Joe was a family friend for a good 50+ years. I'm only 35, so I've known him all my life. I just found out this morning and I'm totally shocked. I googled him and found this board. Not surprised he hung out here ... he really loved those older cards. I tried to get him out to California for my dad's 60th birthday party a couple of years ago but it didn't work out.
I thought I'd drop a couple of Joe stories that were kind of funny.
When I was about 12 or 13 back in 1987, we went to a big card show in Anaheim. I'm an Angels fan and at the time, the hot card was a Wally Joyner rookie. We were at an auction they were having there and he bought something ... I don't remember what, but it probably cost around $10. At that time, I was totally into the value of every card. So in the car after the show, I asked him how much whatever it was that he bought was worth. Well Joe saw me as a fairly young kid and wanted me, above all, to have fun with the hobby. So he said, "Let me ask you, Sam, what price do you put on enjoyment?" I thought he asked what price I put on a Joyner. So when I answered, "I don't know ... about six bucks" ... he was pretty shocked. We cleared up the confusion and all was well.
For college, I went to Kansas State University. At the time, the football team was very good, like top 5 in the country. When he was young, he was recruited to play football there, but they were terrible, like 0-for-the-season terrible. He went in for his recruiting trip and saw the game film of KSU getting pummeled by Oklahoma. I remember talking to him for a couple of hours about his recruiting trip. He told me, "After seeing those films, I did something that I thought was safer than playing football at Kansas State ... I joined the Marines and went and fought in Korea!"
I know a lot of you met Joe or maybe only knew him via online. He was a super-nice guy and was always just a big kid, even when he was in his 70s. It doesn't surprise me at all that he got into it online with folks in debates, but if you ever met him, you would have really liked the time he spent with you. He was a super friendly guy.
Anyways, I just heard about this today and I'm pretty sad about it. When he didn't make it out to my dad's party, I knew I probably wouldn't see him again, and I was right.
I figure this is probably the best place to post this about him.