Waiting in line to pick up my kids from Forest Trail on the last day before the Christmas holidays, I called Joey.
The last nine months had been hell. With each call or visit Joey seemed to be recovering from yet another disaster. He fell down the stairs and hurt his back. After surgury and treatment from his injuries, he developed a wicked staff infection and had to be hospitalized for antibiotic treatment. And nothing seemed to be going well.
My call to Joey right before Christmas was a breath of fresh air. He was up. He was happy. He was talking about dreams of a girlfriend with kids, and a Christmas in Colorado. He was making plans.
That’s the sign of recovery. Early in my reconnecting with Joey it was hard to find a common link. Music was easy. Eating or going to get our hair cut was another. But he was really lacking some “idea” to keep him positive and moving forward.
A girl! Same as it ever way, Joey was stoked about meeting a new woman. Or actually a woman he went to elementary school with before he moved to Austin in 7th grade. Sounded familiar, since I married someone from WHS who was a year behind me. Good move, going back to something you know.
Joey was electric. I got excited just talking to him over the phone.
@jmacofearth
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A number of friends have found this blog via Facebook and have gone on to contact Joey themselves. He could use your call. And regardless of if he’s on an up swing, or dealing with challenges, it’s still old Joey.
Monday, Jan 25th, 2010 at 23:22
I just found this site today and consequently just found out about Joey’s situation for the first time. I really hope he is doing well.
I have two very clear memories of Joey – one from Hill Country band (HA – I bet he doesn’t want anyone to know he was a band geek once upon a time….) when a new student/band member joined us mid-year during our 7th grade year. I don’t remember her name, but Joey and I sure thought she was hot. We had a good bit of fun with that.
The other memory is from senior year track. We (mainly the cross country team) went out for one of our more difficult runs and Coach told Joey to go with us to get some good distance conditioning. Joey ran the 400 and 200 I think, so he was more accustomed to sprint conditioning, not distance. This run had some pretty tough hills about 75% into it, so it could be rough at that point cuz you had already been running for at least 6 miles by then. By the time we got there, the overall group had split up into similarly-paced groups and Joey and I ended up running together.
I had the benefit of an entire cross country season beforehand where we made this run at least weekly but this was Joey’s first time. Throughout the whole time, Joey is keeping up step for step with no apparent labor. I noticed that so I picked up the pace a bit and Joey matched it without a grunt or missed step. Now come the hills and I hadn’t realized how fast/hard we were running but we were moving pretty darn good, Joey quietly matching me step for step.
Finally, we crest the last hill and kinda cruise down the backside to the flat. I turned to Joey and said something like “Man, you did great for your first time. We were cooking.” Joey then exhaled loudly and responded with something like “Yeah, I was hoping you would slow down”. At that moment I realized that had made that run on sheer determination. We had taken things far more aggressively than we should have for his first time and he had been hurting for a long time. But he NEVER said a word, never looked anything but relaxed and comfortable, and he simply WILLED himself to keep up the pace and finish. And that is what happened that day.
Monday, Jan 25th, 2010 at 23:30
Very NICE brother Heim. You comin to SXSWi this year? Ping me if you want JU’s phone numba.