West Seattle said a sweet goodbye to Chas Redmond on Dec.16 at his Celebration of Life at the West Seattle Senior Center. A well known and beloved community activist, Redmond became an integral part of the West Seattle community through participation is numerous events either providing audio support or through his own voice advocating for positive change.

The event was organized by good friend Brian Allen and his daughter in law Lowrey Redmond. It was well attended by well over a hundred of his friends and famiily. 

He passed away Nov. 6.

Led by his daughter in law Lowrey and son Lief they and others shared photos of Chas and memories, many of them warm and funny.  It's impossible to really summarize a life and really understand who someone was but Leif offered poignant giimpses in to his father's character explaining, "I'm going to tell you a little story about when I was a child. My dad's best side was at work. He was a professional communications person. He dealt with people all day long. He was skilled at it but he had to be on.

And so when he came home, he kind of let his hair down. And for us that meant, he was like 'back to the grind. do your chores.' et cetera. And he was free to kind of be himself at home. So the way that I used this to my advantage and he would be proud of me for it was...

When I crashed his car, I didn't wait for him to come home.

I called him at the office. 

What I got I got. 'Yes. Leif. Oh, you crashed the car? Oh, that's fine. I'm sorry, are you ok?' It was very professional. 

The trouble came later. Obviously it's a deal I did at some point, but just the fact that he was able to really bring his best self. That was one of the things that I always knew about my dad."

Leif continued, "He worked for NASA. He loved talking to people. That was what that was, what he did. He talked to scientists, he dealt with the public. He analyzed. Problem solved. He pulled people into cool projects. He foisted himself onto even cooler projects. But that said, the day he was eligible to retire, he was out the door. Yeah, he did not wait.... he just kind of moved forward in his life and for him that meant moving out to Seattle and just really embracing West Seattle and really injecting himself into all parts of the city and finding things to be involved with that made him happy. 

Art, I think that's another part of him. That was just so, so obvious, right? You could just see it and he made so much art. He gave away art, he helped other people make art and you know his mediums. He did pencil, pen, pastel. He did oil, acrylic, watercolor. He did mobiles.I think for me as a kid his art was all up on our walls, like we didn't have posters and other art it was my dad.'s art, and you know I'm going to take some of those pieces home with me. Just to have but it was it was obvious to me that it was this person just expressing themselves into the world, and that was, as a shy person myself it was fascinating to watch that happen and to see it."

I want to talk about his generosity. He was a very generous person, both in terms of gift giving and in terms of giving his time, you know, whatever he thought was valuable, he would work with that person. He would make something happen. He would get involved.  I think for us as as parents now. 

I always had a fabulous Christmas. I would come down in the morning and the night before there was, like, a few presents and Christmas morning, there would be presents everywhere. And my wife and I, we try to emulate that. 

But Dad used to send shipments of boxes you would send like 3 giant boxes of presents. Each kid would get like 15 presents wrapped amazingly, we're never going to achieve his wrapping skill, but half of them were in, these kids know, half of them came in microphone boxes. And you would open it up and you'd be like another microphone. Yay! He just found ways to kind of be fun. And with the gift giving. He never met our dog, Iris. But he he loved her from afar. You could see, you could tell that he loved her. He sent her presents.He asked about her. And he just he wanted to be as involved as he could in our lives. 

And it it was clear, you know that, that was what was going on."

Leif explained about his father's love of animals.

"What he really got involved with was the crows. OK, so my dad was a big Corvid fan. To the point where he would talk to them in their own language in public. Don't do it. I couldn't. I don't know the language. Of course you're embarrassed, standing with him, but it was charming and fun. And the crows, actually, they reciprocated. He would find peanut shells. I still find them in the yard. Little gifts."

Leif went on to explain their mutual enjoyment of horror films since his father made it clear it was all "fake fear". He described his father's disdain for flying ever since 9/11 which meant he drove everywhere including a 2700 mile trip in which somehow he managed to take a photo every minute, thus creating a time lapse movie of the journey.

Leif ended his remarks with this.

"His wonderful neurotic, exploring, caring, nosy, maddeningly beautiful spirit. You know, it lives on in all of our memories."

Many others rose to speak remembering his commitment to causes, his support of their efforts and his endearing positive spirit. There was talk of honoring his life with naming a stage for him at the Morgan Junction Festival (something he supported every year) and also something more permanent to honor his memory.

On a commemorative book mark given away at the event were these rules he tried to live by:

Celebrate Life Chas's Way

1. Go for a walk or bike ride
2. Make some art
3. Enjoy some coffee
4. Get someone a gift
5. Volunteer
6. Go see live music
7. Appreciate nature
8. Make a new friend
9. Question authority
10. Never give up