Prince Joe Henry, R.I.P.
I can't imagine a story that has less to do with Seattle, but on this day, I don't care. Prince Joe Henry, one of the great entertainers in Negro League history, passed away yesterday after a years-long battle with arthritis and diabetes. My first interaction with Prince Joe was a two-hour conversation about his lack of baseball pension in which I almost hung up the phone twelve times on account of his incessant rambling. Over time, I would come to love that rambling. Now that he's gone, I can think of nothing but rambling, wishing that the rambling was still here, blabbering in my ear.
Prince Joe lived in Brooklyn, one of the most ramshackle communities in Southern Illinois. The level of poverty there is indecipherable to Seattleites, but Prince Joe wouldn't have had it any other way. He knew Brooklyn history backwards and forwards, and should have been the town mayor. Ultimately, he wrote a column in the Riverfront Times, which led to a book. His thoughts and words were vital to the American experience, whether he shared them in print or while sprawled out on the couch in his trailer, as he often was.
Today, I regret that I hadn't called Joe in months. I didn't feel like I could spare the hour that a simple hello would inevitably have led to. In retrospect, what a selfish impulse that was. What a treasure of a man Joe was. I will miss him forever, lying there pontificating on his ripped red couch. I love you, Prince Joe. Your life was not for naught.
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