Emmett Watson, 83, was both the elder statesman and living conscience of Seattle journalism. His six-decade career included stints at the defunct Seattle Star, The Seattle Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Times again, and finally at the Seattle Union Record strike paper. He hobnobbed with the rich and powerful and regularly dropped local celeb names in his columns, but he always identified with working stiffs. His "Lesser Seattle" shtick, ostensibly an attack on the degradation of Northwest culture and landscapes by Californian immigrants, was also a slap at local boosters who'd always sought to impose "world-class" pretensions onto the humble, hard-working Seattle he championed.

Archie Anderson, 84, founded the Elephant Car Wash chain, for which he commissioned the greatest pink-elephant neon sign to ever grace Denny Way.

Warshal's Sporting Goods, which held its final inventory auction on May 12, was a lingering hometown retailer in a downtown Seattle increasingly inhospitable to non-chain stores. It was also a throwback to an earlier "great outdoors" aesthetic, involving hunting and fishing in Pendleton wool jackets instead of hiking in Gore-Tex. The Warshal family co-owned the building, and will likely make more from its office-and-condo replacement than they did in recent years from the store.

Douglas Adams, 49, already had a stint in radio-TV scriptwriting (including the space opera Doctor Who) when his first Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novel came out in 1979. This series of books (and its TV, radio, and computer-game adaptations) paid loving tribute to sci-fi genre conventions, while using them for spirited farce (never for mere parody). His other works included Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, The Meaning of LIFF, Last Chance to See (a serious book about endangered species), and the online encyclopedia H2G2 (www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide).

Perry Como, 87, was a big-band singer in the '30s, then perfected the "relaxed" crooning style that made him one of TV's first big stars (in his own 1950-63 series, and in guest spots and specials thereafter). The "We Get Letters" music on the Late Show with David Letterman was originally the theme to Como's viewer-request song segment.

The Xtreme Football League vowed to make football more exciting by relaxing the rules on defensive blocks and hits. The result was a dogged defensive game in which nobody scored any points, while loud announcers and gaudy cheerleaders tried maniacally to attract dwindling audiences to lumbering punt-fests.

Alex Edelstein, 82, University of Washington journalism prof and tactfully described "companion" of Seattle Times columnist Jean Godden for 12 years, taught many students, including this one, how to say what needed to be said and then stop without getting overwrought or cloying, especially in obituaries.

obits@thestranger.com