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transgressors "If you come back, I cut your line." He kept his island immaculate and ruled it as <br />a patriarch. Any boaters who respected that the island was his home had no trouble getting <br />along with him, but those who treated his fief as a public picnic and dumping ground were <br />unceremoniously asked to leave and admonished not to return. A "benevolent dictator", he was <br />proud of his little kingdom, reportedly taking in no more than about $200 total per month from <br />the boaters he deigned to admit to his few docks. <br />By 1929, according to extant photos, about nine power boats regularly docked at his <br />island in the summer. With the onset of WWII, his regular visitors from the bay and delta <br />vowed to return after the war (see the photo in our "library"), but on July 31, 1944, Joe was <br />stricken on the road to Terminous, died and was buried in Lodi by a few of his friends, <br />Grindstone founders. Following the war, many of the same boaters returned and organized what <br />later became the Grindstone Joe Association. (again, see photo in our library showing the <br />founding fathers who organized the fledgling group into a non-profit Corporation and arranged <br />to acquire clear title to our "island" for the sole purpose of R & R, rest and recreation) <br />Today, Grindstone Joe would appreciate the many improvements made on his land by <br />decades of Grindstoners intent on perpetuating his legacy while respecting his appreciation for <br />nature, the environment and human dignity. <br />[Memoirs of founders Tracy Harron and Ingraham Read were adapted for this 1996 account by <br />Jo Bardet.]