Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Memories Of Joe

2017 would have been the most wonderful year for Joe Saxon, he traveled to Italy, then Israel, he traveled with his son to LA to watch the Seahawks beat the Rams, he found out that he was about to become a grandfather for the first time, he celebrated his 80th birthday, then one week after his birthday, he died.
Joe and I had been friends for several years. He was a customer at The UPS Store where I work.  We shared an interest in sports and Jewish culture. 
For the past several years, I was his guest annually at the Fred Hutchinson Awards luncheon.  I got to meet such baseball greats as Cal Ripken,Jr, Carlton Fisk, Dave Winfield, and Rod Carew.
We would go to temple together on Shabbat and the High Holidays.
Joe would make friends with practically everyone he met.  I always looked forward to his coming to the store.  Joe was not a drinker, but when we went out for dinner, he would always order a Long Island Ice Tea, which he thought did not have much alcohol (he was wrong), 
Joe had an amazing sports memorabilia collection with stuff that he obtained from auctions.  He would bring various sports artifacts to the store for us to pack and ship.
This fall, we both fulfilled a personal dream with our trip with our temple to Israel.  It was only a few weeks later on December 9th that I got a call from his son.  I thought that maybe they were calling to invite me to watch a Seahawk game with them, but it was dismal news that Joe had died. 
I will dearly miss him.

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