I miss Les - A Radish offseason memory thread

So I was going through my PM's trying to delete the 1500 moderator responses I'm CC'ed on (thanks guys) and I came upon the ones from Les that I kept purposely. It hurts my heart to read them, but I wanted to take the opportunity to celebrate his legacy here by asking for those that knew him, either here on .NET or in "real life", to share a memory with us.

And for those that are new to the site, Les was one of only two people on this board that I feel created the "community" feel we know and love (the other being Aros) and he became so much more to those of us that had the opportunity to get to know him personally. He was a moderator for a decade, and was well known for being the grandfather of the entire user base. Plus, he loved his Seahawks more than a lot of us ever will, so I thank all of the higher powers that he was able to see his beloved team win that SuperBowl before he passed.

So with that, I'll ask to please share a memory in honor of our friend. :les: :17:

The ever-reliable "please check your PMs".

Oh, and having read some business on Doug Farrar around here, it brought back to my mind a time where he walked back a harsh opinion on Farrar and gave him some credit for...something. I don't remember exactly. But it takes a big man to honestly reshape his views.

My God

Sent: Mon Jan 20, 2014 3:22 am
From: The Radish
To: KitsapGuy

We get to see another SuperB owl

Hope we can win this one even tho all the press will be rooting for Manning.

:les:

MontanaHawk05":23giw2my said:

The ever-reliable "please check your PMs".

In his honor, I have elected never to delete his PMs from my inbox.

Click to expand...

Ditto. I will never delete my PMs with him. He was an incredible man and my husband and I were so fortunate to meet him and Darlene when I came out to see the Hawks play in 2008.

If you are willing to take a couple of minutes, this is an awesome "Les" story.

My eyes got cloudy rereading it before this post.

viewtopic.php?t=100456#p1468403

Don't have a lot of PM's anymore, happened to clean everything out shortly before Les passed, but do have some emails I kept, he would send me something or ask how I was doing and my wife, he knew she had some issues. But nobody kept in touch better the Les and showed his genuine friendship.

Thanks again Les for being a part of my life.

Les inviting strangers (like me) into his home during training camp when the Hawks were in Cheney. Sitting in the back yard talking football and drinking a few cold ones. He and his wife were so gracious!

We had some fights via PM, but they always ended with hugs. There was no shortage of kindness and patience in his heart.

I will keep his PMs forever.

Even the ones picking on the Navy...

Miss that man...and our chats.

Every time Jack in the Box does their NFL helmet antenna balls, Les would send me a Seahawks one since I live in the Bay Area and I would send him a Raiders one for one of his family members who likes the Raiders. It was a little tradition that I miss dearly because it was one of the ways I looked forward to interacting with Les outside of the forums.

I think of Les almost every day on this site. I miss him a lot.

When I moved to Spokane, Les was the only person I knew. He made my family feel that we belonged and it meant everything to us.

I miss him like I miss my own father -- there are just times when I pick up my phone and he's the one I want to call. I don't think that feeling ever goes away for the ones we love the most in this world.

If you met him -- either in person or online -- he considered you his friend.

Raising a glass of Kick-A-Poo in his honor!

I have all of his PM's saved and many emails we did back and forth regarding drag racing.

Here was a PM I got from Les a while back. He was referring to a post where I symbolled out the word shit. Have to admit when I read his PM I nearly pissed myself. His patrolling this board still has me thinking before every post. This emoji comes to mind. :141847_bnono:



My friend, I wanted to let you know its ok to say shit in the main forum. About the only words not allowed are f#%* (masked or not), and don't call one of our own people an idiot even if its true. lol But other teams and their fans are fair game for that.

Les

Da Radish! I first met Les at the last training camp at Cheney. Although we come from very different places...physically and culturally; we hit it off right away. The picture of him and I at his BBQ, hangs from my message board.

He and Darlene opened their home and their hearts to me and many others. Sweet, open, people who loved to meet new folks and treat them like family. If you were traveling through Spokane you could always stop and have dinner with them.

We used to kid each other about our ages...though he was a few months older that me. :mrgreen: I liked him so much I drove over to Spokane for his 66th Hippy Birdie day. If not for Les I would've either stopped posting here by now, or been banned by now....LOL!

At first it shocked me, but he'll always be InjunJoe to me! :les:

I only have a couple left from him but I have this:

"Are you actually bringing reasonableness into this type of conversation? Boy are you a dreamer.

hahahahaha

Les"

I also remember he was drooling about some hot avatar, and I pm'd him saying "shame on you Les, you dirty old man. You could be her grandfather" to which he replied "but I AM a grandfather, so I can be dirty and old!"

I used to be a smartass once in a while just to get the "Hawks46, check your PM's". It was like a rite of passage. I miss him, and one of the true regrets I have is not being able to meet him. In the next couple of years, I'm going to start socializing. Once I get used to the big wide world out there.

I've become a quiet lurker over the years, other than the occasional gameday chats. I read the forum every day, I just don't take part anymore. Actually think that my lurkerness started around the time Les passed.

I still have all my pm's from him too. We mostly talked about music, but I always looked forward to it. Would have liked to have got to know him better, as well as the rest of you someday maybe. He was a great dude.

He also talked me through alot of really tough times due to my health, especially during a particularly low point in my life where I was feeling hopeless.

Here's a picture of our Ute sporting an antenna ball Les sent me - all the way down here in New Zealand.

That was 11 years ago.

I only knew Les through the board, but like so many others I was greeted by him early on. He would occasionally PM me or email me funny stories. When the Jack in the Box antenna balls were available he mailed several to me, since I couldn't get them here in SoCal.

He clearly loved the Hawks and this site, and he made .net a welcoming place. I miss him.

I miss his joke threads. I'm also glad he got to see us win the big one before he passed.

Les was absolutely outstanding here. He simply had the "it" factor for others. However.

As great as he was as/in his persona on the board, in real life, face to face, he was even better. Many times I got phone ear after chatting with him for hours. Finally, things worked out for all, and my wife and I got to host Les and
Darlene for 3 days. Those 3 days are special, I truly miss him.