new master.

I think Joe had a bad experience with the dog once, I think he wandered away from Joe’s camp (home) and got lost. He thought he lost him forever, but he eventually showed back up after a couple of days.

After that Joe would keep his dog on a long chain. He kept him on the chain while he was at work and when he slept.

One morning when he woke up the dog was mangled and barely breathing. Joe rushed him to a veterinarian. The whole side of the dogs face has been swiped off him. He was attacked by a bear while Joe was asleep inside. Being deaf he slept through it.

The dog had to be put down.

Again, Joe lost a loved one.

Shortly after that Joe just quit the post office. He didn’t quit officially, he just abandoned his position and never returned.

Somebody dug around and found his address in the files and went to see him. He lived in an old unpainted two-story house with a bike gang. Later the gang moved to Florida with Joe along with them.

Months after they moved Joe went to a post office in Florida to see if he could get a job with them. The postmaster there called our postmaster for a recommendation. Our postmaster, being the gossiper he was, Joe might as well announced his latest exploits over the P.A. system, if he could.

I wonder about Joe from time to time. I hope he is at peace with himself.