JOE ANTONIE

I often would describe Joe as a "gentle giant." Joe was a big man. He wasn't fat. He was just big. To me he always seemed to be about eight feet tall. Of course he was probably no bigger than 6'4. But still, he seemed to tower over everyone from an early age.

Picture Shaquille O'neal's body. That is Joe Antonie.

I went to both Magee and Clarke with Joe. Although we were never friends or anything, what limited contact we had was certainly friendly. Joe was that way with everyone. Had he chose to, he could carry with him an intimidating presence. But he didn't. Joe was pretty soft spoken and kind to everyone.

I got to know Joe a bit in our junior year, in Ms. Sapa's creative writing class. It was there that I found that Joe was a pretty cool guy. He was into a lot of the same music that I was. I think he had a thing for Pink Floyd. We had a mutual friend in class of 1990's Jason Krings.

Joe once created the title of "Bad Burt" for me. The document is scanned in below. Joe gave it to me. He signed it "King Siem" - which was some sort of nickname he would occasionaly go by.



On an unrelated note, Richard created a deed to the Earth for me. In Sapa's class, she once responded to something vile I said, by asking if I owned the Earth or something. I said that I did. I then showed her a document. Sure shit, she said, "I guess you do." The deed is below.



As seniors, Joe invited Dave Svatek and myself over to his house for some Dungeons & Dragons. According to some of the prior comments around here, we weren't the first. Larry Daffner joined us as well. Joe was in charge, and guided us through the game. Two things about those games come to mind. For one, I broke the house record for stacking dice. And two, I poked a hole in a candle. Larry somehow pulled the pencil out, and was met with a stream of rushing candle wax. All the while, Joe's brother Tom was upstairs playing the drums. At one point, Joe's other brother Bob came in with a few of his friends to watch us play. After they left, Joe commented that he was a bit annoyed that they'd interupted us.

Up in his room, Joe had this gigantic felt poster or something of Pink Floyd's "The Wall." I think he said it cost about $200.00.

Joe lived next door to fellow graduate Al Wegner.

Joe was dating a girl from the class of 1990. I think her name was Krista Ries. He also dated Jen Owens, another member of the class of 1990. Although I believe that happened during our first year out of high school.

After high school, Joe went on to college. He eventually became a chiropractor. I believe he has his own practice, in the city of Galesville, Wisconsin. He's married and has one daughter.

A few weeks ago, my wife and were having a discussion as to what profession we would like to know someone that works in it. In other words, what perks could we get? My wife's answer - chiropractor. Now we know one.