Nearly drowned fisherman resurfaces
Taking a last gasp of air as he tried to escape out a broken window of his sinking fishing boat, Capt. Jason Lee was stuck. His lifejacket caught on something. Gazing up through the 48-degree water of Lake Michigan a mile off the coast of Waukegan, Lee could see the light dancing on the surface as his sinking 39-foot Fin Seeker pulled him into the darker depths.
“I don't want to say it haunts me…but when I think about how close I came to dying, I mean, I went down with the boat,” remembers Lee, who cut his hand as he freed himself and barely had enough air to make it the surface.
In the days after a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter and boat rescue crews plucked Lee and his six passengers from the waves in 2008, the captain told Daily Herald reporter Jamie Sotonoff that his Christian faith compelled him to believe “everything happens for a reason.”
“It's not always about me,” Lee said then, explaining that, as much as he loved fishing, perhaps this was a sign that he should be doing something else.
“A lot of people talk a story, but his is actually true,” says Brian Adcock, executive director of Tanglewood Village, an independent retirement community in Decatur where Lee has proved to be an energetic, passionate and award-winning residential manager and activity director.
“I found a niche down here and I feel God really put me in a place where I could do good,” says Lee, who lives in the residential community with his wife, Joy, and their 6-month-old daughter, Aiyanna. “I really feel I got a second chance to do something.”
Having lost everything when his boat, where he lived and worked, sank, Lee went to Decatur to stay with his mom, Rachel Lee, a retired jazz singer who had been marketing director at Tanglewood. When Tanglewood's weekend manager quit, Jason Lee moved into the retirement community.
“I knew his mother's character, and him being her son, he probably had the same character. I judge them not only by their resume, but by their character,” says Adcock, who figured the former fishing captain would be calm in emergencies. “He's proved he's a quality person.”
But Lee quickly pushed the retirement home into uncharted waters by suggesting a slew of activities for the seniors, who had a track record of wanting to stay put, Adcock says.
“They really needed me,” says Lee. Adcock figures those years of fishing taught Lee how to be patient with seniors.
“People come here because they want to be doing something,” Adcock says, noting the busy activities schedule has become a selling point. “They want to get out. They love it.”
So, apparently, does Lee.
“I had a wienie roast and we had over 170 seniors there,” Lee says. He set up a Wii bowling league and has his “Seniors on Strike: Over the Hill and Through the Pins” team of four virtual bowlers (all 90 and older) tossing perfect 300 games and competing against college students.
“It's unbelievable,” Lee says with a laugh. “I got whupped by a 94-year-old.”
He stages game-show competitions. He orchestrated an elaborate hula dance to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Hawaii becoming a state, set up New Year's Eve parties and St. Patrick's Day bashes. Every holiday becomes an event.
“That just makes me happy,” Lee says. “I feel blessed to be able to do that.”
Having met his wife while on vacation in 2006 in the Philippines, Lee began volunteering with Filipino-American groups and began making charity trips and shipping supplies from his church in Zion to people in the Philippines.
The Filipino-American group he started in Decatur will be on display Saturday at Piyesta Pinoy, a Filipino culture event that is the finale of Filipino-American history month at Wheaton College. The festival, open to the public and starting at 5 p.m. at Coray Gym on the Wheaton campus, features plenty of free entertainment and food for sale, says Ruben Salazar, executive director of the Philippine American Cultural Foundation that is coordinating the event with Wheaton College. Phone Salazar at (630) 379-9636 for information on the festival. Discounted tickets to see the Bayanihan Philippine National Dance Company at 8 p.m. are available by calling (630) 752-5010 or visiting www.artistseries.org or wwww.pacfmidwest.com.
“It used to fit in the back of my minivan,” Lee says of his Philippine culture exhibit. “Now it's so large, I've got to rent a U-Haul.”
His new life with seniors, a daughter and the Filipino-American advocacy would never fit into his old life on the fishing boat. Fishing, his Fin Seeker and even his near-death are history.
“I get goose bumps sometimes when I think about it, but I'm usually too busy to think about it,” Lee says. “You know, I really don't miss fishing. I like what I'm doing.”