Joe Minnix (far left)
West Haven Road Race, July, 1986
As we approached the finish line of a road race one hot summer day, Joe and I spotted a young fellow about half our age who was wearing his high school track team’s uniform shirt. We glanced at each other, and knew what had to be done: we sprinted past him on either side, and finished the race far ahead of the teenager.
Showboating: it’s just one of those things that guys do, to thumb their noses at the aging process. As our finish times were recorded, Joe and I laughed that although we had beaten the teenager, he would have no trouble getting out of bed the next day, while we would stagger from our beds, stiff and sore.
This is one of my best memories of Joe, but there are so many others. You could spot Joe coming from a mile away: He had a slow, swaying gait that made him look like a running metronome. The slow appearance of his step was deceiving, for when we raced together, somehow he always seemed to beat me.
Together we ran along the shore on steaming hot summer days, through the rains of spring and fall, and on those winter mornings when your running footsteps fall silently on a bed of newly fallen snow, and the big, lazy flakes drift downward beneath the streetlights in the predawn darkness. Together we would run laps on the old cinder track at the high school, and on some days, we would run up and down one hill after another, in search of a new challenge. If we were training for a marathon, our Saturday routine was to run over to Lighthouse Park and back. We felt strong, vital, and perhaps almost immortal.
When you run with a man every day for ten years, you get to know him very well. Joe and I would share jokes and swap stories about our jobs, our interests, our churches and our then-young families. Every year, at Lent, I would kid him about the beard that he was growing for his part in his church’s Easter play.
And Joe would tell me that his love for ice cream was all that stood between him and his perfect running weight; for ice cream was his one and only vice.
Then one day, there was an accident and some knee surgery; afterwards, the surgeon told me that I was finished as a runner. My race numbers and running clothes were folded up and put away in the attic: Joe would have to find himself a new running partner.
It’s a common fault of men that we don’t do a very good job of keeping in touch with our friends. Over the next seven years, I saw Joe just a handful of times. He left his job as a welder at Bilco and very capably took over as the general manager of Bethany Welding. Then one New Years eve, I called him to do some catching up. “Joe, sorry it’s been so long, but I wanted to see what you’ve been up to. So, how’ve you been?” And Joe said, “Dan, I guess you haven’t heard…”
It was multiple myeloma, and it had attacked his pancreas. There was no hope. Joe suffered through the next two years, and somehow he maintained a brave and cheerful demeanor. One day, when I called him up, his greeting was, “Good news! I’m finally down to my perfect running weight!”
But actually, he was far past all of that. And in 1998, on a beautiful September day that was ideally suited for a couple of guys to take a run, Joe slipped away. And another collection of race numbers and running clothes was put away in another attic.
Joe’s life was cut short, and we’d judge it to be unfair, and ask why such things happen to such genuinely decent people. But I would offer that Joe not only enjoyed a happy life, indeed he was profoundly successful. By this I mean that he was well thought of in his workplace, his church, and his community: for Joe was one of those “quiet helpers” who can always be counted on for help when the need arises. And above all, he enjoyed the love and respect of a close and devoted family. Joe was a stand-up guy, and when he went off to meet his Maker and account for his life, I know that he went there standing tall.
Hanging in my home is a newspaper photo from 1984, showing Joe and me running together in a long-ago race. The caption reads, “Local Runners Showing No Fear.” There at my side is Joe Minnix, with that wisp of a smile that never seemed to leave his lips, as we ran beneath the spray of a fire hydrant in the late summer heat. To me, that smile was the essence of Joe Minnix: toughness and strength, together with cheerfulness and charm. I will forever be inspired by Joe’s example.