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When I interviewed him, I distinctly remember telling him, "this place can be ridiculously fast paced, we all crawl all over each other and things can get pretty tense." Joe's response: "We'll see about that". It was a small view into what it would be like to work with Joe.
Joe - or better known as Joe-Bob (if there's a reason other than for silliness' sake, I never knew it), was the original Ferris Buehler. Honestly, we thought he must've been the inspiration. Upon getting to know him, we couldn't imagine that he was manageable in high school, but it was clear that his ability to graduate from college told that he had the ability to make a commitment to something.
Joe and my ex would head off without telling us what they were up to. My ex was exquisitely capable of putting wheels under any of Joe's capers. That made the two of them totally dangerous. Joe's beautiful wife Lynne and I would demand to simply know what direction they were headed in, so that we could go the opposite. After all, once the destruction of the earth was nearly complete, there needed to be some adults left to carry on. Lynne and I had a rule - we were taking off for parts unknown if we saw smoke coming from the direction we thought they were in, and we didn't know anything about any of it.
Joe was such a wonderful foe when it came to practical jokes. I love a great joke, and so did Joe. He would set things up - like when he was so kind to go get me some lunch and bring it back, then tell me, "it's in the microwave when you can get to it, just hit 'start' and you're ready to go." It was totally hectic, as usual, and an hour or so later, I really appreciated all I had to do was walk into the warehouse office and press 'start'. Only I wasn't prepared for the fact he'd left the aluminum foil on the food - quite purposefully thank you very much. There were a couple of customers, as well as the lead man in there when it happened, and after I and the customers hit the deck for all the sparking, the lead man, Rich, hopped in one breezy move over the counter to turn the damned thing off. Joe, characteristically, was nowhere to be found.
There was the evening when Joe stole my car keys. Being the only two left in the facility, I was forced to beg a ride with Joe. On his motorcycle. In my skirt and high heels. No helmet. My hair was very long at the time, another odd thing happened - all my rubber bands went missing. Go figure. Funny how my keys slipped out onto the driveway at my house when we got there, as if THAT'S where I left them (when I did drive to work that morning!). When Joe was wanting to die laughing, all he had was this enormous smile, and he couldn't really speak. The twinkle in his eye was unmistakable.
Funny, his motorcycle developed a magical stink - from a chunk of limburger cheese - shortly after that trip home. It heated up just in time to really, really wreak halfway to work - far enough to not turn around and get the car - close enough for us to get the laugh and know he got nailed. But Joe would give no satisfaction - he wouldn't break a face, make a comment - nothing. Lunchtime brought me another opportunity - a trip to the grocery store for crackers....and cheese. "A little cheese Joe, for a snack?" Lead man, manager, biting tongues, knowing that if THEY cracked, I'd kill them. Joe: "No, no. I'm not fond of cheese, thanks".
My step-son introduced me to "slime", and it magically found its way into the pocket of Joe's treasured bomber jacket, with his keys inside. He would never fess up to having found it.
Joe was a pilot - and a really good one. For all of Joe's silliness, he was one of the most capable people I've ever known. I got to go up with him several times. It was a blast. At the time, he was working out in Lake Elsinore on the weekends, taking up parachuters and dropping them out of the plane. His evil streak was perhaps best in view at this job. Frequently, there would be new jumpers having never jumped before. They would go "tandem", in other words, attached to a veteran jumper. Make no mistake, newbies were a target for Joe, as evidenced by the duct tape that appeared to be holding up the plane's wings (it was just some tape on the aileron cover...for effect, not because it was broken), and the oddly placed ARCO steak knife (remember when they used to give steak knives out with a fill up of gas - that only cost you $12?), that was shoved into the upholstery of the pilots seat. I asked Joe on my first trip, "What on earth is THAT for?" His response, "In case a parachute gets caught in the prop, I can cut it out." Imagine how that went over with someone who was slightly worried about jumping out of a plane in the first place?
There was the story I heard of Joe's dad, Gerry, planting a small vegetable garden, then his folks going away for a few days. Joe was to water the new garden while they were gone. Gerry came home to full grown carrots! Joe would take great time and care to execute a joke. He and Lynne had to go to several markets before he could get carrots that still had the tops on them.
In 1990, all our lives were interrupted, and my ex-husband and I moved to Washington State, and Joe and Lynne (better known as Sweet Lynne Baby, or SLB) moved to Grand Island Nebraska. Joe was going to be a full time pilot for a puddle jumping airline. He was working at accumulating hours to become a commercial airline pilot. We made our respective moves the same week. We kept up occasionally by phone. Around 1993, I had called them and left them a message, just saying "hi!", and expecting a call back sometime, as was usual. I was back down in Southern California with my family for a couple of weeks, and my husband at the time told me upon my return that Lynne had called and she and Joe were divorcing and that they no longer wanted to have contact with us. I was stunned and thought it odd, and I was hurt at the time, but figured, they had their own problems to deal with, so I left the situation alone.
Oh how I wish I hadn't dropped things like that. My ex husband - let's just say, there's reasons why he's my ex - lied to me. But I didn't know that until now.
Every few years, I looked for Joe on the internet. Google searches here and there. Being told that they were divorcing, I didn't even look for Lynne, figuring that she'd either have gone back to her maiden name, or she would have re-married. I could never find any reference to Joe. I have to say, looking back now, that worried me.
Last night, I thought I'd look for Joe again. I don't know why. I sat with the laptop on my lap, and was again puzzled by what I wasn't finding. Joe was, in the day, computer and tech savvy. I just couldn't imagine he would be anything other than easy to find. Then I did something I never did before. I looked for him on Facebook. Didn't find Joe, but I eerily found his brothers and sisters. And his mom. I looked for his dad, Gerry. While he didn't have a Facebook page himself, Gerry was (still is) a golf course architect, and there he was on the Facebook search engine. Once search, one click and there was Gerry. And Gerry's email.
I emailed Gerry last night. He responded quickly, which made my heart stop this morning when I saw it roll in as my emails were loading.
Hi Karen,
The sad news is Joe died in an airplane crash on 3-28-93 when he was giving
another pilot an annual proficiency test, and that pilot attempted a
maneuver in which he couldn't recover from. Joe was one of two advanced
pilots that was given the responsibility of testing the other pilots in the
company. He is still in my thoughts daily (and ironically my dreams last
night) and will be greatly missed for the rest of my life. Joe's mother
passed last summer from cancer and is with him. Lynne and Maccrea (Joes son
was 4 months old at the time of the crash) are living in Minnetonka.
Regards, Gerry
I have yet to call Lynne. I will - when I can talk straight.
I feel so robbed. I feel I let Lynne down because I wasn't there - I would have been! I feel that I've let down Maccrea - who I didn't even know existed, and he's grown up without his father.
I feel so awful for Joe's family. They've been without him for 18 years now. Enough time has passed that local newspaper archives don't have the story any more. I'm so disconnected.
He's been gone 18 years. But it's new to me. I think back to all the times I tried to find him - but didn't try too hard, it seems now.
I suppose that, whether he was in my life or not, it was just better knowing that Joe was out there somewhere, putting on a joke and being a really great guy, full of fun and laughter for someone to enjoy.
For the few years that I spent threatening that I would fire him by saying "You can always be that fry cook on Venus Joe!"...reference Ferris Buehler, I suspect that's what he's doing. Whatever it is, it's not what's expected of him.
I miss you Joe - and I'm sorry I kicked up the pain to your Dad with my email, but I'm pretty sure he'll forgive me. I did send him a note back, telling him what Joe meant to me.
P.S. I just realized I'm mad at the media too. I mean, really. In '93 the news coverage wasn't what it is today, but if a bonehead in Buffalo has an ingrown toenail, sure-shootin' we're gonna hear about it. But a plane crash? Why bother...
