Rick Johns
I first met Steve in the summer of '86 drinking Miller Lite beside the pool of our apartment complex in Garland, a suburb of Dallas. I later learned his friends in Tacoma knew him as Paints or Parker but he's always been the Goldfish Man to our family. He took a shine to my 1yo son Dusty and as a route salesman for Pepperidge Farm at the time, he kept us stocked with the gallon cartons of goldfish once he found out Dusty was fond of them. As a fellow transplant to Texas, he welcomed the Kansas newcomers and we soon became fast friends. Sometimes I would ride his route with him which always concluded with a Bloody Mary Brunch. Other times he came to visit me at the Dallas Fire Station where I worked. We shared a love of sports, attending Texas Rangers games together. I raged with him when his uninsured Blazer was stolen and toasted it's return after being found in the possession of a dentist in California. Not long after that I helped him pack that truck and a way overloaded trailer for his return to the Evergreen State in 1988. But our friendship endured despite the miles with both of us traveling to see each other over the years. Most recently I was there over Veteran's Day in 2019 right before the world shut down. We spent a day on Mt Rainier and another in Seattle atop the Space Needle, visiting the KEXP studios, and sharing a huge seafood boil at a dockside restaurant while checking out the fireboats at the adjacent station.Our deepest condolences go out to Steve's family for their loss and to his friends as well. That he never quit fighting the Big C doesn't surprise me. it's the way we always expected our teams to play, hard and to the final buzzer.
Rick and DJ Johns
Back in Kansas