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My Personal Memories Of Joe By I first met Joe at the Haunted Schoolhouse in the 1996 season, one of the best seasons as far as I am concerned. I was working graveyard in my usual fashion (a story for another time) getting a ton of scares, and in comes this idiot acting like he runs the place telling me that I am doing it all wrong, and this was a kid over 5 years younger than me. He told me his name was Joe Cyrek and he was surprised that I never heard of him (like most the egos of the schoolhouse work). He started banging a shovel across the entranceway to graveyard crawling up the walls and hanging upside down from the garage door. I told him he was crazy and I would continue doing things my own way, he shrugged his shoulders and wandered off to cause mischief somewhere else in the maze and to hopefully pester someone else. After my accident in the schoolhouse (it goes along with that story for another time) I will say Joe’s way definitely influenced my method of working the room. I was he idiot banging the shovel against the entranceway, crawling up the walls, and hanging from the garage door. Not to let Joe’s ego get to big, he was not the sole influence for this behavior, but he did give me a second perspective into how to work the room. For the next couple years I did not have much contact with him, seeing I was semi retired from the Schoolhouse. I ran into here and there at the Moore residence and he always said hi. I said hi back, but I told my then Fiancée to ignore him and maybe he’ll go away. He kept trying to talk to us and when we left we would turn to one another and go is he your friend? I don’t talk to him so he’s not my friend. In the 1999 Schoolhouse year a group of us were talking of role-playing dungeons and dragons at the end of the night. Well this guy (Joe) asked if he could come over and game with us. I told him that I didn't'’ care, the more the merrier. He asked if he could crash over my place, I cleared it with Autumn, seeing I didn’t want her to have to wake up with a stranger or strange person for that matter in the house. Well he came over created an elven thief character, Damien PuckDraven Darkling, with a double long sword – think Darth Maul with swords instead of the light saber. He was real excited about getting to airbrush the sign of the schoolhouse. It was almost like his coming of age at the schoolhouse. He was one of my guides. Every night he wanted to bet that he would not get the first fiend award, we had to keep telling him that the award was for the younger generation and he missed his chance once upon a time. He had a real fetish for glow in the dark make up and loved roaming/ working the ramp. At the end of every schoolhouse night Joe came and stayed over and usually we gamed I think he missed one night of gaming the whole season. He became a constant fixture upon my couch. Sometimes he stayed days on end always the thoughtful son checking in with his mother. We did a lot of things together but all in all not that much. We gamed went out about town which we all no is not much played video games, role-played, went to borders, then around the beginning of December Joe disappeared for about a month. There was an altercation with another one of our friends who will remain nameless. Then around January he started showing back up again. Autumn and him started competing in Final Fantasy 8. The whole problem I had with that is when one of them found something the other had missed they restarted the game all over again, and it is a long ass game. We all saw Dogma together and I managed to get Joe on the boat that was Kevin Smith is the greatest thing ever. Around February we started going to the Flying Saucer Coffee Shop which many of you know was a big part of Joe's life, he always talked about how cool it would be to work there. We usually spent at least every Saturday they and a day or two during the week. His favorite beverage was a 25 oz. Brian's Comet. One time Sean bet him a free Brian's Comet if Joe could drink the full 25 oz. one in less than 20 seconds. Joe did it in 17 seconds. He always said he was going to work to get it down to less than ten. He said the answer was a larger straw. Joe always told big stories wanting you to think he was larger than life. In some ways he was, in other ways he seemed to feel inadequate. He never wanted his family to know he smoked so he would always send me into Speedway to buy his Marlboros from his grandmother Sandy. Then there was Marcon, the one thing that we had talked Joe into (not much talking required), that we actually followed through on. I was in a separate car than the one Joe, Autumn, and Jonathan took down to Columbus. I rode with Griffaw on the ride down. We left roughly 3 hours after they supposedly left. When we reached Ashland I got a call on my cell phone, from Joe, that they needed the directions again because they forgot to copy them down. They were only 45 minutes ahead of us on I-71.
Looking back Joe and I never did a lot but we did things he loved, go to the coffee shop, role-played, watched Kevin Smith movies, we didn't have to always go out and be off the wall. I really enjoyed just hanging out with him. He was one of my best friends.
these crw designs are what I am considering for a tatoo
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