Joseph Hiserodt Sharpe

Heaven just got a bit more interesting. At the age of 90, Joe Sharpe rounded third and made his dash for home, where God called him safe at the plate, welcoming him with open arms. As we speak, he is reuniting with his two wives who preceded him (Doris Due and Bettye Salmon), who are taking turns trying to get his halo on straight and washing the morning breakfast off his robe.
Old Joe lived a life of color, character, and commitment that set a commanding example for those of us in his footsteps. He was born on Dec. 26, 1924, in Checotah, Okla., to Louis Karl Sharpe (Bum Bum) and Caroline McClusky Sharpe (Daw Daw). Joe's hero was his big brother Lou, who in their youth, beat him up daily, but always had his back when it really mattered. And while Joe's much younger sister Ann may have been an afterthought growing up, she has been a rock throughout his adult life who was always by his side.
When Joe was 14, his dad stuck him on a train and shipped him off to Shattuck military school. The little over achiever was top in his class, and was all this and captain of that in three sports and the goat ropin' team. His senior year, Marlon Brando was his "new boy," and "Banjo" as Joe called him, shined Joe's shoes and paid homage to the master.
Joe graduated from the OU Medical School at the tender age of 22 and joined the U.S. Navy. He had a number of cushy jobs, including VD inspector (cushy sometimes comes with icky), before a short stint in harm's way in Korea.
Several years after the Navy gig, Joe was doing his Residency in Rochester, N.Y., and went to Canada for a ski trip. It was there he met his match... and then some. A little hotty from Maryland named Doris Due just happened to be in his beginner's ski school class. When on the last day she jumped the road, he decided that she would make a righteous and durable mother to his future kids, CC (Fred) Sharpe Kent, Pete (Sam) Sharpe, George (Melissa) Sharpe and John (Irene) Sharpe, and a pretty decent grandma it turns out, to their eight grand kids.
For Joe, raising kids came natural... just leave it to Doris. She raised the little honyaks in her Girl Scout troop, where she taught them how to cook, spit, wrestle, and rewire a lamp. He did contribute to their training in a few ways. First, he threw away the family TV, and made the kids fans of those mystery solving siblings, The Happy Hollisters and The Hardy Boys. Taught 'em to enjoy books. Always wondering what the "poor folk were eating tonight," he made the kids clean their plates, on time, every time. Taught 'em to appreciate what they had. A marginal barber who knew only one cut, his boys were buzz headed geeks before geek was cool. Taught 'em humility. And ever the philosopher, he gave evening lectures centered around one cliché or another, the collection of which have come to be known as "Sharpisms." Taught 'em about life.
Doris passed away in 1991, and a few years later, Joe remarried a little fire ball named Betty Salmon. "Little Poison," as he called her, put some jump in his step, some punch in his juice, and some glitter in his golden years. Since her passing in 2007, he ardently pursued number three, ignoring the fact that there was no bait left on the hook, so to speak. He did score a sweet girlfriend, Audrey Packer, who taught him to play Skip-Bo and kept a smile on his face his last few years with an occasional kiss and a hug.
Through the years, Joe had lots of passions, with golf, dancing and cocktail hour with friends on the top of a long list. But Joe's main passion was NOT spending money. At the age of 88, two weeks out of the hospital, and using a walker to get around the house, the goofball goes out by himself to play golf on a cold March afternoon. Too cheap to hit one of his old Top Flights on a water hole, he drops a range ball instead. Yes, he hit it in the water. Yes, he tried to get it. Yes, he fell in. Chasing a RANGE ball! Yi, yi, yi!
Indeed, Dr. Joe has had some amazing accomplishments in his long and colorful life, and is recognized in the San Juan Regional Hall of Fame as one of Farmington's earliest and most prolific surgeons. But it wasn't what he did, but who he was, that left the biggest impact on us subjects. That simple act of chasing a range ball into the lake says more about Joe than his most miraculous surgery. He couldn't any more have left that ball on the edge of the water than he could have left a patient to die. He was who he was, living by Shakespeare's Sharpism, "To thine own self be true, and to none others can thy be false."
And that act of playing golf when he should have been in a wheel chair also symbolized Joe's approach to life... and that was to do your best, all the time, every time. Like he lived his whole life, Dr. Joe finished his time here on earth with a determined enthusiasm. He was a cocklebur, hanging on by his finger nails. He fell a couple of dozen times over the last three years, and the only lasting evidence was some cracks in the concrete and a hole in the wall at Namaste. He was a piece of gristle, that one! A man of relentless routine, he got up, he dressed up, and he showed up, because that's what you do. Truly, as he laid on his death bed, some of his last words were, "Get me up!"
We have so many people to thank for making old Joe's last few years on earth so meaningful. But his true Godsend was the Namaste House, where Rebecca Morgan has put together a team of the most caring, loving individuals on the planet! Thank EACH of you for your tenderness and care for Dr. Joe this last year and a half. The Namaste House truly was home, and you all are family.
A celebration of the amazing life of the great Dr. Joseph Sharpe will be at 4:30 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 31 at Courtyard by Marriott, 560 Scott Ave. in Farmington. A cocktail party will follow the service, with a cash bar and light hors d'oeuvres.
In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the Boys and Girls Club of Farmington.
Joe's care is entrusted to Brewer, Lee and Larkin Funeral Home, 103 E. Ute St. in Farmington.

We love you Grandpa Joe. You ARE our hero!