UPDATE: August 2001.  With a motor rebuilt, Joe and his occasional crew are bring the Pretty Old Boat back toward Chattanooga, but have to wait on lock repair.  Wait until next year, Joe says.

UPDATE: Mar. 2001. Joe and his crew of whoever felt like traveling that particular day left for Cuba the last of October.  They got as far as Demopolis, Alabama, before the engine blew a piston.  At this writing, the boat is docked there waiting for installation of a new motor.  But--as Joe says--he's retired and no hurry to get to Cuba, of anywhere else.

CHATTANOOGA, TN, Nov. 2000.  Most men suffering a stroke may settle down in an easy chair and nurse the wounds. Not Joe Cheek. He fought his way back, syllable by syllable and muscle by muscle.

Now he's Cuba bound in a World War II navy trawler he bought and repaired as therapy.

Four years ago workaholic Joe Cheek woke up, made his bed and began preparing for work. Something was wrong, he didn't know what. His hands didn't work right and he couldn't speak. His words made sense to him, thoughts were there but the sounds out garbled to others. Taken to the hospital, he walked in on his own to the amazement of the emergency room.

He had suffered a major stroke.

A blood clot in his neck artery had clogged and stifled part of his brain. Recovering and anxious to get back to work at his Machine Shop in Chattanooga, TN., he realized he couldn't even pick up a nut to put it on a bolt. He had to learn again slowly. Words escaped him, often hunting for a similar one to express the thought that was there but wouldn't come out.

Nashville born and educated at Catholic parochial schools, the tall, gangly youth joined the army and served with the 11th Airborne in Germany.

Back as a civilian and with an accounting degree from Middle Tennessee State in 1961, he went with the Pillsbury Company in data processing. It was the early days of computers and he became one of their "experts" with the 64k computer that filled the size of a basketball court. After getting into the textile business with a Georgia company, he bought his own company in Belgium. It failed and he came to Chattanooga where he started his own machine shop, filling orders worldwide. There were no work hours. They just never stopped, seven days a week.

The stroke brought that to an abrupt halt. "I decided it was time to slow down," he recalls, "and I always enjoyed the water. It's always relaxing."

Through friends and contacts, he located an old boat in disrepair in Chesapeake Bay, VA. The cost was reasonable and he knew the repairs would be therapy. The 50-foot wooden boat was built for the US Navy in 1943 as tender for destroyers, battleships, aircraft carriers and other ships in a fleet. Its class was as a displacement hull trawler and was used to deliver mail, personnel as a liberty boat and for odd jobs. An aircraft carrier could hoist it up and attach it along side. A dinghy is on the boat.

It has oak spars with long leaf pine planks and double planks with mahogany. A 671 Detroit diesel engine powers it with six cylinders. Average speed is eight to ten knots and consumes four gallons an hour.

With help from his son Mike who operates the Tennessee Riverboat Company at Knoxville, and friends traveling in shifts, he began the trip on the intercostals waterway down the Atlantic coast. He crossed the canal at Florida and over the Gulf of Mexico to Mobile.

The Tombigbee River took him to the Tennessee and Chattanooga where he docked it. The trip intermittently took three months with various "crew" members joining or leaving during the journey.

In Chattanooga he went to work on the boat. On the trip across the Gulf a side door blew off. The commode couldn't be used for fear of flooding the boat. Some of the interior bedding was rotted and he began to find spare parts he didn't know were there. Friends and workers from his machine shop pitched in to help.

He named the vessel is the Pretty Old Boat. "We were crossing the Gulf at night," Joe smiles, "and I began thinking this boat is old but it's pretty to me."

Work has been continual on the boat, always something to be added. Now it has a new computer, generator and all the necessities Joe feels he needs. Turning his machine shop over to Mike, he plans to be in Cuba New Years Day, crossing the 90 miles of water from Florida to the island. Several friends plan to make the trip with him--at ten knots an hour.

Why Cuba? "I've never been there," he laughs. "Seriously, I want to enjoy life some now. It's time to kick back a bit. This is an adventure. Where will I go after Cuba? I don't know yet, but I'll go somewhere."

The boat carries an American Flag with thirteen stars, the original design for the first colonies. That's appropriate. Boaters who meet him on the water with their newer, larger, more luxurious boats are impressed with the classic.

Now Joe wakes up each morning and speaks aloud to see if his voice is there. Then he flexes his fingers--and he thinks about the open sea.

Most men who retire after a stroke would find a rocking chair or maybe a fishing boat. Not 62-year-old Joe Cheek. His relaxation is working and traveling--on the Pretty Old Boat. He makes the boat's name a reality.

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