Actually, We Often Say “Die” (Part 2)

Previously on Seattlest… we warned you about the Goonies 20th Anniversary Celebration set for the June 3 – 5th weekend in Astoria, OR. To meet the investigative news challenges of this story, Seattlest enlisted the help of Seattle Times illustrator and graphics designer Boo Davis, mastermind behind many of that nascent rag’s more groundbreaking scoops.

Taking for granted Davis’ prior trips to (and undercover reporting work in) Astoria, Seattlest didnt offer to help navigate, thereby dealing our journey a significant set back when our driver missed her exit by a few thousand miles, depriving Seattlest of the “Growing Up Goonies” presentation by Jeff “Chunk” Cohen and, worse, failing to witness the Truffle Shuffle dance contest, reportedly won by a disturbed ten-year old Chunk impersonator.

Seattlest had to settle for the autograph line to secure our longed-for photo op with Sloth’s distressed Baby Ruth dealer. Finally reaching the end of the autograph line – more than three hours later (delayed due to a certain impudent "No Show" who will remain nameless) – Seattlest made the shocking discovery that the once portly child actor/piglet Cohen has since grown up to become a fit, not-unattractive man, undeserving of the “Chunk” namesake and physically incapable of presenting a Truffle Schuffle dance performance worth watching. When the Times reporter observed that the years had been a lot kinder to him than to his cast mates, Cohen quickly pointed out, “That’s because I don’t do heroin.” Also signing at the same table was an affable, elderly gentleman (who implicitly must have done heroin) and who we assumed must have starred in Goonies, but whose identity neither Seattlest nor the investigative resources of the Seattle Times could verify on the scene. (More than 24 hours later, Seattlest would examine the man’s autograph: Curtis Hanson, aka Elgin Perkins, the villainous father who wanted to foreclose on the Goonies homes to build a golf course!)