Dang it! He and I had been emailing each other when he got sick, and then he went silent. It worried me, 'cause Ken would answer any email with any question, and would always want to talk about which games he was working on.

It's going to be weird visiting Olympia without Ken to talk with.

Whenever we'd visit Ken at the shop, he'd say "You haven't taken my picture". So we would.... Here's one from shortly before he died:

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You're welcome. You can see what a gentle guy he was, and how much he loved tinkering on old machines.

Yeah... at least for me. BTW, his middle name was Leroy.

Thanks for the link! I learned a lot of stuff I didn't know about him from the obituary. Hopefully we'll be able to attend the celebration in the spring.

I had a pleasant, hour-long conversation with Ken's sister last night. She's planning a "happy memories" celebration of Ken's life in the Spring. Ken has relatives in wintry mountain states who prefer to travel in warmer weather.

It's funny - Ken was enough of a multi-faceted guy that his sister and I surprised each other with "Ken stories" the other hadn't heard. For example: Ken really loved Twinkies!

His tribute get-together should be entertaining for those of us in the Northwest who can attend. She's planning on bringing some of Ken's prized trinkets along to spark conversation.

If you happen to live in the N/W and want to attend Ken's celebration of life, it's going to occur in a couple of weeks:

"We will have a celebration of Ken's life on Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 1pm. It will be held at the Lacey Community Center at 6729 Pacific Ave SE, Lacey Wa 98503. Dress casually, face masks preferred."

There have been some unofficial observances already:

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Well, yesterday (4/24) was Ken's funeral/celebration of life. It was well attended, by 3 groups of people - several generations of family, a handful of pinball lovers and a big contingent of movie theatre owners and co-workers! It turns out Ken got his start in theatres before he got into pinball and arcade games.

The beginning of it all was a grade school behind-the-scenes tour of a local theatre, which inspired him to buy a copy of "The Boy Electrician". That led to student A/V responsibility, projection equipment maintenance work, etc.. By the time Ken was about 15, he had keys to all the theatres in town and was taking care of their equipment too.

He went on to be projectionist at several drive-in and indoor theatres, and the guys who showed up from those years told the funniest stories. They went past LOL to more like "Cough Something Up". Rather than rat Ken out here on the WWW, I'll just tell one anecdote. He had several big projectors in his apartment at all times, and set one up in his kitchen to project movies onto the back wall of the grocery store across the way.

He did pick up his first pinball machine about when he got out of high school, and his sister was still amazed that Ken made her and her brother put quarters in to play!

Here are two photos; one of a young Ken in the theatre biz, and one of his remains in the black urn. RIP, Ken, and thanks for all the help!

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That's a cool story. He seems to have floated in and out of a lot of our lives without seeming legendary at the time.