I first met Dave at St. Angela’s Elementary in Edmonton. Even way back then, Dave was a very unique and energetic individual with a boundless imagination. I recall his fondness for his pet turtles, Dave playing at being James Bond and endless mini-hockey games held at his house. We were even altar boys together.
Young Dave was fascinated with cars. We knew every detail about every car ever made. It was about this time his penchant for gathering information in infinite detail about subjects that interested him began to flower. He was later to become an expert on many diverse topics from bird watching to astronomy and from mountaineering to foreign films. About this time he also started to become interested in sports and physical activity. He became a nut for training and I still haven’t forgot the day he de-throned me and beat my time in the 100 yard dash in Grade Six.
Some day I would like to capture in writing a part of Alberta’s history that I fear may be lost and that is the summer of the Free Camp in Jasper, 1971. An indelible memory of Dave is meeting up with him at the Free Camp where he was living in a lean-to made from logs and a plastic tarp and talking him into coming with us to do the Skyline Trail in Jasper.
I think he had been living off “Sunny Boy” cereal for weeks but he still laid down a good pace on that trail.
Another funny memory of Dave is of the summer after high school when we were early pioneers of ten-speed bike transportation on Alberta’s highways. Dave would entertain us by reciting the entire soundtrack from Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” and the miles just evaporated.
I was a member of Dave’s Everest Base Camp expedition. As always, Dave conversations liberally spiced with observations about everything you could possibly want to know about any Himalayan peak over 8,000 meters or what Frederico Fellini was trying to say in 8 and a half made the time on the trail pass pleasurably.
I lost contact with Dave following that trip but in later years when Dave would do his long walks around the city I was always glad for those occasions I would run into him and catch up. I’d have him over for dinner occasionally and my kids were always impressed with how he could fit a milkshake straw in the gap in his teeth and how he could quote MacBeth.
From what I’ve seen, whoever said that the good die young was right. Dave was a good one and one of those guys you feel richer for having known them. God rest your soul, David. My condolences and prayers to Kate, Dave’s sisters Mary Lou and Karen and to Dave’s mother Rosemary who provided me with many a frosty glass of Kool-Aid years ago.
