Okefenokee Joe walks with Stars in Heaven

There will be a big hole, an empty booth, at this year’s Georgia Wildlife federation’s Outdoor Show in Perry, set for February 10-12. Okefenokee Joe won’t be there as he checked into Heaven on January 9th. Joe had a steel plate in his back that was causing him a lot of pain and confined him to a wheelchair, so he elected to have it taken out at the VA hospital. Due to his advanced age and the many drugs he was given in the hospital, his kidneys began to fail and he slipped into a coma and passed away peacefully with his family by his side.

Joe, who turned 90 years old in November, knew he was in “rarefied air” as an old man with a sharp mind, but his body was failing. He told me that if he had known that he was going to live so long, he would have taken better care of himself!

I’ve had the honor and privilege of knowing Okefenokee Joe, the alter ego of Dick Flood, the famous Nashville singing star, for 40 plus years. We met many years ago at the Georgia Wildlife Federation’s Buckarama in Atlanta. Joe did an outdoor show based on his many experiences in the outdoors and the usefulness of Snakes! He gave the same show to many thousands of school kids across Georgia for many years, which endeared him to a new generation for kids with his important messages dealing with conservation and the environment.

Joe was a big fan of Clint Eastwood and his movies. Joe sometimes quoted the line “We all got it coming, Kid” from the 1994 movie “Unforgiven.” Will Munny, played by Clint Eastwood, has seen it all, his bloody background has made him a reclusive soul whose legacy speaks for him. If there’s one thing Munny has learned after years of killing, it’s that death comes for us all. Joe knew the movie was about redemption and positive change, with a unique western theme.

But for Joe, it was also getting close to the Lord Jesus Christ and preparing for eternity. During his Nashville days, Joe knew many successes, but he also knew despair. In his song “Hell bound Train”, he says he sums up his last years in Nashville and he never got the big break he had hoped for. Eventually he would end up in the Florida Everglades Park, divorced, penniless and living in a tent. But Joe never gave up and looked for a new beginning.

After three months of living off the land, a good friend who operated the Okefenokee Swamp Park near Waycross offered him a job working with the animals in the park, and after his self-imposed hiatus in the Everglades, with no better prospects in sight, Joe, and an energetic mixed-breed mutt that had taken up with him he named “Swampy,” decided to head north to the “land of the trembling earth.”

On the long drive to the Okefenokee Swamp, Joe said at his shows that he would drive some and “Swampy the dog would drive some,” which always got a good laugh! Joe wrote a great song about Swampy the dog and Skeeter the Cat, but Swampy would meet a sad ending when he was killed by a gator while swimming in the water. These events were the birth of the iconic Okefenokee Joe, but he didn’t realize it at the time. Joe knew that life was a complicated road, full of twists and turns, so let’s take a look back.

According to Outdoor Writer Duncan Dobie, author of Georgia’s Greatest Whitetails and many other books, who wrote an excellent story on Joe for Georgia Outdoor News in 2021, Joe was born in Philadelphia in 1932. Joe attended a YMCA camp in the Blue Mountains of Pennsylvania from the age of 8 to 18. It was here that he developed his love for camping and the great outdoors. He spent his days catching snakes and studying nature and his evenings strumming his guitar and singing to his cabin mates. After high school, three years of roughing it in the Army in hotspots like Korea helped cement his love for Mother Nature.

For 19 years, from 1954 to 1973, Joe made his living in Nashville as a singer and songwriter. In those days he went by his given name of Dick Flood, and he wrote a number of successful songs and traveled internationally with his own band, the Pathfinders. During those Nashville years he was highly respected by his peers and became good friends with many of the country greats of that period. Several of his pop and country songs were recorded by the likes of Roy Orbison, George Hamilton IV and Porter Wagoner. Joe was a frequent guest on the Grand Ole Opry and in 1956 was given a regular spot on the Jimmy Dean TV Show. One of Joe’s proudest achievements in music occurred in 1962 when his song, “Troubles Back in Town,” recorded by The Wilburn Brothers, hit the charts as the No. 1 song of the year. He wrote a book, “My Walk among the Stars” about these times, available on his website.

Joe also recorded the hit song “The Three Bells-Little Jimmy Brown” that made the top 40 list in 1959. The song was also recorded by the Group “The Browns” and their version went to number one on the record chart. It was the first time that the same song, recorded by two different artists, was on the top 40. I was 8 years old at the time but fondly remember singing along with that song on the radio. It is ironic that many years later Joe and I would become good friends.

After nearly 10 years of working in the park, Joe developed a widespread reputation as a speaker and advocate for snakes and other swamp creatures. He decided to leave the park and become a full-time spokesperson for snakes and other wildlife. He soon had a thriving business doing his unique brand of programs at schools, hunting shows, Indian Festivals and numerous other outdoor events across the South where wildlife was featured. “From the first day, I fully believed that God wanted me to do what I was doing,” Joe said.

By the late ’80s, Joe had endeared himself to countless thousands of Georgians who attended his programs, and he was asked to host a TV special on GPTV about the Okefenokee Swamp. The Emmy Award winning production of “Swamp-Wise,” was so popular that he soon did a second special for public television called “The Joy of Snakes.” Over the next decade, both shows were aired dozens of times to Peach State viewers and remain among the most viewed shows on PBS.

One of Joe’s famous catch phrases often mentioned in songs is: “If you don’t need it, leave it.” In other words, if you’re going to cut down a tree, have a good reason. Try to always leave nature as you found it. In addition to his outdoor shows, Joe has written and sang hundreds of country and environmental songs that are captured in his many CDs and books and I strongly recommend them all!

One of my many favorites is “September Rain” which talks about the quickly changing seasons and how quickly time passes in a person’s life. Joe was a deeply spiritual man and a few years ago he put out a CD entitled, “Because I Believe” about his belief in God and his messages of hope. One of his songs, “This night of Peace” which you can watch on YouTube, is one of the best Christmas songs ever written.

Also trying to help worthwhile environmental causes, Joe agreed to be on the Save Oaky Woods Steering Committee back in 2007 when I started the Group “Save Oaky Woods”. Joe gave me some good advice and gave his name and prestige to our cause which was eventually successful.

Although Joe never met Clint Eastwood, Clint may have admired Joe’s singing and songs. Clint chose one of Joe’s songs, “The way it used to be” to be played in the background on the diner jukebox in the 2018 movie,” The Mule”. Clint plays a drug running mule and Bradley Copper is the DEA agent Colin Bates. Joe says he got a nice royalty check for the use of his song, and he hoped to meet Clint one day, but that never happened.

In other unfinished business, Joe has one song that he had written recently, but never recorded. Joe’s son Rich tells me that they hope to get a well-known singer, such as Alan Jackson to sing the song, since he has Georgia roots. Rich was on Alan Jackson’s Road crew for many years when he was touring the country.

In an unusual twist, back in 1986 the Georgia Outdoor Writers Association, of which I was a member, had a conference at Highland Marina near LaGrange. While still a young man, Alan Jackson worked as a short order cook and fried our fish and helped prepare our meals. Afterwards, he sang some songs for our group and later went on to fame and fortune!

Dick Flood/Okefenokee Joe has produced seven CDs containing many of his original swamp songs. His book, Swamp Wise, talks about his life in the swamp as Okefenokee Joe. His audio book “SwampWise – Secrets Songs & Stories from the Land of the Trembling Earth!” is a collection of “swampwise” secrets with 42 original songs. His book “Snake Hunter, Snake Talk” talks about his amazing adventures as a snake hunter.

Joe, who knew for sure he was living on borrowed time, greatly enjoyed attending and performing at the Perry Outdoor Shows where he could meet old friends and share memories. I had the privilege of helping to get him set up at the shows and introduced him at his performances. Many thanks to Sam Stowe, Show Director and GWF President and CEO Mike Wooley for supporting Joe in his encore performances. Joe had lost use of his guitar playing fingers but was able to sing along with the recorded music from his songs, which was a big crowd pleaser. Although the Okefenokee Joe that we all know and love no longer walks among us, I sincerely believe that he will live on in his songs and music forever! For more information and to order CDs and books, go to www.okefenokeejoe.com.

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