With the Coronavirus scare going around right now, I feel like I should have some kind of story to tell you about Jordan and being sick. But the truth of the matter is, I don't remember him getting sick a whole lot.
I'm sure he did, just as much as any other kid. But my memories of being sick are almost always me, because I was (and still am) a huge hypochondriac, terrified of every illness.
What I do remember is that my brother was really tough. I recall him getting sick once before recess when he was in elementary school. He didn't want to be forced to leave school before getting to go outside and play, so he supposedly threw up inside his own jacket to conceal the fact he was sick.
But the closest "sick" story I have off the top of my head was when he fractured his leg. That happened when he was maybe twelve years old, and it happened while he was playing soccer. 
It took him out of sports and other activities he loved for months. For awhile, he was stuck on the couch in the living room because it was too much of a hassle to hobble and down stairs. But, as far as I remember, he wasn't the kind of person to let this get him too down.
Oh, I remember him complaining that his leg itched under the cast. Or how much of a pain it was to have to go to the bathroom when he could hardly move his leg. But he didn't fall into some kind of depression over it, and he eventually recovered just fine.
I can't help but think that, if he were to look at what's going on today, he would think we're all being silly. He would laugh at the people rushing to the grocery stores to stock up on toilet paper. He'd probably have some poop joke about why they "need" so much of it. And you can bet, if it were fishing season right now, he'd absolutely be taking advantage of lakes emptied by people hiding out in their houses.
I can practically hear him saying, "Well, that's just more for me, then."

-Amanda J. Tucker

We all know Jordan liked to fish. He had fishing shirts, he constantly talked about fishing, he made disgusting-smelling crappie sandwiches at home, and he took tons of pictures with his catches. I think there's even a video on YouTube of him somewhere chasing Mom or Bre around the house with a fish.
And when you love something, you try to share it with the people in your life. One of those people, of course, was me.
Jordan's love for fishing goes all the way back to when he was a little boy. And his constantly trying to convince me to fish goes all the way back, too. 
I remember we went fishing on some lake I can't remember when I was maybe around five or six years old. It was me, Jordan, and a handful of adults. I had my rod in the water just like everyone else, not that I really knew what I was doing.
At some point, someone called us all to let us know that lunch was ready. Everyone reeled in their lines and went to go eat. Jordan, however, wanted to stay out there fishing, and he convinced me to leave my line in the water while I went to go eat, too. 
I was one of the first people back out there on the dock after lunch, and I was surprised to find that Jordan had caught a fish while I was gone. He told me he had actually caught it on my line. 
When everyone else came back out, he told everyone that I had caught the fish. I'm not sure why. Maybe he was trying to inspire me to keep on fishing. Maybe he wanted me to feel accomplished. 
To this day, if the conversation ever calls for it (which admittedly doesn't happen often), I tell people that the first and only fish I ever caught, I caught while I wasn't even there.  That's all thanks to Jordan. 

​-Amanda J. tucker

I have a whole plethora of video game-related memories with Jordan, but most of them are so brief, I couldn't really justify making a whole post of them. So I figured I would just put random snippets of memories here in this post - whichever ones come to mind first.
The Super Nintendo was a little bit early for us, but we had access to one at our grandparents' house. We had Super Mario Bros (I don't remember which one), and Jordan was seemingly a pro at it in my eyes. He knew how to get Yoshi in all these different colors, and I was pissed because I could only ever figure out how to get him in green.
We did more of our growing up up with the Playstation One. We didn't do as much gaming together on that, but I do remember Grand Theft Auto 2. We played it the most after Jordan fractured his leg when he was maybe around twelve years old. For awhile, he stayed downstairs on the couch because he didn't want to walk up and down the stairs with his big, clunky cast.
We played GTA 2 a lot on the TV downstairs. He actually knew what he was doing in the game. He knew how to find a tank and go on a rampage. I just liked playing because if you pressed the right buttons, your guy would burp and fart on the screen. Maybe I was a simpler child at times.
When the next generation of game consoles came out, Jordan got a PS2. He also was a well-established grumpy teenager by that time and wouldn't share it with his little sisters. Sometimes, if he was in a very generous mood, he would let us play something on it, but generally, he kept it to himself and played various sports games I wasn't interested in, anyway.
That's why, after saving up some birthday money for a bit, I decided I was going to get a PS2, too. But Jordan argued that was stupid because we already had one (even if I couldn't really play it) and made me get a GameCube. It was probably one of the smartest decisions I made in my life at the time, which isn't saying a lot, I guess.
I loved my GameCube, and it was all thanks to Jordan that I got it in the first place. He used to call it the "Game Cubicle" for whatever reason, while I just called it Gary. One of the first games I got on it was Super Smash Brothers Melee, which I used to play with Jordan and Bre all the time. We quickly unlocked all the characters together. 
I remember when we unlocked Mewtwo. Jordan threw down his controller and said he wouldn't play anymore, because I was getting too good, and he worried I would be impossible to beat if I always played Mewtwo. Too bad he didn't play with us very often after that, because honestly, Mewtwo kind of sucks and I would have started losing if I played as him a lot.
-Amanda J. Tucker