THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 12, 1996 TAG: 9606120016
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By MAC DANIEL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 129 lines
HE IS CALLED ``Cowboy'' Carawan round these suburban parts, a nickname he earned through an affinity for Western wear, which he has sported ever since he was ``old enough to get anything for Christmas.''
He has run unsuccessfully five times for the City Council and once for mayor since 1982, adding to his vote totals each time he ran.
Two years ago, the last time he put his name in the hat, he spent most of the campaign sitting in a battered rocking chair that was propped on the bed of his pickup, shouting and giving a thumbs-up at passing motorists. He often wore a coonskin cap.
Cowboy is a staple here, as much a part of local politics as any council member, city manager or scandal, past or present.
Since 1972, he has come before the council dais to rant and rave. He has never been afraid to call the council ``liars and crooks.'' Some hate him; others admire him.
But for the past two years, the Cowboy has been missing.
Fifty-two-year-old Tasewell Julien Carawan hasn't been around; hasn't waved his masking-tape-bound copy of the Constitution at the local council; hasn't run for public office; hasn't tried to, as he says, ``give that squeaky wheel the grease.''
About two years ago, driving home from a job in Franklin, Carawan saw death head-on.
What he most remembers about the accident - maybe all he wants to remember - is the Gideon Bible resting in a pocket on the passengers-side door - the only door that didn't swing open at impact on his Ford pickup; the door he says that saved his life.
He barely recalls coming home from a carpenter's job at Union Camp in Franklin around midnight Aug. 21, 1994. He can remember being flown to Norfolk in a helicopter ambulance. That's about it. ``I don't know,'' he says of the rest. ``I don't know.''
Ask him anything else about it, and Carawan says he doesn't know. Doesn't know where the accident happened. Can't completely recall his injuries. He doesn't really seem to want to.
What's important now is shuttling between physical therapy appointments, tending to his 1-acre plot of land and catching up on what he's missed.
``My fire's as hot as a damn June firecracker,'' he said, ``I'm back, and I don't like what's been takin' place.''
Cowboy's 77-year-old father, Harry Benjamin Carawan Sr., a journeyman carpenter like his son, says T.J. fell asleep and ran his truck into a deep ditch. His face smashed into the steering wheel. He lay in the ravine for several hours before he was found.
``He just went to sleep and tore his truck all to pieces,'' Cowboy's father said. ``Wasn't worth more than $25.''
At the time, a close friend was quoted as saying: ``I don't know if the council will ever hear the voice of T.J. again. I wish that everybody who voted for T.J. would send him a card or something.''
Cowboy's sister, Joy Barbee, 34, said T.J. had a fractured eye socket, a fractured larynx and broken cheeks. Surgeons reconstructed his face with plates, performing the surgery through the inside of his mouth. He was fed through a tracheotomy tube and, Barbee said, completely helpless.
``Looking at him,'' she said, ``you would never know it.''
From October 1994 to May 1995, T.J. recuperated in a Portsmouth convalescent home. ``It was a long process,'' Barbee said, adding that doctors weren't sure whether he'd ever be able to swallow again.
He left the home for the first time around Easter. Barbee and her husband took him for a ride. And the first thing T.J. wanted was a soda.
It was tough. He choked a bit, but he swallowed.
After one failed attempt at living on his own last Thanksgiving, T.J. finally went home for good in January.
``I guess it has calmed him down, if he hasn't talked about running again,'' Barbee said. ``We Carawans are very strong-willed and will tell you like it is in a heartbeat. But it's not that I admire that in T.J. Everybody has something that they enjoy doing, whether it's a hobby or whatever. And T.J. just enjoys politics.''
T.J., noticeably thinner in his ornate Western shirt, crisp Stetson, and new brown suit and boots, said this hobby began in school, where he said he was ``a wizard'' in government. He credits his teachers, the names of whom he still remembers, especially L.D. Moore.
``No finer man,'' T.J. said, ``has picked up a textbook.
``I had it in me, and he kinda cultivated it. Just like a tomato vine, you got to till it on up, nature it on up, nature it on up.''
Moore, 70, remembers T.J. as ``an average student.''
``He displayed interest in the class, took part in the class. And at that time, unlike the present, he was a very quiet young man. He kept to himself quite a bit,'' Moore said.
T.J.'s father is dumbfounded by his son's political passion. ``There are no politicians in this family at all,'' he said. ``Never have been. I don't know what inspired him.''
T.J. was born in Newport News when his father worked in the shipyard there. His mother, who died when Cowboy was 6 1/2, dressed him in a starched white shirt and dungarees, he said, saying that school pictures were only taken from the waist up.
As a child, his mother rewarded him with green grapes, he said, just enough ``that I appreciated every one - every grape that was in that bowl.''
His politics are a mishmash of conservative ideals, all of which center around keeping government in check. He proudly considers himself ``a good caretaker of getting the most of what you've got.'' He believes in corporal punishment and firmly believes ``the least amount of government is the best government.''
Carawan's place in Chesapeake politics remains unknown. His council confrontations oftentimes override his message. And all too often, T.J. rarely wants to hear council's reply.
There was the time he came to the dais, salt-shaker in hand, to protest the city's salty water. There was the time he chained both his truck and car to a barbed-wire fence to keep the city from placing a sewer line near his home. There were several times where he was escorted from council chambers for disorderly conduct or speaking well beyond the council-imposed time limit.
Many times in the past, T.J.'s protests fell on deaf ears.
To hear T.J. tell it, all he's doing is good.
He admits that in the past he has not approached the council with ``polished gloves,'' but he still believes he is keeping the politicians in check.
``I stomped on a lot of toes in Chesapeake,'' he said, ``but my heart is true, and I've always done what's right. I feel like I've gone after them, and I haven't been proved wrong.
``If people would just see. If people would just take the time to see what I'm saying. A little bit of analyzation. But the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Put a nut in a field and let it sit idle and then see what happens. Leave a boat in the yard and don't turn it over for two or three years and see how smooth it operates.''
However, when asked if he plans to run for office again or when he plans to approach the dais after his long absence, he tones down the rhetoric for the first time in a two-hour conversation.
``I gotta take it,'' he said, ``one day at a time.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Steve Earley
[Tasewell Julien Carawan]
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY T.J. CARAWAN by CNB