GOOGLE HONG KONG WILLIE
Category: Art and Photography
ROADSIDE ATTRACTION
Jim Tunstall TAMPA TRIBUNE
A break with the mainstream led a couple to their own little corner of happiness from another day in time.
" I believe every individual has a purpose. When you start going on your journey to discover yours, you learn some things along the way."
JOE BROWN
Joe Brown loves to express himself.
If you want to see how, take a spin by his place on the southwest corner of Interstate 75 and Fletcher Avenue. His yard is coiffed with a sassy blend of crab-trap buoys, bottle art, fishy wind socks and a dog and two cats that co-exist on a mainly peaceful basis.
Then there's the man. Brown, a page out of the 1960's better side, owns A-24 Hour Bait and Tackle.
On one hand, he's private enough not to want his photograph taken, on the other, he's gregarious enough to talk the ears off anyone interested in fishing. Fact is, this 51-year-old Tampa native is primed to gab about next best to anything on the minds of his visitors, including the way things used to be.
Like in 1983 when he and his wife, Kim, planted roots on this corner and the new Interstate was their only new neighbor.
Before that, Brown had been part of the establishment, but he chucked his mainstream career and spent 3 years on a 700-hundred acre spread across Fletcher, searching for himself.
I was seriously unhappy," he says.
"I left (the job) Nov. 13, 1981. That Date, the moment I left the office, it blazed in my brain, I was 31 and dealing with severe depression."
One day he heard a voice.
"People will tell you you've got serious problems when you hear voices," he says behind a grin. "But this wasn't that kind of experience. It just said, 'Joe, what if it gets better?'"
Well, slowly it did.
He and Kim took an option on the corner that been home to a worm farm for 25 years.
" The worm business was at it's ebb," Brown says.
" I bought it to sell. I had no idea I was going to continue it."
Over the years, neighbors started putting down roots to the west, including apartment complexes and more than a half dozen hotels, such as Extended Stay America and Residence Inn.
The bait and tackle business stayed reasonably strong until the economy went south last year, Brown says, adding that he still carries a full line of rods, reels, cane poles, lures, crickets, shiners, and shrimp.
" But we did a lot a wholesale and we lost 90 percent of that business Sep. 11," he says." " That's dead. It's not coming back."
Fortunately the Browns have branched out.
Last year, they opened a gift shop that sells gator heads, sea shells, stuffed critters, t-shirts, and other trinkets.
Brown also started dabbling in bottle art -- melting everything from vodka to Sprite bottles, reshaping them then letting them cool and harden.
Through the last 20 years, he seems to have learned to be a survivor.
He's also learned his reason for being on this corner.
"I believe every individual has a purpose," he says, turning serious for a moment.
"When you start going on your journey to discover yours, you learn some things along the way. I like working with the public and making them happy. And if you're doing what you want to do, it's a beautiful thing."
