Viewers Remember Chet Curtis

(NECN: Greg Wayland) - Just say "Chet" around Boston and people knew who you meant.

John Cooney is a traffic supervisor in Quincy Center.

"I mean, I've seen him many, many years on the television. He was such a professional," he says, adding he came to know Chet on the street when he became a resident of Quincy.

Chet was known from Quincy's Wheelhouse Diner, where you find owner Sean McDonough.

"Yeah, I grew up with him, watched him with my mother and father and everything. Regular guy, you now what I mean? Not one of these paper people you see every now and then. The cookie-cutters they kind of send out nowadays in the news system, you know what I mean?" McDonough says.

Then there's Jack McDonough whom we met dining with his wife at  Watertown's Deluxe Diner.

"I feel like I grew up with him. I mean he's been on TV as long as I've been watching," Jack says.

His wife said Chet "really connected with the audience."

Matt, working the grill at the Wheelhouse, remembered drinks with Chet down at Marina Bay.

Leo Keka at Alba's Restaurant in Quincy Center recalls the day Chet walked into his place. He'd been watching him for years on TV. He was about to become a close friend, even traveled with him to Chet's native Amsterdam, N.Y.

"We went to where he came from, the neighborhood. showed us places where his father used to work and where he grew up and where he went to school," Leo says, adding "I can't believe he's gone."

Neither can we, Leo. Neither can we.

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