Wrote ad copy for the likes of Verizon and American Express

By Lloyd Garrison

Joel Howard almost perfectly personifies the old adage that in the heart of every ad agency copy writer there is a frustrated novelist just waiting to be unleashed. Retired from advertising and now living in Norfolk, Howard already has several plastic bins filled with three unpublished novels and three screenplays, and says he has lost count of the short stories and poems.

It goes without saying that Howard loves to write. He is engrossed in his second memoir class in the past six months. He regularly trades critiques with other aspiring authors and meets with local writers. “Robin Yuran at the library is my greatest cheer leader,” he says.

Indeed, one might well conclude that writing is all he does all day since leaving the advertising industry ten years ago.

Wrong. More than equal time is also given to another consuming passion: restoring an 1890 Victorian home that has obliged him to become a determined do-it-yourselfer. When Howard and his spouse, Tracy Tucker, discovered that renovation costs exceeded their cash flow, they had no choice but to pick up a hammer and saw.

Because Tucker still labors weekdays in Manhattan, Howard is doing much of the work himself. “When I started reading construction manuals, I thought what in the world am I doing here?” he says. “But I realized that with a little patience and trial and error, I could do this.”

Doing this meant first stripping, priming and painting the exterior of the four bedroom house, which is perched on a hill overlooking Grant Street Extension. “We had to rent a cherry picker from Canton in order to reach the third floor,” he says.

Howard is now redoing the interior, which entails stripping wallpaper, staining floors, ripping out old plumbing, knocking down walls and erecting new sheet rock.

Had he encountered any problem he couldn’t solve? “Oh, yes,” he says with a slight drawl reflecting his Southern roots.  “When I discovered the dinning room ceiling was pieced together with particle board and was about to fall down, I hadn’t a clue what to do next. I had to call in Kerry Yuran, who specializes in tough restorations.”

Buying new tools has been an expensive and educational process.  “We take care of them because we want them to be operable when we need them. There’s an entire wall cabinet in the basement dedicated to power tools.”

At 50, Howard has the energy level of someone half his age and revels in coping with pressure, “as if advertising hadn’t beaten me up enough.” In addition to writing up a storm and restoring his house, he is an active member of the Library Associates, the Norfolk Community Association and serves on the steering committee of the Farmers Market. He also has a real estate license and is licensed with Locust Lane Realty.

If you are reading this, you might also appreciate the fact that he has found time to write regularly for Norfolk Now. This month, he has edited all copy, proofed every page and teamed with Kevin Gundlach in laying out this latest issue. You are not alone if you wonder how in the world he did it.