For Joe

I found out this morning that my old friend Joe died on Saturday morning. He was 35, and I've known him since 1990, when I was a freshman at Wesleyan. One of the funniest people I've ever known, Joe was the inventor of "tie dancing", which he performed with utter perfection at every Wesleyan date event from 1990 until 1994. He also drove a car that had the most, um, interesting interior I've ever seen. And by interesting interior,I mean that on any given day, in the backseat was a couple or three half empty Dominoes pizza boxes (he worked as a pizza guy all through school), some Co-cola cans (half empty as well), and often dirty underwear and socks. His girlfriend at the time (still my best friend) would often refuse to ride in the Escort, preferring my truck or her Mitsubishi to The Rolling Trashcan.

Joe's idea of a joke was wearing a Green Bay Packers hat backwards. We're still not really sure what it meant, but was exceedingly funny at the time. I called him Toe Sucker and he called me his little Toe Ho. I think I still have emails in my inbox that contain nothing but the text "Did you get a pedicure this week?"

Good bye my little Toe Sucker. You will be missed.