I met Joel when I entered Quinson Elementary School. He was a rather overweight and big fellow. Not overly tall, but he stood like a giant. He lived down the street from me in this house with his mom and his older brother Grant.

Joel was pretty much in the same grade as I was but he was rarely in my class. There were enough of us kids for two classes at Quinson. From the random pick, he sometimes ended up in my class.

Joel had an interest in Apple Computers and gaming consoles. He was the first guy in our block that got an Intellivision video game system. He bought tonnes of cartridges for that thing. We would spend countless hours playing mindless Astrosmash. Sea Battle and Baseball was fun but he was too good at them. Boxing was fun too but the controller inserts got wrecked from all the button pressing. I was always able to relax with 5 card stud Poker.

Joel was never much into sports. I remember one Sports Day, Joel was walking back to the Open Area. I am guessing he got a bleeding nose. He gets that a lot.

I also remember Joel being the first person to claim that he found a German SS helmet in the game Castle Wolfenstien for the Apple II.

I remember back to another Sports Day, it was a day we were doing a huge tug of war. I think it was Mrs. Graves class (Joel's team) against Mr. McIver's Class (my team). Their team lost even when they had big man Joel as the anchor guy.

Joel also had a pool table in his basement. Now, I don't ever really remember playing pool on it. Well, maybe once. However, I remember setting up the green army men guys and smashing them down using pool balls. That was strangely more fun.

Joel had suffered with high blood pressure and had complications due to medications and internal bleeding.