Joel Dossey
Sometimes in life you meet people that, after you are introduced, you are unable to imagine a world without them. And, when you discover they are gone there is nothing to fill the hole that they leave.
For me that was my friend Joel Dossey.
I met Joel one morning back in 1987 in the smoking section at Tarrant County Junior College. He bummed a cigarette off me and we started talking about strange things. A conversation we kept up constantly for more than five years running and intermittently for several years thereafter.
To say Joel marched to the beat of a different drummer barely even quantifies his unique way of existing in the world. I would always tell folks who never met him; "Joel lived by his nerve endings."
And he did. For good and for ill.
He was always ready to go out and find excitement. The world was a limitless supply of experience he was detirmined to drink his fill of. He was, quite possibly, one of the most brilliant people I have ever met. But he never could find the thing to focus his brilliance upon.
I think I always got along with Joel because I never questioned who he was. I never asked him to be anything more than his unique self. I just enjoyed the ride when he was around. Things were always interesting when Joel was around.
He, Sandy and I lived together in a ramshakle little house on Victor Street in Dallas for a year. Still one of the best times of my life. And, a few years later, he John Wayne Wall and I lived the bohemian life in a duplex in Arlington. There are a million shaggy dog stories from those days.
When he moved to Boston we would write on occasion. He would send me clippings of all the great bands playing around town. I would send him small packages containing dozens of "Love Is. . ." cartoons. It was our way of torturing each other.
After a few years, the calls became more and more intermittant. He and Sandy had set up their own life in Asheville. They were happy together and Joel was finding other pursuits to draw his interest. Eventually, I would get an e-mail every few months.
And then a call came today telling me there is a new void in the world. And it only hurts worse to know never be another person like him that could fill it.
C.J. Schexnayder
February 27, 2002
"Sorry I haven't been in touch. But things were moving fast, time was crowded, and money was low."
I don't really have much left to remember Joel by. Just a few tattered letters, an out-of-focus picture or two Sandy took and a lot of memories that I could spend days telling you about.
But I'll be damned if I let his passing go without being noted in some way.
Here is a poem Joel sent me while he was living in Boston. This only proves that there isn't anything I could possibly write about the man that he couldn't say better himself.
Joel is buried at Skyvue Memorial Gardens in Mansfield, Texas. For any more information please feel free to send me an e-mail at contact@kleph.com.