The Atlanta Falcons of today, despite a too-familiar 0-1 record, aren’t the Falcons of yesterday.

Two quasi-legendary fans from Macon have suffered through the Falcons’ foibles for years and years.

One is Col. Joe Curtis, who makes the weekly excursions to Atlanta despite approaching 95 years old. He should be in an NFL Hall of Fame’s fans wing.

Another was Henry Leslie. Big Henry. Big, as in about 6-foot-7. Big, as in scores of wings past 300 pounds.

And big, as in as big a Falcons fan as the organization had.

That’s the sad part. Had. Henry had taken up his spot late Tuesday afternoon on a corner chair at Cheers on Northside, no doubt in a red Falcons golf shirt, no doubt grumbling about Atlanta’s offensive-challenged loss Sunday at Pittsburgh and anticipating a nice win this week at home against Arizona.

By 9 p.m. or so, he was gone, the victim of an apparent heart attack, just days before the home opener in what’s expected to be a superb season at the Georgia Dome.

Sometimes irony isn’t funny at all.

Leslie needed a good, uplifting season from his team, because things hadn’t been so hot lately.

The Mother’s Day tornado two years ago severely damaged his Carpet Salvage business, and while those doors remained open, the end was near.

Not a poster child for fitness for the past couple of decades, Leslie had started improving his health after back surgery several years ago.

Putting the “big” in Big Henry and years of laying and carrying carpet will do something unpleasant to one’s back.

As his eyesight waned, so did his fitness regimen, and a slow health slide followed.

Throw in a little of this and that, and no doubt Big Henry was ready for another season of trekking to Atlanta on Sundays with whomever rode along after he’d heard they needed tickets.

Lacked a ticket or Falcons garb? Big Henry had you covered.

Figuring if Big Henry was someplace wasn’t hard. He drove a big Falcons-red pickup truck, with a sweetly painted Falcons logo on the tailgate atop a green football field.

Like its owner, the truck stood out.

To say he loved the Falcons is of great understatement. Longtime friend and co-Atlanta fan Bobby Grubbs posted on Facebook a few pictures that friends will no doubt be downloading.

There’s one at Col. Joe’s birthday party, with Big Henry on one side and Atlanta legend Jeff Van Note on the other.

Henry made it to every game in 2002 and ventured to Philadelphia and Green Bay for those big games, proudly wearing Atlanta attire, which in Philly means “at your own risk.”

There was a disagreement in a rest room in Philadelphia, but the other guy decided standing up to someone who is 6-7 and 350 pounds probably wasn’t all that wise an idea.

Make no mistake. Look up “character” in the dictionary and there are three pictures of Big Henry.

To hang around him for almost any period of time meant you had a story or two, usually for mature audiences only.

Sometimes Big Henry inspired an, “Oh, Henry.”

Working for Big Henry was no afternoon at Six Flags, but once everybody clocked out, that changed.

“Henry was like a dad to me,” said Brandon O’Nan, who worked at Carpet Salvage for about 10 years before taking another job last spring. “Now, I had my moments with him, but it always turned out good.

“I didn’t get to bed until about 4 a.m. (Wednesday morning). Everybody kept calling.”

It’s hard for some who’ve only known him the past decade to think of him having played basketball at Jones County and around the world when he was in the Marines during the Vietnam war or that he was an assistant football coach and head girls basketball coach at Calhoun before moving to Macon around 1980.

That’s about when he signed up for Falcons season tickets, which he held since then, until this year. But no matter. A friend gave Henry tickets for this season, an act of fitting reciprocation.

He’ll be watching from a different seat now but still no doubt wearing Falcons red and making people laugh.

Contact Michael A. Lough at 744-4626 or mlough@macon.com