Writing this post feels a bit gratuitous, but I’m going to brush that aside for a moment to say a few things about an old neighborhood homie.
I can’t say that I knew Dwayne Moore well. Still, I feel he deserves a shout-out, even from someone like me — a longtime, casual acquaintance at best.
Every time I ran into him, you’d think we were homies. That’s how the dude made you feel! The last time I saw him was about 19 years ago, and he greeted me — like he often did — by shouting my full name: “RIGO CHACON, JR!”
Hearing my name bellowed with such exuberance always made me feel like a million bucks, especially from someone whom I admired.
Our conversations in those moments were brief. I’d ask him how he was doing; he’d do the same, and then we’d go our separate ways.
While we had tons of mutual friends growing up, Dwayne was a couple of years older, so his circle was different than mine, and it stayed that way as we grew into adults.
My older brother, Joe, probably knew him better than I did, and my guess is that he, and a handful of friends, had visited Dwayne at his house several times during their childhood.
My fondest memory was watching him play football for Evergreen, one of our local youth sports organizations. I couldn’t believe how good he was! If my memory serves me well, the team I saw him practice with was called the Blue Devils. And Dwayne was killing it on offense and defense! I must have watched him for an hour straight, mesmerized!
At the end of practice, the team would chant: “They don’t want no Blue and White! Hell no!”
The truth is the opposition didn’t want any of Dwayne. I am certain he put a hurt on folks during that season.
When I learned of his passing, it was hard to believe. You’d think I guy like him would live forever. In my brief encounters with him, he always seemed bigger than life: friendly, handsome, funny, personable, and dope.
To borrow a phrase from the late Stuart Scott, Dwayne Moore was “cooler than the other side of the pillow.”
He was one of those special people that you just loved running into.
While I wasn’t close enough to him to experience the heartache that I know so many of my friends are feeling, his passing is like losing a piece of the old neighborhood, and in that regard, it’s like losing a piece of ourselves.
RIP, to the homie, Dwayne Moore.
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