Joseph Lukasik, 1936-2021

RIP "Cowboy Joe"

My uncle Joe died in his sleep early Saturday morning.

Joe was married to my father’s sister, and was one of the pillars of the Polish side of the family. He’d do the blessing for Christmas Eve dinner in Polish every year, even though he was the only one left who spoke much (most my father’s generation know a handful of phrases, but no more). He was a key part of the assembly line operation (headed by Aunt Marie) that would churn out dozens of dozens of homemade pierogi for that meal. (Back in the day, his mother used to make them, and would do something like 80-100 dozen pierogi (for some reason, they’re always counted in dozens) for her kids and the church…) I think I remember him writing some history stories about the “Polish Heaven” section of Johnson City, NY (where they grew up and still live) for the local paper, but Google’s not turning up anything linkable.

Uncle Joe was one of the real characters of the family, a huge hit with the kids of multiple generations. At family parties when I young, he’d get together with all the kids (me and my sister, his two boys, and my uncle John’s two kids) and rev us up to do crazy stuff. My parents’ basement would routinely end up completely trashed, only partly because of the kids. (He really annoyed my sister a few times when some of her toys got abused in the process of these games.) He slowed down a lot over the years, but was still extravagantly silly with the kids, as you can see in the picture above of him doing magic tricks for The Pip a few Christmases ago, and this one with a very young SteelyKid where he’s doing… Well, I don’t know what he was doing, but SteelyKid clearly thought it was the funniest thing in the history of funny things.

He was in the Army for a while, stationed in Germany back in the 50’s or early 60’s; for a long time we had a fatigue jacket of his hanging in my bedroom closet that I had borrowed for a Halloween costume. (I think my sister ended up with that…) After that, he worked for a printer, and would sometimes snag copies of books with errors that otherwise would’ve been pulped— signatures bound in backwards, covers that got mangled, etc.— if he knew somebody who might be interested in the contents. I particularly remember some “Field Guide to…” books we had that came from him.

He was a bit of a contrarian, which was reflected in his sports fandom. In a town full of Yankees fans, he decided to root for the Baltimore Orioles (though in the 90’s he largely shifted his allegiance to the Atlanta Braves, after my cousin Joey moved there). And when the Dallas Cowboys started up in 1960, he latched onto them as his football team, which he stuck with forever. He almost always had some sort of Cowboys gear on— the above photos are a little unusual in that regard— and as a result was affectionately known as “Cowboy Joe” to a lot of people in their neighborhood. I fully expect that the funeral on Saturday will be attended by more than one person wearing a Roger Staubach jersey.

These sports allegiances were occasionally a source of annoyance at family gatherings, since my father and grandfather and I were fans of the Yankees and Giants (most of the rest of the family were sports agnostic, though Joe won my cousin Andrew over to the Cowboys). I think I remember one year when the Cowboys and Giants were playing on Christmas Eve, in the run-up to the family dinner, and my grandmother finally had to order the TV turned off because Joe and my grandfather kept yelling at each other. He was a little insufferable during the Aikman-Irvin-Smith era, but I’ve enjoyed teasing him about the Cowboys’ struggles over the last 20-odd years; since my Giants have stunk for a lot of that time, he gave back as good as he got.

He and Marie had two sons— Joey, who lived in Atlanta for a long time, and is now in Wisconsin, and Kevin who lives just across the river from me— seven grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter. The whole clan got together a few weeks ago in Wisconsin for the Covid-delayed wedding of one of their grandsons; from the photos on Facebook it looks like a grand time was had by all.

We haven’t seen him much outside of Christmas Eve dinners over the last several years, but it was always a treat to see him mugging for the little kids, and telling fourth-grade-level jokes. I always got him the same Christmas gift— a 12-pack of Coors Light (his taste in beer was as bad as his taste in sports teams)— and made a point to put a little bow on the box.

His passing leaves a big hole, and he’ll be missed.

---

Not the usual fare here, but, you know, writing is how I process stuff, so this is what you get. More normal content (whatever that means) will resume tomorrow.