I've known Joe for years and as long as I've known him, he's always been around to provide some great memories. During lunch in high school I remember eating with him, John, and a bunch of other kids and Joe would always tell us this story about this porn he watched where a lady was riding a bicycle and ever time she pedaled she would be penetrated with a dildo...yes, it was just as absurdly hilarious as it sounds.
My favorite memory of Joe has to come from the trip to Cancun a big group of us went on for Spring Break our senior year of high school. Since we were a bunch of 18-year-old's from Michigan who could legally drink for the first time in our lives in a beautiful place on the ocean with people who didn't speak English, it suffices to say that most of the time we weren't sober; but there was one night in particular when Joe was a little bit more drunk than everyone else a little bit earlier than everyone else. I was in the hotel room with John and Greg when Joe knocked on our door and came in, hammered from drinking with his older brother Jeff for a while. When he walked in he proceeded to put on what I can only describe as a beautifully orchestrated, booze fueled dance fest, and it was there that he gave the world a dance move that just keeps on giving: The Beached Whale. It was one of those freak things that happened and will never be repeated with the same hilarity as it was that night, but to get an idea of what I'm talking about, here's a chubby dude doing a much poorer version of it Beached Whale (Poser Edition). I don't know why, maybe it was becayse I was dehydrated from being around undrinkable water and was a dumbass teenager, but that was one of the funniest things I have ever seen, and only Joe, the giant goof ball of a man he is, could have pulled it off.
I don't see Joe all that often these days, although he was part of the group of us that went down to Miami for Spring Break our junior year of college, which was also a great time, but I think I'll save that memory for another one of the dudes that went down there. Whenever I do see Joe though, he's still the same good guy he's always been, and anybody who gets the chance to talk to him seriously for a few minutes will know that he really is just a genuinely good guy. Even though like the rest of us he acts a little more "adult" now, there's always that feeling that at any moment, maybe after one more shot, the beached whale will flop out of the ocean and make the world laugh once again.
-Andrew
