Joel Nichols

Joel Nichols told tall tales and lived bold dreams. I met Joel in 1958 when I was a kid of 17 and took a summer job with the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) building and maintaining hiking trails in New Hampshire. Joel was an adult of 21. He had 5 years of trails experience and was the woods boss of our group of a dozen young men.

“The Old Man of the Mountains” is a jagged rock formation on Cannon Mountain in New Hampshire that appeared to be the 40-foot profile of a face with a jutting chin. The profile became the state emblem in 1945. In the summer of 1953 President Eisenhower was scheduled to deliver a speech, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the discovery of the Old Man. The event would take place at Profile Lake, a spot with an excellent view of the profile. The night before Eisenhower's visit, Joel and a couple of buddies from the AMC climbed Cannon Mountain, cut a 15 foot spruce tree, and suspended it by ropes so it looked like the Old Man had grown a beard. Sadly, the Secret Service cut it down before Ike arrived, and the state police had an open warrant for the arrest of the perpetrators for several years.

Joel's father was a doctor, and the family expected Joel to follow in his footsteps, but Joel preferred a more solitary life and a rural environment. When he finished college he avoided medical school and was soon drafted. He ended up at an army base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he spent a lot of time playing the enemy that troops in training were supposed to capture or destroy. He used his woodsman's skills to set up booby traps and ambushes for the trainees.

While he was in the army, Joel met Pia, a tough, independent Swedish girl who was touring the US. When they decided to get married Pia wanted a big family wedding at her parents' home in Sweden. The US military has a lot of policies to prevent innocent young GIs from being trapped into marriage by conniving foreign women seeking a way to enter the US. If Joel and Pia were to be married in Sweden, Joel needed the permission of his commanding officer. Joel said he'd be damned before asking the army for permission to get married, so they were married by a Justice of the Peace in Albuquerque before going to Sweden for a big family ceremony. On their way they stopped in London where, as a member of the military, Joel had to check in with US officials. When asked why he was going to Sweden, he answered “to get married,” and was told that without his commanding officer's written permission he would not be allowed to continue the trip. Eventually Pia produced the papers showing they were already married and they were sent on their way.

After leaving the army, Joel and Pia moved to a log cabin on the outskirts of Woodstock, Vermont. He went to work for a ski lift company doing installation and maintenance, a job that kept him outdoors but subject to someone else's orders. After a few years Joel had enough of taking orders and started his own company, Precision Concrete Foundations. I'm not sure where he learned to build concrete foundations, but I suspect he learned a lot on the job. One weekend when I was visiting he offered me the opportunity to help blast out a foundation hole in a rocky ledge. Holes had already been drilled around the intended outline; we filled the drill holes with dynamite, wired the blasting caps together, retreated behind a couple of large pine trees, and closed the switch sending electricity to the caps. There was a loud roar, a big hole, and stones falling everywhere. Exciting!

Joel and Pia had two children, a son, Lars, and later a daughter, Kit. Joel had played lacrosse in high school and Lars too played high school lacrosse. When Lars was in his early twenties Joel sold his concrete business and he and Lars partnered in a mail-order lacrosse supplies business aimed at high school and college athletic departments. Within a few years they had established themselves and business was booming. Then, suddenly, Lars became infected with a flesh-destroying fungal disease in his legs. The doctors tried to save his life by amputating all of his body below the waist, but the disease had already spread into his chest and he died. Lars' death hit all of his family very hard, but it was especially hard on Joel - it seemed to put out much of his spark of life, and he never really recovered.

Joel was a heavy smoker and drinker all the time I knew him. As a result, at the age of 76 he was diagnosed with tongue and throat cancer which soon spread to his lungs. I visited Joel in the hospital in New Hampshire where he was being treated. He was in a ground-floor room, with a large window which could be opened, looking out onto the parking lot. Joel asked me to bring him his pants, and he pulled a jackknife out of a pocket. Joel said: “Mac, I'm sick of being here. You go get your car and bring it to the window. When I see you I'm going to cut all these tubes they've got stuck in me, come out through the window, and we can make a break.” I didn't share Joel's bold dreams; instead I called Pia to come help me calm him down. Joel died soon after.


Written as an assignment for the writers' group at The Fountains in July 2016. The assignment was to write about someone I knew.