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Gangs, Drugs and Alcohol, I thought keeping him from the big three would keep him safe.

I was wrong. Joel never touched drugs or alcohol. He didn't consume anything that was bad for him. Things he avoided included soft drinks, Mcdonald's, tobacco, alcohol, drugs, candy, energy drinks, etc. He worked out every day. He kept his mind focused and absorbed knowledge. He'd crave knowledge about anything that interested him. He built himself a forge in the back yard where he hand turned an air blower into the tuyere to make the coals hot for forging metal into blades. He long-boarded around the neighborhood in search of logs and cut down trees to bring home to make into charcoal for the forge. I'd come home to find him out back with a bow saw and an eight foot log. I'd ask him how he got it home. To which he replied so innocently, "I put it on my shoulder and skated home."

He was a marvel of strength, courage, and stamina.

Joel had a few very close friends. These friends are boys from the neighborhood but were orriginally met through school, youth soccer and mutual friends. Johnathan was the last friend from the neighborhood that Joel considered a good friend. Joel met Johnathan at aviation camp the summer of 2006. Joel didn't keep up with him after camp but about a year later, Johnathan moved to the neighborhood. They ran into each other while skating and imediately hit it off. Joel enjoyed Johnathan's company because of shared interests in aviation, skate boarding and fishing. Plus Johnathan loved to work on projects as did Joel. Projects that entailed building and working out solutions. Hands on things. They found things and made projects out of them. They once made a Leyden Jar just for fun. Joel knew so much about everything.

But it was about a year ago, November of '08, that Joel met some new friends at school. These weren't the kind of kids I was used to seeing Joel with. They had a very negative outlook on everything, something Joel had not experienced in his innocent life. These kids ultimately were a big part of Joel's demise. They were not thug gang members or gun-toting wiggers. But they were a "group", as they called themselves, a "secret group". A boy named Adam Chauncey seemed to be the leader. He had to go to Bartow every few weeks for a piss test as part of his probation. He had been busted for pot. Then there was Heather-Ann Bartlett, the one who ultimately drove Joel away, who last spoke to him, who hasn't told anyone what she said to him to send him off. Adam's brother was Aaron, a fat goon of a kid who was really big for his age. It turns out he was only thirteen and smoked cigarettes left and right. Except for a kid named Josh Connley (I haven't really figured out his involvement in all this yet) they were from broken homes with no supervision. Homes where the kids hated their parents and their parents wished the kids weren't around. Actually, they weren't parents. They were all single mothers and some live-in boy friends. The homes weren't the loving homes that we have and Joel's other "real" friends have. Wholesome homes where the children have a Mother and a Father who love and care for them. These kids could come and go as they pleased. Stay at each others' house sometimes overnight without needing permission. They weren't required to tell mom where they were, when they were to be home or who they were with. These are the young adults that changed my boy. Not drugs. Not tobacco. Not Gangs. Not thugs. Not Alcohol. Just the influence of unsupervised kids who formed a "secret group". Joel wrote about this in his Journal and e-mail. One letter to his girl friend asked if he could invite someone into the group. Heather said no, she didn't trust the person Joel wanted to ask to join. According to these notes Heather did her best to make Joel feel bad about himself.

(our friend, Dale, wrote this about Joel. I wanted to archive it here)

A few years ago I was downhearted as to the state of the younger generation. I saw little hope for them. That was before I met Joel (ReelSkinnyJr) he restored my hope.

When I met him he was 15 years old. He had hopes and dreams of being a pilot and was very industrious with taking up the hobby of blacksmithing among other interest. There was no limiting this kid if he put his mind to anything.

I was fortunate enough to go fishing with he and his dad a number of times and found the kid to be a "Yes, Sir" "No, Sir"  kind of kid. Always a thoughtful very respectful young man and very bright. He loved time on the water and especially time with his dad. He was a wonderful son and brother as I saw. He seemed to always have the hot hand fishing and was not shy to share the specific color of lure he was using to assist anyone to catch a fish. Obviously I would toss the same lure where he would and he would always be the one to hook up (for those of you that I have fished with you should not be surprised with that  ). I was with him when he caught his first salt water fish on his fly gear. Whenever he would hook up he always did the Henry Waszczuk "WOOOO HOOOO HOOOO" and would just laugh. Yep, He always out fished us all.

Last year his birthday fell on the night of one of the gatherings at the Channelside Hooters. When I found out it was his birthday I got him what I thought to be more than enough wings. They were devoured growing boys!

His posts on the forum were always witty and intelligent and were helpful.
He was always an A/B student and was set to graduate from Lakeland High School in just a couple of weeks. He was already out in the workplace and just beginning to discover the world and about to make a greater mark on this world, never having a poor word to say of anyone.

Joel lost his life last Friday in a traffic mishap. Fortunately there was no drugs or alcohol involved (which has taken so many before their time) as he was kind of a Spartan, like a Ninja who never smoked or would not have anything as strong as a tea or a Coke or Mountain Dew. His focus was to maximize his body and mind. He could run like the wind and did his crunches until you could just about wash clothes on those abs.

He was just a great kid taken from all of us before his time. He will always be missed.

His dad, ReelSkinny wanted me to post something letting his forum friends know what had happened and also to thank so many of you that were so kind and helpful to Joel.

A visitation has been planned for this

Wednesday May 20th from 6:00 until 8:00 at the

Casket Store which is at
2090 East Edgewood Drive
Lakeland, FL 33803
863-669-1617

I realize that this is a haul for some of you but if you wanted to attend ReelSkinny wanted me to post this here so you could make plans to do so. I am certain that is some of you were able to attend it would be of invaluable worth to the family and would be eternially appreciated.
It is about an hours drive from most anywhere in Tampa for those of you not familiar with this part of the state.

http://www.casketstore.net/directions.htm

Joel gave me hope for the future, was a wonderful fishing buddy and a wonderful young man. He will be missed everyday by his mother, father , brother and extended family and friends.



love them while they are here

The boat has been stuck in our lawn since a week or so before Joel died. I was going to rewire the trailer and had big plans for us over the summer. Joel loved The Mosquito Lagoon. To go there would require night travel and I didn't want to go down I-4 with the lights out on the trailer. I had all the parts and a new wiring harness. I wanted to get him on a big East Coast red on fly. Watching him fly fish was like watching art. He was a natural at it. It was effortless for him. Just as so many other things he did. The last time we were at The Mosquito Lagoon he caught a trout on a fly that he had tied himself. He was using a stripping basket I bought him for Christmas. We were there two days after on the twenty-seventh. We had learned a lot about the area and I was looking forward to going more with him. He was all smiles with the trout and had me take his picture since it was the first fish he caught with a fly he had created. I have the picture in the kitchen where I look at it every evening as I cook dinner. Memories aren't happy now, only sorrowful and cause pain.

The boat sat in the lawn all summer. In the same spot through all the summer rain. The tires were sinking into the ground and algae and dirt formed a skin over the hull, seats and motor. When Joel left, May fourteenth, it rained. It was the very first rain of the season. It rained about five hours and dropped five inches. It was a very hard rain with cold, large, raindrops. It got down into the sixties that night and I hoped he was at a friends house. But I presumed he wasn't because many of them came by looking for him. So I knew he was out there in the elements. I just hoped he had holed up somewhere to get out of it. My parents were insistent on coming over with pizza and a movie that night. I told them Joel wasn't here and Angie was at work. It was just me and Brandon. But they insisted. I told them "no" several times but still they insisted. I wish now I would have gone out to look for Joel as I wanted to. But I didn't want them to know something was wrong... they would have worried and fretted and gotten in the way of things. I wanted to get the pizza and movie out of the way and go out. But then the rain started and it didn't stop. I think it was nine-thirty and very dark when it did let up. My plan wasn't going to work so I went into another room where they couldn't hear and called a friend who is an officer for the FHP. He called ahead to the Sheriffs department, LPD, and to his fellow FHP officers to be on the lookout for Joel. Since Joel was eighteen, he really wasn't "missing" but my friend was able to call it a "wellness check" which pretty much means, "pick him up" and take him to the station.

The boat sat all summer, sinking into the lawn, and was unusable by the time I got around to the task. I had lost interest in nearly everything. I hated everything about my life. I had to give away Joel's parrot he so dearly loved because I was unable to care for it and it missed Joel so terribly. It wrenched at my heart to see him like that. He loved to play with Joel. After Joel had not shown up for several days he just slumped into the corner of the cage. He quit calling for Joel. Giving him away made me very sad as I felt like I was giving away the last part of Joel I had left. But I did gather some of the birds feathers he left behind and zipped them up in a Ziplock and put them in Joel's dresser drawer beside his diploma and the guest book from the funeral.

I worked on the boat for about a week. People stopped to talk from their vehicles as they drove by remarking that they hadn't seen us take the boat out for so long. I told a few of them what had happened but then just agreed with the rest that it's been a long time. I had to drain out all the gas. Water had gotten into the dry storage and everything in it was pretty much ruined. Joel would have hated that I let it get into such a mess. And I felt guilty and depressed. I worked through all the ruined lures and their rusted hooks. The pliers rusted shut. The soft plastics had leaked over everything including some lures Joel had given me for Christmas that I had not used. They were still in the box which was now soggy and stained with rust. A few of them I had no intentions of using. I wanted to keep them since they were gifts from Joel. I had forgotten they were in there. The ziplock bags also leaked and water, rust, and slime had gotten in them. I had Joel's certificate in there that showed he passed the Power Squadron course for safe boating. It was wet and stained and torn. I remember sitting with him in all his classes and helping him study for the test. The last fishing license I bought him was in there. It was dated December twenty-seventh, the day we went to the Mosquito Lagoon. He had to call the FWC eight-hundred number while we were idling out to the lagoon because his had expired.

I got the boat ready and the tail lights working and headed out to a place I knew Joel would have loved to have visited. I hadn't been there in over twenty years and at that time it was just in a canoe. I drove straight up Hwy 98 North to Homosassa. Once there, I was preoccupied with launching the boat and hadn't realized until I set my GPS that it was about 9:30, Friday morning. The time and day of Joel's death. I felt myself choke but then thought it oddly ironic. I hadn't thought about it at all that morning. I think this was the first Friday I hadn't. Many Fridays I hold an object Joel made and look at his picture quietly from 9:30 to 9:36 when he was pronounced dead. Other Fridays I just watch the clock. Some Thursdays and Friday mornings I watch the clock and wonder where he was and what he was thinking about on his journey.

I idled around exploring. I didn't catch many fish. But then again, my heart really wasn't in it. My trolling motor only worked in reverse. I noticed it felt tacky when I  put it on the boat. So then it made sense to me that I had not rinsed the salt off it from the last time I used it nearly six months before. I turned the trolling motor around backwards and ran it in reverse to make me move forward. It was a very pretty and calm day. I placed Joel's Urn and picture on the console, sat and looked at him and drifted. I'm not sure if I enjoyed the day or not. Well, I know I didn't enjoy it. I guess I'm not sure if there will be another day for me to enjoy. But I think I am glad I went or at least satisfied.