Wow. I got a call from scarbelly about this earlier today. Sad news indeed. I only hope that one day Carol is able to find this post and see how much people cared about Ron and what he did for, and meant to, his fellow smokers.
Three stories and I'll keep them brief...
One of my very first smokes I was trying to do a pastrami on my
Weber kettle. I was having one heck of a time trying to figure out what I was doing since I was so new to the game. Well Ron was one of a couple of people who saved my smoke. I wanted to give up and go to bed. He stayed up with me until after 1am trying to convince me not to toss the meat. He walked me through things step-by-step and saved my smoke. After that I had a whole new attitude towards newbies and what my role was on this forum. And this was due in part to Ron's kindness and generosity with his time and knowledge. He led the way as mentor of sorts as to what it means to be an outstanding and upstanding member of the OTBS.
Another time was when Ron was temporarily banned from the site. There was quite an uproar from the members and I thought there was a chance that there would be such a mass exodus from this site that it might never recover. Not to even try and discuss what hapened, but it was very apparent how much respect Ron had from his smoking family here on the site. MES users, foodies, newbies, whatever...Ron was good to everyone and everyone remembered this when Ron was in a bind.
And of course there's the Yoshida's. If you ever knew Ron, you knew of his love of the Yoshida's. I remember teasing him a little about it and I could tell that I kind of hurt his feelings. I felt bad because I kind joked about how much of that stuff he used. But he was serious about his Yoshida's. There's no doubt about that. For as long as I live, and this I promise because I won't be able to help it, but everytime I hear or see Yoshida's...I'll think of Ron.
And lastly was those crazy hummingbirds birds he and Carol had in their house last summer. They became little pets. I looked forward to following those posts as much or more than the smokes.
It's weird saying Ron. It's RonP dammit. It's even in my cell phone that way.
Carol. You had a good man. He loved you, his dogs, his Yoshida's and his MES. Sleep well knowing that he touched the lives of so many people and he left his mark on this little off ramp on the information superhighway we call the SMF. His legacy will live on through the lives of us who will feed ourselves, our families and our friends using the lessons we learned from him.
You will be missed Ron.
I guess god needed a pitmaster besides him in Heaven. You will be missed Ron.
Couldn't have said it any better than that.