It was nice to see Joe semi domesticated and set up house.  He seemed to enjoy it.  I think it was kind a vindication of growing up kind of poor.

His career was important to him. It was good to see him get himself set up. He was really proud of his home.  He started talking about getting a bigger piece of property further out into the country.  He would always tell me when a house was for sale on his street.  I think we would have made that happen eventually.

Seems like he could be himself at work and he even had a "concert" one time where he lip-synched as Elvis singing into a hockey stick with electric tape for sideburns.  Aye yi yi

Joe was proud to have served in the U.S. Army where he advanced his already existing skills and passion for anything that had wheels. While serving, he developed skills as an airplane mechanic, while seeing the world. We all marveled at the fact that this kid came out of the military a man, evidenced, for example, by his wardrobe being comprised of shirts now with collars and not just pocketed navy blue t-shirts...! His friend, Chris, said that he always thought Joe wore the same shirt, until he saw that Joe had a stack of the same navy pocket t-shirt in his room.

There were so many fun memories with Joe.  He really was my partner in crime. Our mom loves to talk about the time when he was about 5 that he got pajamas for his birthday - from everyone.  The first pair that he opened, he said, "Thanks!"  The second pair was a still happy, "Thanks." The third pair he said simply, "Thanks."  For the 4th pair he started wailing as he said, "THANK yooooouuuu....!!!"  
I think our lives changed when we got about the coolest, most wonderful gift from our dad a kid in the 70's could get:   a tape recorder.  We recorded everything.  Our most valued recording was of The Year Without a Santa Claus, where we could listen all year long to The Heat Miser and The Snow Miser songs.  Or the Wizard of Oz.
Joe liked to get together with his friends, especially, Dave.  They would make tapes of fake classrooms wreaking havoc, modeled after Cheech and Chong - Sister Mary Elephant.  I will put a recording on this website in the future.