His name was Joseph R. Grasso. His parents were Italian immigrants who worked very hard to an early death. Joe was born the rare genetic condition of gigantism and grew to be a hulking 7' 4" tall before he left high school. He had been bullied a lot and wanted to change that impression. It would have helped if he was able to play basketball, but his genetic defect made him awkward and slow. He couldn't perform the kind of moves basketball required, or track for that matter. There was no niche in high school sports or otherwise that he fit in. Maybe the Phantom of the Opera in drama. But he wasn't good at memorizing lines either.

Luckily, Joanne, a pretty and gregarious high school classmate, saw something in Joe that others didn't, and stood up for him whenever idiots started saying things they shouldn't. She was growing, too, filled out nicely into a beautiful young woman of 5' 2". Guys were asking her for dates by the time she was a junior, but Joanne put them all off. She was bound for college with an altruistic attitude. Did not want to be tied down with family responsibility too soon. Like the high school, childish relationships she saw all around her with classmates going steady and making plans for marriage that were certain to disintegrate later. It was that attitude that had her sticking by Joe. Some thought they were going steady, but Joe never asked and they never exchanged the required symbols, or even went out on dates.

With Joanne's help, Joe made it through high school--just barely. College wasn't for him. But wanting to make things right, and not sure if the military would even accept him with stupid excuses like they wouldn't have uniforms his size, Joe tried out for the Police Academy with Joanne's encouragement. Amazingly, on the second try, he made it. Although Joe didn't have the courage to ask for help, Joanne, whose father was a Captain in the 34th Precinct with some pull with the Chicago Police Department, got him a shot without Joe knowing it.

In the meantime, Joanne entered Northwestern with the goal of becoming a physical therapist. When Joe's father died suddenly of a heart attack at the meat packing factory where he worked, leaving no money and not even any insurance for a proper burial, like his mother had five years earlier, Joe was without a home when evicted from the family apartment because he couldn't pay the rent.

Joanne convinced her parents, against their wishes, to take Joe in. Joe could not hold down a part-time job while at the Academy. It turned out to be a good move, because Joanne was able to help him get through the academic part of the Academy by nightly tutoring Joe on his studies after she did her home work.

Working with him during those sessions made Joanne grow fonder of Joe because he tried so hard to do well and sometimes surprised her with his insight into what policing was all about. When he finished and got his diploma to be a peace officer in the State of Illinois, both of them were overjoyed, and Joanne held a big party for his graduation at their home.

Joanne's parents saw the way the couple were growing closer together and how she genuinely wanted to help him and begin to approve, more and more, as their relationship grew. Partly because they knew that objecting would be fruitless. They knew that Joanne was becoming the woman they hoped she would become and that they could not stop her doing what she wanted to do.

The Chief of the 13th Precinct hired Joe right out of the Academy, again, with a little pull. Since he wasn't qualified for office work, Joe was assigned to me, the Lieutenant in charge of investigations to come up with something for him to do. Joe loved helping me investigate cases out in the field and we got along quite well. He had an uncanny way of putting together clues that actually helped out solving some of our tougher cases so that we could forward the evidence to prosecution. This skill surprised me and made him valuable for our five-man investigation team.

With my help, Joe soon became part of our 13th's after hours gang and often accompanied me to places where we got together to share war stories and build bonding with esprit de corps. The guys often kidded Joe for his, "beautiful" girlfriend and he took it in stride with pride knowing how good Joanne was to him. With her father and me around, supposedly good- or ill-natured bullying didn't happen.

Before long, Joanne graduated. She had her choice of rehab locations around town and picked the prestigious Midwest Rehabilitation Center. But it was located in the Medical Center, a long way from her parents' home on the northwest side of town. Likewise, Joe's employment was downtown, requiring him to take a long bus ride, ride with Joanne's father, or have me pick him up.

Fortunately, Joe found himself a used pickup that was large enough to handle his frame and with my help, quickly learned to drive and get his license. He began looking for a place away from where he had been staying with Joanne parents, now able to pay them rent for what they had done for him earlier. But still wanting to get away and on his own.

On brief vacations, I took Joe with me to Northern Wisconsin where I had friends and family with places to stay while we engaged in hunting and fishing. Joe loved it in those places and asked me about buying land. He had some savings, thanks to Joanne, that was burning a hole in his pocket and he thought that buying a place "Up North" would be a great place to retire in… "Living off the land."

I thought it was a pipe dream until Joe showed me one day a deed to 60 acres adjacent to state forest with a small natural pond and a cabin alre place remote from anything else outside of Phillips. I had to congratulate him on the move. Soon, he was taking me there in his pickup and I was helping him get the place in shape for long-term living.

Soon after Joanne graduated, she got a two bedroom condo in a high-rise close to her work. She invited Joe to join her. He moved in and helped her make her high payment with a part of his salary. Joanne made sure that he paid the payment on his mortgage up in Wisconsin on time each month. A land contract he had from the family of the old hermit that had lived there and died. The contract had a good  interest rate to be paid off in 10 years.

Joe and Joanne never married, but their bond continued to grow stronger and everyone considered them to be partners in life. But Joe's gigantism continued to cause him trouble physically. Police work and city life were just not conducive for him anymore. Especially in winter when the wind came down through the streets and he couldn't find adequate clothing with enough cover. The cabin seemed a lot warmer an cozier that time of year with a fire in the fireplace, the woodstove, or the potbellied stove converted to fuel oil.

After 10 years of service, with his dream cabin paid off, and Joanne's condo nearly paid off, Joe decided, to the 13th's regret and mine, to resign. He wasn't sure how long he could live alone, but he was willing to try. Filed for disability and got it. Figured that he could live on that homestead alone and "off the land." I had helped him put up a small windmill and a solar array so that he had electricity. Power to pump water from his well, light the place, power his cell phone and other electrical/electronic devices. He was basically, "off the grid."

Five years went by and with the help of both Joanne and me, coming up to stay with him and help him out, Joe settled in that lifestyle and was having the time of his life. The wilderness did not care what he looked like or how he acted. There were beautiful sunsets over the water, the murmuring of the trees in the wind, periods of being snowbound, summer bugs and terrible summer storms. There was one time that a forest fire came through close by and made Joe very anxious, like one of his most difficult problems. When his truck broke down and he had to get it repaired. Not knowing how to do it until he called me.

Then, after midnight one Friday, I got a frantic call from Joanne. She was in tears. "Joe calls every morning before he and I go to work. This morning, he didn't call. He had been picking blueberries and had said, 'Before the bears get 'em,' the day before. I'm really, really worried. I called and called, but he didn't answer his cell phone."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I have to be to work tomorrow. We've got a critical case that I have to work with coming out of a coma from severe brain damage. Could you drive on up there and see what's going on with him? Keep me posted?"

"I'm supposed to work tomorrow, too. But knowing Joe, I think I will leave at first light. I'll keep you posted."

I couldn't go back to sleep. By 3 am I was on the road with my red light flashing allowing me to make it to Phillips in about four hours when regularly it would take over six. Since it was on the way and I didn't know if I would need help or not, I stopped at the Price County Sheriff's Office to tell them what I was up to and the sheriff was there, drinking his morning coffee.

Sheriff Johnson was familiar with Joe. Joe had become one of the "characters" that the backwoods seemed to cultivate. Not always in a nice way, since Joe had a way of challenging with a shotgun that sometimes required his intervention.

"I'm not doing anything this morning but just sitting around here, so I think I'll go out there with you and see if we can find him and what he's up to."

I led the way and the sheriff followed me in his SUV. When we arrived, the place looked normal. Even the old collie came out to greet us that had been resting in front of the cabin. He was getting too old to accompany Joe anymore. Just stayed by and barked if anyone came.

A quick check of the cabin showed that everything was in order. There was the smell of bacon in the air indicating that breakfast had been made. No sign of any scuffle, thank goodness. We decided to follow the well-worn path out towards the 2 acre shallow pond where blueberries would be ripening this time of year. We saw boot tracks both going and coming that hadn't been erased by rain. They were clearly Joe's. No others.

But we also saw bear tracks and bear droppings. And then, up ahead in the distance we saw ravens  and heard them calling one another. And then, we could make out a mound of black fur of a bear with ravens on it. We started running. Close to the bear we saw the frame of Joe lying down on his side and we feared the worst. When we got to him, Joe was a bloody mess. There was a huge tooth hole in his neck that probably killed him and part of his thigh was ripped away as though the bear had been eating him.

When we rolled over the bear there was a large hunting knife in its chest. Our estimate was that the bear had attacked Joe for being in his territory and got close enough to bite him in the neck. At the same time, Joe was able to stab the bear in the chest with his hunting knife, but died while doing it from an arterial wound, bleeding to death. While the bear was still alive and bleeding to death, too, it had started to eat him before it died as well.

Sheriff Johnson and I each took a leg and dragged Joe back to the cabin as quickly as we could. We didn't want the ravens on him any more and there wasn't any crime scene. We put Joe in a body bag. And I called Joanne to give her the bad news. We drove back to the Sheriff's Office and called the coroner. In small towns like this, due process takes place quickly. The coroner came and filled out the necessary paperwork.

Sheriff Johnson kindly signed the body over to me. He dispatched a deputy with a four wheeler who lived very close to Joe's place to go out there and retrieve the bear to be taken to a nearby prison for food. No use in letting it rot and go to the birds or other predators. The deputy took the old collie home where he died shortly after. Perhaps from mourning for his master. The gate to the place was locked with police orders not to trespass.

The following Wednesday, Joe had an officer's funeral with the entire Chicago Police Department in attendance, complete with bagpipes and a plot in the cemetery near other officers of renown. His pictures and his story were carried on all the television stations that day, the kind of fame that Joe never thought he would ever have in this life.

After the funeral was over, Joanne join me at a lakefront restaurant. We went out on Lakeshore Drive after and watched the sky become dusky over the lake, on an unusually calm and warm evening. We just sat on a bench and listened to the seagulls watching them fly back and forth whiter, lit up in the setting sun while holding hands. We didn't talk much. But we gave each other comfort. Within the year, we married.

Joe gave the property to Joanne in a handwritten note. I became its caretaker. Not only did we spend vacations there, I regularly invited the 13th Precinct up there for celebrations. And we launched deer hunting and fishing trips from there. All thanks to Joe. We saluted him every time we got together.

Copyright 2020 © Ronald W. Hull

7/31/20