Bob had a great sense of humor.  I was at the Leaning Tower of Pisa with a student group.  My 12 year old son was with me at the time.  Suddenly, there was this man "following" me with a camera in his hand. He was taking pictures of me.  My son said, "Mom, he is a masher."  Then I realized it was Bob. I approached him and gave him a hug.  My son was livid...until I told him who the man was.  It's a small world.  It was totally accidental meeting Bon in Italy.  Yes, Adrienne was there.  She caught up with us moments later.  Bob, you will be missed.  Joyce Stephens

Joel was one of the nicest people I have ever met.

I worked with Joel at Transwestern. He was a successful well informed / educated man who always treated everyone with kindness & respect. Our condolences go out to the entire Cannon family and friends. We hope you find peace through your memories of Joel.

My sincere condolences and fond thoughts to the family of my old friend Joel Cannon. As we celebrate his wonderful life and the many contributions he made in this community, I will always remember his friendly and warm smile, and his brightly coloured ties. 
He was a veteran when I began and he taught me many lessons in dealing with people and how to succeed in this difficult business. 
I never had to ask twice for his support on behalf of the American Heart Association. His spirit and his
enthusiasm about life and people will be remembered as we celebrate his life.

Adrienne, we will all miss Bob, your complementary other half.
He always had a smile, a twinkle in his eye, and a great sense of humor of life, plucked from his great knowledge of the world. I always enjoyed the times spent with you, Bob, and your wonderful children, considering you "best friends" of mine forever. Sending my love at this time to each of you, Adrienne, Chris, Alyssa and Tae. Please stay in touch!

I knew Joel first as a trusted real estate advisor, later as a trusted friend for over 20 years. He was always positive, full of energy and totally unwilling to give up on a good cause.  Many of my favorite jokes, I first heard from him.  Everyone I knew who knew Joel had a good and humorous story to tell.

His ability to multi-task was legendary.  I used to beg him to let me hold his soft drink while he talked on the phone and took notes while driving.

About 12 years ago my company reorganized and stopped using Joel's company for real estate, but he always stayed in contact - not to win new business but as a friend.

We had lunch several times a year, most recently, this spring.  Those lunches always went fast and always covered a multitude of topics including family stories (always good ones. 

We shared pictures of grandchildren and of our dogs.  One day I asked if my wife Jane could join us for lunch.  I wanted her to meet this man who had taught me so much - not only about real estate but about life lessons.  Evenyone who knew Joel will miss him greatly, but the memories will last our lifetimes and beyond.

I will always remember Joel for his engaging personality. He seemed quite at ease talking with everyone and anyone. He was a good friend, always ready to share ideas from the latest book he was reading. Joel did love his history and politics making him a perfect fit in the DC real estate world. He will be missed by all.

Those who are worn out and crushed by this mourning, let your hearts consider this: 
this is the path that has existed from the time of creation and will exist forever.
Many have drunk from it and many will yet drink.
As was the first meal, so shall be the last.
May the master of comfort comfort you.
Blessed are those who comforts the mourners.
- Blessing of the Mourners 

I am so very sorry for your loss, and hope that you are comforted by the knowledge that Mr. Cannon touched the lives of so many in such a positive way.  I will remember him fondly, and will treasure the gift he gave me in the form of a friend.  
With warmest regards - Natalie Frey

In August, 2006, we attended the Reno High School Class of 1951 reunion, where I shared a table with Bob and Adrienne. I had not met Adrienne before and thought Bob lucky to have married such a charming and accomplished woman. As we caught up with our lives since the fifties, they spoke proudly of their careers and family. 
 
The next day the three of us shared reminiscences by visiting the house where Bob and Lou lived in Reno. We also visited other sites that were meaningful to Bob. Then we drove to Pyramid Lake--we remembered our high school trips to Pyramid, picnicking on the shore and swimming in its warm and buoyant waters.

The first time I saw Bob he was in the audience of our "Tap Shuffle," sitting with my husband, Douglas.  Bob had come to watch Adrienne and her colleagues perform tap routines at the BalletNova  studio.  He was there from the beginning, applauding Adrienne, supporting Adrienne, taking photos of Adrienne and the dancers.  Bob always had the most engaging smile and a twinkle in his eye, even later, as he dragged along his oxygen tank, now with Adrienne supporting him.
Bob was a valiant man who has left an empty front row seat.  We miss him, and we will remember him.

Bob Cannon came into our lives one Christmas season when I discovered he enjoyed dressing as Santa.  I asked him if he would be Santa for a photo of Santa and my yorkie, Hana.  He was generous with his time and had a twinkle in his eye equal to that of Santa.  It was then I thought he would be a wonderful Santa for our caroling and he was more than gracious about doing so each year until it became too difficult for him.  We have missed him each December 24th and will continue to miss him in our community for the kind and generous man he was.  Rest in Peace, Bob.

Barbara and Larry Helm

            An obituary by Joel's brother and son

Joel Robert Cannon was born on January 14, 1935 at Lenox Hill Hospital, in New York City. His parents, Jack and Irene, and his older brother, Lou, moved to Reno, Nevada, in 1937 when he was 2.  They moved to Fallon, Nevada, in 1941 and back to Reno in 1945. The Cannons had a used goods store that sold magazines, clothes and guns when they were in Reno, and they moved back to open a larger but similar store on Commercial Row.  In Fallon, they owned and operated a motel, the Cannon Court.  It was across from the Churchill County fairgrounds, which every September had a big rodeo. The motel property included a big open field that the Cannons would rent for a pittance to someone who turned it into a parking lot for the rodeo. In 1944, when Lou was only 11, he persuaded Jack to let him run the lot, and Bob (Joel was always known as 'Bob' in his early years), at 9, insisted on helping. Soon both were also parking the cars. Between them the boys made more than $100 ($1300 in today's dollars), and for the first time (but hardly the last), Bob felt rich.
     
Bob was outgoing and always willing to help.   He wasn't good at sports but he liked being around athletes—or around anyone for that matter—and in his junior year at Reno High, he was manager of the basketball team. He graduated from high school at 16 (in 1951) and went off to study foreign affairs at San Francisco State (graduating with a degree in 'General Sciences' in 1956). By this point his parents had sold their store and bought a ranch for cattle and sheep in a remote location of southern Oregon, a few miles from the town of Grants Pass.  Once, when Bob was on his way to visit them in his old DeSoto, on a lonely road north of Reno, a deer ran out in front of the car.  The car was totaled, but Bob only had a few bruises.  It was the first of many occasions when he was going far too fast but got away with it (in later life he could not wear a tie without having it blown sideways over his shoulder; and it was eventually understood by his employers that he did not need a secretary; he needed two). As he put it whenever the subject of his wrecked car came up: "You should have seen the deer."
  
In 1957, he received a Master's Degree in Eastern Studies from UC Berkeley and headed back to New York City in the hopes of working for the United Nations. There was a hiring freeze for all U. S. citizens at that point however, so he enrolled in the Ph. D. program at Columbia and took up residence at International House. In about two weeks he realized that the pace of graduate school was just too slow for him, but he had already met his future wife, Adrienne, and so he spent the rest of the year commuting between New York City and Washington D. C., where he had found work in the old family line: real estate. As luck would have it, this was just the moment that the nation's capital was transforming itself from a sleepy southern town into a major city, and the money was good.  Bob settled with Adrienne in the D. C. suburbs and started a family (Chris was born in 1964, Alyssa in 1967, and Tae in 1970).  He was complete in his devotion to his family all his life, a fine caretaker, always able and ready to move mountains, whenever anyone he loved found a mountain in his or her way.
    
 Joel (Bob was always known as 'Joel' professionally) worked, first, for Berens Company, then Cyrus Katzen, then for 10 years for the Charles E Smith Companies. For a brief period he flirted with a political career, running for County Commissioner in Prince Georges County. When he lost the election he thought briefly about going back to school (law perhaps), but instead threw himself back into real estate, where he was snapped up, in 1976, by a large Boston firm, Leggat, McCall and Werner, who were moving into the Washington D. C. market and chose the agent they thought was the best in the city to spearhead their new venture. What began as a shaky project, with three employees, in one large room, in the aging Federal Building, was, within a few years, an enterprise of many scores, and among the foremost real estate firms in Washington D. C.  Joel was instrumental to this extraordinarily rapid growth, regularly winning awards for leasing the most office space in the city in a given year.  In 1986 Leggat, McCall and Werner was purchased by a national firm, Grubb and Ellis, and Joel became chairman of the Washington office.
     
Although he was a businessman his whole professional life, Joel's politics meant that he was much more interested in communities than money (when describing what he did, he was as likely to quote from Mao's Little Red Book as the Wall Street Journal). Although he had an encyclopedic knowledge of the whole of Washington's commercial real estate market, his success derived much more from his gregariousness and honesty, his devotion, not to buildings, but to the people who inhabited them. He spent many hours after work in the service of the American Heart Association (and became chairman of its Nation's Capital Affiliate,). In 1987 he was a founding member—then president—of the visionary Ballston Partnership, which worked to bring together developers, community organizers, and local residents to build spaces that would serve the residents of Arlington rather than displace them. As Joel put it in a feature in the first issue of New Dominion magazine, the goal was 'livable development'. 
     
Joel quit smoking in 1976, but he was stricken with emphysema in the last decade of his life. The possibility that his world might slowly contract only gave new scope to his optimism however, and when he could no longer make it to an office, he became a telecommuter—at this point as a Vice-President for Transwestern Commercial Services—and his many friends, increasingly, flocked to him. He was, by this time, also a devoted grandfather, as thrilled as the rest of his family was lucky that his grandson, Raymond (born 2001), and his granddaughter, Josephine (born 2009), turned out to be so much like him. Although he seemed completely unstoppable until the very last, he died suddenly, on May 2nd, 2012 at 77 years of age.

May your memories of the wonderful times you shared with your loved one comfort you and your family, today and always.

Finishing the week on a somber, yet incredibly life-affirming note, I want to acknowledge Joel Cannon --father of my dear friend Alyssa J Cannon, Chris Cannon and Tae Cannon, husband of Adrienne, grandfather of Ray and Josie, doggie daddy of Lucy, and friend of mine. Nearly 10 days ago, a brilliant life was quietly, swiftly, and I hope, painlessly extinguished after a long battle with lung and heart illnesses. Mr Cannon had a gregarious spirit that lit up the room of any he entered. He held equal measures of jaw-dropping intelligence, compassion, humor, and the keenest interest in the world and in anyone whose life he touched. In the real estate world, he was kind of ... the polar opposite of ... and the yin to Donald Trump's yang. From the day I first met him, I knew we would lose him too soon, but nothing could prepare any of us to lose him last week as -- truly -- unexpectedly, as he did. He embodied the word resilience and embraced life with a gusto that most of us only aspire to. To the Cannon family, I am so very sorry for your loss ... the sun shines a little less brightly without your Joel among us. Rest in Peace, Mr Cannon. You are dearly missed, but we're all so grateful you passed through this time on earth when we did.

A ring leader and master of ceremonies known to those in the commercial real estate arena throughout the Mid-Atlantic. Joel could often be seen coming into his home juggling papers from his briefcase, still on the cell, petting one of his beloved dogs named "Bear" and helping get the grill going for Adrienne. A man that cared more of everybody else than of himself and went out of his way to help. I would be hard pressed to find somebody he touched throughout his life he didn't help in some way or another.

I had the pleasure of knowning Joel and his family while dating his daughter Alyssa. When I first went to meet him she warned me about is humor which always keep me on toes. I can truly say during this time Joel became a father figure to me and I will always have a fond memories of him and the guidance he gave.

He once told me that younger brokers he mentored along would try to out-perform him. He would say" I taught them well but I didn't give away all my secrets" as he would land yet another deal of the century.

One time, while house sitting Joel's dog got sick and had to be rushed to the vet. Here I am carrying "Bear" into the Mercedes and I was worried about the slobber on the leather..Alyssa leans over and say "forgot the car the dog is in his will"..

While I sit here and write this I know Joel is smiling down upon me enjoying the memories. We have lost a true friend and heaven has gained a wonderful soul.

I will always remember that gleam in his eye and the little smile he had when he would joke with people or come up with a new zinger.  He loved to have fun with people. He will be sadly missed, but the warm thoughts and memories of Bob will remain with all those who knew and loved him.

An icon in commercial real estate, a friend and colleague and an outstanding human being has departed and I will miss his jovial demeanor and intelligence. We met in 1980 and remained friends throughout many changes in our lives and industry. Please know that my heart is with all of his family.
Dianne Schachner

Forty-eight years ago, my husband, Dick, and I signed up for childbirth classes, and there we met the couple who became our lifelong friends: Adrienne and Joel Robert Cannon (though we knew him as Bob).

Over the years we celebrated ordinary family get-togethers, plus holidays and birthdays together. There are so many memories: from first birthday party celebrations in the back yard, with Bob sprawling on the grass, a human jungle gym for our one-year-olds to clamber over, to joint birthday celebrations for Bob and Dick, born just one week apart. Last year, each couple celebrated fiftieth wedding anniversaries. It was heartwarming to see Bob's smile as he and Adrienne celebrated this wonderful milestone, now with their grown children and two grandchildren joining in the party at their home.

A few months later, our anniversary party was punctuated by a fierce hurricane, but Bob braved the weather to drive Adrienne and himself to our house to celebrate with us, even though he had to bring tanks of oxygen in through the downpour.

That was Bob - always going the extra mile to participate in life as fully as he could, no matter what health problems he had to overcome in recent years, always going the extra mile for others. At such celebrations, Bob was the life of the party, passionate about books, history, politics and far-ranging discussions. And he was always an optimist, despite all always looking forward to another day.  

Yes, there are so many memories and it's so sad to realize that at future get-togethers, Bob will be there only in memory. But the loving memories that his family and his friends have of him will last our lifetimes.

We can hardly overcome this sad news. Our hearts are full of sorrow. For all the Myasoedovs the words - USA, American friends, US people, etc. were connected with Joel. He helped us to discover the human side of your great country. He was always happy to help his friends from all the parts of the World. We remember hem when he visited Wake Forest University in 1990 and invited me and Zina to come to Washington. We remember Joel's "dacha“ - in your very friendly house where we were always welcomed warmly. We remember Joel in the USSR and in Russia - always open for the new ideas, experience.
 
Joel for us is a great man of the great country. He is a friend we shall be always missing. Let the God bless his soul.
------------------------
Sergey, Zina, Daria, Dmitry (Daria's husband), Pavel, Polina, Oleg (Zina's father), Tamara (Sergey's mother), German and Elena (Zina's uncle and aunt).

In Memory of Joel

I met Joel maybe 17 years ago, soon after we emigrated from St. Petersburg.  I was still anxious to learn "how it works in America." The meeting was at a luncheon of the DC chapter of Lambda Alpha International (Honorary Land Economics Society). Joel noticed my heavily accented English when I asked a question, approached me during a break, and in his usual disarming and engaging manner chatted with me a bit. This started a long-lasting tradition of 1-3 lunches a year.  At a couple of last lunches, in 2010 - 2011, Joel was carrying his oxygen tank with him.

Joel always was very open about his health problems, but in a striking manner: very matter-of-fact, never complaining. He would just explain what he was doing to fix them, and switch the subject.

Our conversations were always about the same range of things:  business, his and mine; a bit about politics and books; a bit about Russia and, sometimes, his other Russian friends; a bit about children and families. Joel always had deals in progress or development and spoke enthusiastically about them.

Later, our families got acquainted, and Victor became very fond of Joel as well, while I became a dedicated reader of Adrienne's acute and non-sentimental prose about aging.  

The main quality which I treasured and loved in Joel was his unbeatable life positivism. For me, Joel was among key "proofs" why our emigration made so much sense: you cannot imagine a Jew in Russia with such an open personality, not being afraid of anything, being fully woven into the fabric of the society, being its bright thread. There, Jews were always on guard, always thinking how to protect children from ethnic discrimination and humiliation. I know - I am from such a family.    

Joel had some striking street-wise skills. Once, he brokered a business meeting between one of his Russian acquaintances and someone else, and asked me to accompany him for this meeting.  Joel was driving his usual Mercedes, the Russian guy was driving his own car, and when we finished the meeting the Russian guy figured out that he locked his key in the car. Joel said "don't worry," opened a trunk of his Mercedes, pulled off a long bendable steel plank, made one precise move of pushing it down into a locked-car door, between a window glass and the door (I even didn't know about a gap existing there!) - and the door opened. When, stunned, I asked him how in the world he knew how to do this and had the steel piece ready, he just laughed and said, if I remember correctly, "I am from New York, and you just have it there."

I will miss you coming in to visit my office.  No matter how you felt, you always had a smile and a kind word, which was alway needed.  Thank you for being you.
Debbie Warner
Mount Vernon Cardiology, Associates
Front Desk Check-In

OBITUARY

Joel Robert Cannon

January 14, 1935 – May 2, 2012

Demaine Funeral Home

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