I have lost a dear friend, his family has lost their guiding light, the fishing community has lost a pillar and the world has lost one of the finest men who ever lived. Joe Morris, owner with his wife Amanda of Lewes Harbour Marina, passed away Monday night.
I met Joe and Amanda in the 1980s when I was doing my first stint as editor of The Fisherman Magazine. He began writing articles for me, and after I moved to Virginia Beach, Joe took over the sales manager position for new editor Keith Kaufman. Shortly afterward, Joe and Amanda bought the tackle shop, renamed it Lewes Harbour Marina and made the business one of the most successful of its kind.
Joe worked from sunup to sundown and some days before the sun came up until after it went down. When fishing was good, he spent countless hours at the fish-cleaning station preparing fillets for lucky anglers. On those days there were always onlookers hanging around the table, sitting on broken furniture and commenting on subjects from the latest political issues to how nice a pretty young lady looked in her very small bathing suit.
As you may have guessed, most of the hangers-on were men, and some labored under a sign showing a deceased chicken and declared the group as the “Dead Peckers Society.” Group leader was Leonard Maull, another Lewes icon who has left us much too early.
As I heard the news of Joe’s passing, I thought, I have just lost my best friend. Then I realized that Joe Morris was everyone’s best friend. He was always ready to help anyone who asked. He never said a bad word about anyone, and I never heard anyone say a bad word about him.
We often reminisced about our time at The Fisherman, sort of like battle-weary veterans reliving their days in the trenches. When I ran the magazine, I always hosted a Christmas Party at my house to thank everyone who worked for me. The highlight of the gathering was my mild, but favorable, venison chili. Years later, tears would come to Joe’s eyes when he remembered that chili.
Every fall Joe and I would travel to Atlantic City, NJ, to the Folsom Tackle Show. This is a show for tackle shop owners to buy product for the upcoming year. It was held at what was then Trump Marina and no matter if Joe or I drove, we would always miss the turn into the marina and wind up across the bridge in Brigantine. We could see the place as we drove over the bridge, but the exit was long past.
Last fall, Joe drove his new truck, and he made sure we didn’t miss the marina by getting off the expressway long before we had to. Joe drove through several less-than-affluent neighborhoods, always keeping our destination in sight, until we arrived.
I am really going to miss the Sunday afternoon fishing reports from Joe. These would go into the weekly reports for The Fisherman and were due by 6 p.m. I am equally sure Amanda is not going to miss my 5:45 p.m. phone calls inquiring if the report was ready. Her answer would always be, “Let me go ask him. He’s outside cleaning fish.” When I heard from Joe, he would say, “Sorry, I was waiting for one more boat to come in so I could get him into the report.” I would usually have about five minutes to read and edit the report, but fortunately Joe was such a good writer that very little editing was needed.
I don’t think Joe would want anybody to shed a tear on his behalf. Sorry, buddy, but tears will be shed, and not just by me, but by everyone who knew you. I have heard it said that you will continue to live so long as someone remembers you. If that’s true, Joe Morris will be with us for a very long time.
New Jersey, Delaware Bay edition field editor Eric Burnley was founding editor of the Mid-Atlantic edition of The Fisherman Magazine and also authors a regular column in the Cape Gazette of Delaware.
