Thanks for reaching out to HTP1, Big C, and for relaying that sad event here.

Rest in peace Bob.

I wonder how many regulars or semi-regulars have passed without anyone noticing, I guess that is to be expected as online msg boards are now over 30 years old.

If you stop posting here you are either dead or very much alive

Big C said:

---

Former poster helltopay1, once a regular on this forum until his "abrupt departure" two years ago, passed away recently.

(If you found him offensive, please do not say bad things about him here, or at least wait a week or so, out of a sense of humanity.)

The reason I know he died is that, after he was banned, he was somehow able to stay in touch via PM and he would write me on a regular basis, calling me "the last good lefty". We talked about one day meeting for lunch or something, but never did, until in July, he told me that he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. This prompted me to send him my contact info. Last week, a friend of his phoned me to say that he passed away on August 27th at the age of 87.

helltopay1, whose real name was Bob, grew up in San Francisco, where he played some basketball. He always mentioned that he had a sweet outside shot and this was confirmed by his friend, I'm pretty sure that he would've liked me to mention that! Bob served in the US Navy and later lived in Mountain View for a long time, before retiring in Rossmoor (Walnut Creek)

Bob became a life-long fan of Cal Basketball, as he came of age during the Pete Newell Era. In his younger adult years, he claimed to have been a rather liberal Democrat but became more and more conservative as he aged (a natural progression, he believed).

Bob had a sense of humor. He thought it was a good one, but some folks didn't agree (and I understand why... and they have a point). He was banned from posting here for incessantly flooding this forum with political diatribes, some of which could be found to be offensive. This, despite numerous warnings and timeouts: He just couldn't stop himself.

I think I'll leave it at that: Bob was a Cal fan, he absolutely had a good side to him and now he's gone. RIP

---

Big C, thanks for posting. I had no idea there was an obituary in Off Topic which I think is really cool.

May HTP continue to root for the Bears from his resting place

bearister said:

---

Karate Kid star Chad McQueen dies at 63 from organ failure

---

thanks alot B. had to lookup the kid, finding all his media gigs here (sorted by # of imdb views)
https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?explore=num_votes&role=nm0574337&sort=num_votes,desc

trivial pursuit, and i swear this is true: my late cousin bragged about a day many decades ago when he towed papa Steve's car off of a sandy shoulder, stuck near Indio; he treasured the bottle opener gifted by thankful McQ.
# time flies

HoopDreams said:

---

Big C said:

---

Former poster helltopay1, once a regular on this forum until his "abrupt departure" two years ago, passed away recently.

(If you found him offensive, please do not say bad things about him here, or at least wait a week or so, out of a sense of humanity.)

The reason I know he died is that, after he was banned, he was somehow able to stay in touch via PM and he would write me on a regular basis, calling me "the last good lefty". We talked about one day meeting for lunch or something, but never did, until in July, he told me that he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. This prompted me to send him my contact info. Last week, a friend of his phoned me to say that he passed away on August 27th at the age of 87.

helltopay1, whose real name was Bob, grew up in San Francisco, where he played some basketball. He always mentioned that he had a sweet outside shot and this was confirmed by his friend, I'm pretty sure that he would've liked me to mention that! Bob served in the US Navy and later lived in Mountain View for a long time, before retiring in Rossmoor (Walnut Creek)

Bob became a life-long fan of Cal Basketball, as he came of age during the Pete Newell Era. In his younger adult years, he claimed to have been a rather liberal Democrat but became more and more conservative as he aged (a natural progression, he believed).

Bob had a sense of humor. He thought it was a good one, but some folks didn't agree (and I understand why... and they have a point). He was banned from posting here for incessantly flooding this forum with political diatribes, some of which could be found to be offensive. This, despite numerous warnings and timeouts: He just couldn't stop himself.

I think I'll leave it at that: Bob was a Cal fan, he absolutely had a good side to him and now he's gone. RIP

---

Big C, thanks for posting. I had no idea there was an obituary in Off Topic which I think is really cool.

May HTP continue to root for the Bears from his resting place

---

As he is way too humble to take credit himself, I will say it: All credit for the renowned Obituaries thread goes to poster concordtom, who saw a way to improve this often nutty forum (some sub-topic organization) and went out and made his vision a reality. If you go back to the first post in this thread, he explains his thoughts on this.

Still, as awesome as it may be, I sure hope this ****in thread croaks before I do!

Big C said:

---

HoopDreams said:

---

Big C said:

---

Former poster helltopay1, once a regular on this forum until his "abrupt departure" two years ago, passed away recently.

(If you found him offensive, please do not say bad things about him here, or at least wait a week or so, out of a sense of humanity.)

The reason I know he died is that, after he was banned, he was somehow able to stay in touch via PM and he would write me on a regular basis, calling me "the last good lefty". We talked about one day meeting for lunch or something, but never did, until in July, he told me that he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. This prompted me to send him my contact info. Last week, a friend of his phoned me to say that he passed away on August 27th at the age of 87.

helltopay1, whose real name was Bob, grew up in San Francisco, where he played some basketball. He always mentioned that he had a sweet outside shot and this was confirmed by his friend, I'm pretty sure that he would've liked me to mention that! Bob served in the US Navy and later lived in Mountain View for a long time, before retiring in Rossmoor (Walnut Creek)

Bob became a life-long fan of Cal Basketball, as he came of age during the Pete Newell Era. In his younger adult years, he claimed to have been a rather liberal Democrat but became more and more conservative as he aged (a natural progression, he believed).

Bob had a sense of humor. He thought it was a good one, but some folks didn't agree (and I understand why... and they have a point). He was banned from posting here for incessantly flooding this forum with political diatribes, some of which could be found to be offensive. This, despite numerous warnings and timeouts: He just couldn't stop himself.

I think I'll leave it at that: Bob was a Cal fan, he absolutely had a good side to him and now he's gone. RIP

---

Big C, thanks for posting. I had no idea there was an obituary in Off Topic which I think is really cool.

May HTP continue to root for the Bears from his resting place

---

As he is way too humble to take credit himself, I will say it: All credit for the renowned Obituaries thread goes to poster concordtom, who saw a way to improve this often nutty forum (some sub-topic organization) and went out and made his vision a reality. If you go back to the first post in this thread, he explains his thoughts on this.

Still, as awesome as it may be, I sure hope this ****in thread croaks before I do!

---

If the Obituaries thread is my contribution to mankind, I'm not very happy with my accomplishments.

Thanks for sharing about Bob.
You're a good seed! Your posts make the world a better place because you don't flame, but offer humor and sarcasm which accomplish the task in a gentler way.
Cheers!

Best wishes on a positive outcome on your surgery CT!

Yes, good luck on your procedure Tom.

Big C said:

---

Former poster helltopay1, once a regular on this forum until his "abrupt departure" two years ago, passed away recently.

(If you found him offensive, please do not say bad things about him here, or at least wait a week or so, out of a sense of humanity.)

The reason I know he died is that, after he was banned, he was somehow able to stay in touch via PM and he would write me on a regular basis, calling me "the last good lefty". We talked about one day meeting for lunch or something, but never did, until in July, he told me that he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. This prompted me to send him my contact info. Last week, a friend of his phoned me to say that he passed away on August 27th at the age of 87.

helltopay1, whose real name was Bob, grew up in San Francisco, where he played some basketball. He always mentioned that he had a sweet outside shot and this was confirmed by his friend, I'm pretty sure that he would've liked me to mention that! Bob served in the US Navy and later lived in Mountain View for a long time, before retiring in Rossmoor (Walnut Creek)

Bob became a life-long fan of Cal Basketball, as he came of age during the Pete Newell Era. In his younger adult years, he claimed to have been a rather liberal Democrat but became more and more conservative as he aged (a natural progression, he believed).

Bob had a sense of humor. He thought it was a good one, but some folks didn't agree (and I understand why... and they have a point). He was banned from posting here for incessantly flooding this forum with political diatribes, some of which could be found to be offensive. This, despite numerous warnings and timeouts: He just couldn't stop himself.

I think I'll leave it at that: Bob was a Cal fan, he absolutely had a good side to him and now he's gone. RIP

---

Many thanks for posting this.

Bob (HTP1) was quite the character, quite strong in his beliefs and opinions. I did enjoy reading much of what he wrote, but it was later after I came to know him, that I began to really appreciate him.
One day, I got a message on the BI from Bob, asking me for my phone number. I sent it, expecting that if he called , I'd get a dissertation on politics, but when he did call, it was all personal, about the era we played in. He grew up on the playgrounds and gyms of the city, as I did, and we knew some of the same players and coaches. In fact, we both played for the same high school, Lowell. We shared loads of stories. I'm guessing Bob was about 6-8 years my senior, so he played in a generation where guys like Fred LaCour and Tom Meschery were kings of the hardwood. Both of them were named California's Mr. Basketball (Best player in the state) and both were high school All Americans, back when "All American teams" were teams of 5 players, not 35 of them like the modern McDonalds teams had.

Bob used to play one on one with Tom Meschery, and according to Bob, he was able to drive and score on Tom at will. This was when both Tom and Freddie were maybe 4 years younger than Bob. In the summers, the place to play was the Marin Town and Country Club in San Anselmo, so Bob and Tom and Fred would get in a car and head over there to play hoops with the best players around the City and north bay at least.

Bob grew up in the Richmond District, which was where both Tom and Fred grew up as well, and they usually played at Rochambeau playground. Bob began his high school career at St Ignatius under legendary coach Rene Herrerias. In those days every high school (and even the CYOs) had several teams: a varsity, plus 3 lightweight teams (110s, 120s, 130s. Some schools had junior varsity teams. Meschery was 6-6,and LaCour 6-5, and they played on varsity steams. Bob was much smaller, and I think he played 110s, 120s and 130s in high school. The way it worked was that the 110s and the 120s played all their basketball games in the Fall Semester, and the Varsity, Junior Varsity, and 130s played their games in the Spring Semester. Bob told me that Rene Herrerias was the only high school coach in San Francisco high school history to coach his teams to win all four divisions, Varsity, 130s, 120s, and 110s in the same year. His varsity teams also won the Tournament of Champions, which included all the best northern California teams. Herrerias, as we know was the head assistant to Pete Newell at Cal, and was the advance scout for all Cal's great victories in the NCAA tournament under Newell.

After a year at SI, Bob transferred to Lowell High, and played his next 3 years for Benny Neff, another great high school coach. Bob was named All-City at least when he played for the Lincoln 120s, and I'm pretty sure he made the All-City team in multiple years. When Bob and I exchanged last names, Bob asked me if I was related to Jim, who happened to be a first cousin of mine. Jim was a very good high school athlete, who was All-City in Basketball and Baseball playing for Lincoln high in San Francisco. Bob remembered Jim as being very fast, a tough defender and fine point guard. Bob then told me that he had played against my cousin, and got the better of my cousin. So I called my cousin to ask about Bob. Was Bob really a good player? Jim said, "The previous year, I was All-City, and the next year I was even better, and expected to make All-City again, but Bob sort of stole my thunder in that game with Lowell. After that, Bob made All-City, and I didn't." Neither of them was probably big enough to play in college. Bob did play some for a college in the East Bay, as I recall. Jim graduated from Cal, having been on the Cal Frosh Baseball team.

Bob used to call Jim after that, to talk and cheer him up, but Jim began to fail. I called Bob to tell him the news that Jim had passed away, and he was saddened. Jim was like a big brother to me all my life, and in a smaller way, Bob was like that too. I'll miss Bob, his posts, and especially the calls I was lucky to have with him.

I always appreciate your Bay Area history lessons, SFCB. Good stuff.