From Matt McCrory

From I have many fond memories of Sean. We were great friends in our youth, and there weren’t many days we were apart.

I remember when the average TV antenna started to become useless and all the neighbors installed cable TV. Back then, one remote could control any and every cable-installed TV within the remote’s range. So, Sean came up with the plan to take his own cable remote control and sneak up to homes and change the channel on their TVs from outside their living room window. We thought it was hilarious to watch pour neighbor’s confused and freaked out reaction to their TV changing channels on its own. We laughed so hard outside these people’s windows, I don’t know how we weren’t caught

I remember we spent hours and hours playing Dungeons and Dragons on his porch. We’d have MTV on the TV blaring in the house and leave the windows and doors open, so we could listen to music while we played and played D&D all day. Sean was always the Dungeon Master because none of us other kids had enough imagination to run a campaign. Only after remembering these times in our lives, I realize that Sean was the leader our friend group. Not by being a bully or loud, but because his aura was so creative and inviting that we all wanted to be a part of his world. Our thoughts were always, “What is Sean going to think of next?”.

Sean and I had a baseball card collection. And I remember Sean yearned for a Mickey Mantle rookie card so much that he was obsessed with getting one. So Sean researched and researched on how to get one. (This is obviously before Amazon and EBay, so he put real time and effort into finding one). He found out where we could get this coveted card, and how much it’d cost us. Of course, we didn’t have the money to purchase the card so Sean came up with a plan. We spent hours drawing and coloring pictures of the neighbors in Green Hills. Then we went door to door, and basically forced our neighbors to buy these hand-drawn, stick figure pictures from us. Somehow, we sold enough of our art and we were able to purchase the card. Sean was so proud of that card.

Back in the day, Sean spent the night at my house, coincidently, on the same night that Van Halen's “Jump” video premiered on MTV.  We made sure to stop whatever we were doing at least 5 minutes before the video was to premiere and park ourselves in front of the TV.  We watched that video every hour on the hour that night because MTV would play it every hour.  To this day, whenever I hear that song, it reminds me of that night with Sean.

During our days at Douglas Road Elementary, we spent hours and hours sitting on top of the tractor tires they put on the playground, and spending hours talking. We’d play king of the hill on top of these tires with other kids. One of the tires stood vertically and was half buried in the ground. This half-buried tire was so big, we as 5th or 6th graders could stand inside the interior of each side of the tire. One day, after school, Sean and I were hanging out with our “girlfriends” at the time on the playground. My girlfriend at that time was Julie Cornell, but I can’t remember Sean’s, but we snuck in each side of the tire with our girlfriend, and dared each other to kiss. My first kiss ever was with Julie, in front of Sean and his girlfriend. They did the same, and that day we thought we had become men.  

From Barbara Muir (mother)

Sean was artistic in the way of music and his drawings. Unfortunately, he wasn’t encouraged as he should’ve been. He loved the 80s bands, the louder the better. It got to a point when I said, I just couldn’t listen to the loud music he wanted to play by Kiss, Bon Jovi, Metallica , etc. so he decided to do a mix for me, which I believe took about a week and he put together samplings of some of the artists and why they were noted to be the best in the world for their talents. And then he made sure I knew about their education, where they studied music, etc. when I finally listened to the mix; I was very surprised at the gifts the musicians had. I never noticed because before the mix, it was just loud music to me. Long story short, he convinced me and he was able to play his music again. But it was toned down a little bit.

A continuation of the artists that he admired so much, after graduation from high school he let his hair grow so long, down the middle of his back, bleached, and made sure it was feathered back like a lead singer of one of his favorite bands. He wore it that way for a year plus, then decided it was time to cut it off. I was glad because with the long hair, he would spend triple the time in the bathroom in an effort to make his hair look perfectly quaffed.

Sean loved Halloween. One year incorporating the music that he loved, he encouraged me to make our house pitch black except for the one light on outside. He selected music that was really spooky and played it so it could be heard as trick or treaters approached our house. He then went up on the roof, laid there waiting for the kids come to the door. Then extend his arm and made "Ooooooooooooh!" noises. I realized what was going on because kids refused to approach the front door and even encouraged their friends not to get too close because it was too spooky. 

I had a piano and insisted Sean take piano lessons. He learned the notes and patiently practiced. He wrote a song for me, which was very pretty and I regret not having the tools we have today where I could have recorded it. He then proceeded to take up the tuba in school because he wanted to be a part of the high school band and later learned to play a guitar. Although from Michigan, he felt it amusing if he could go to Ohio State and dot the eye, a Michigan student dotting the eye in their band with his tuba.