Dynamic duo

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1. 

   Melissa November 7, 2007

   I was the only reporter at the Buncombe Board of Elections one summer day when this white-haired guy came in, paid his 5 buck-filing fee and then stood there for 20 minutes wavering over whether he should run or not.

   He didn’t want to tell me his name, but I warned him that if he did sign the form, it was public record and going in the Citizen-Times the next day.

   He said he was a retired dentist who lately was doing charity work for poor kids at the heath center because so many low-income kids don’t get good dental care, if any. He said he retired, in part, because of a chronic neck injury that is common among dentists after years of craning it to do their work.

   He seemed like a weirdo, but he was a nice guy.

   He filed, and was the top vote-getter among all candidates in that 2001 race, the same year fellow Republican Nathan Ramsey took over Democrat Tom Sobol’s seat as chairman of the Buncombe board of commissioners. Joe was sworn onto council with the Bible that his father-in-law had carried with him as he stormed the beaches at Normandy.

   Joe never lied to me when I was a journalist, even when he knew that what he said was going to come across as 10 shades of crazy. He always returned phone calls, even when he was in a small boat floating down some river, fishing. When my mother died, Joe called to tell me that he had asked his Sunday school class to pray for my family.

   As a council member, Joe was passionate — and sometimes belligerent — to the point of his face turning beet red when he argued.

   He didn’t care for City Manager Jim Westbrook’s regimented style of leadership and said so all. the. time.

   I miss seeing Joe around. I don’t miss seeing him on the council dais (he knows I’m a liberal), but I always liked the guy.

   He really ought to stay out of politics, though. I never thought it was his bag.

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