Wall of Memories

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I worked with Dave on the USS Constitution, and he had the biggest heart. He was very kind to everyone and always asked how everyone was. He had amazing humor and always wanted to help people. Dave loved the ship, and I will miss working with him. God blessed us and I am forever grateful that I had a chance to know him before he passed. Thank you for service to us and the service to our community, I wish we had more time with you here.

It was 2019 when I started to get to know Dave. We had met before, but we really got to spend some time together at the Twsba conference in Port Townsend that year. Despite how difficult it can be to start meaningful friendships as an adult, Dave and I were becoming good friends in just a short period of time, almost the way a child does. It’s a rare type of person that allows you to feel innocence, playfulness, and trust with someone who is almost a stranger. He was that person, the type that you want to think of as yourself at your best. I really feel for those of you who are sad because you knew him and loved him. I’m heartbroken because I didn’t get a chance to know him better.

Dave came to visit Buffalo last year and helped work on the Erie Canal Boat Seneca Chief. We had only met a couple of times before then but Dave treated me as though I was a lifelong friend. We were looking forward to future Buffalo visits and collaborations. Gone too soon. He will be missed.

I’m spending this week in Friday Harbor, up on San Juan Island in Washington State. This is a place that Dave once lived and long loved. His cabin here sat on Garrison Bay, which overlooked English Camp and all the history held by that beautiful landscape. We have great memories of visiting Dave there, pulling crab pots out of the Salish Sea from his canoe to make Dungeness Crab salad for dinner; harvesting sea beans to steam on the side and Madrone bark to make herbal tea. He took us to his favorite brewery, not the trendy one visited by the tourists, but the divey one in the shipyard that didn’t advertise anywhere and was full of locals talking about the busy season. He barreled around the Island in his little beater and was thrilled to chat with everyone we met. We hiked and swam, played cards, and sat up talking for hours. Of course, this is but one of many memories of Dave in the PNW, having known him for 27 years, but it is one of my favorites. He was so alive in those moments. And now he is not. And I am having trouble reconciling that reality. Yesterday I walked along the stony beach across from his cabin and let the salt of my tears mix with that of the Bay. We will miss you, Dave, and your lively spirit. Thank you for sharing the joy of this beautiful part of the world with us- your presence is still felt here.

I first met him as Mr. Pippin, my 5th grade English teacher (other grades, the class was referred to as “Language Arts”, abbreviated to LA, but Mr. Pippin informed us on the first day that, “we don’t need no Los Angeles Class”). We composed entirely with pen and paper–no eraser, and certainly no delete key–and were told to submit our first drafts full of cross-outs and rewrites and arrows traversing the page as we moved sentences from one paragraph to another. He made sure the we knew that not only is there no shame in an edit or a rephrase, there is celebration. The process of creation is one of constant changes and, “wait, wait, I thought of a better way to say that!” This is a lesson that has become part of not just the way I write but so many other areas of my life I knew him next as Ranger Dave, when he piled us kids into a small white van (and later a tiny yellow bus) and took us hiking as part of our school’s summer program. After spending a year with him as our teacher, nothing sounded cooler than signing up to spend a week hiking with him, so of course we signed up the summer after our 5th grade year. Then again after 6th, and 7th, and 8th, and by the time we got to high school (each of us dispersed to a different school across the city) he told us, “I mean, you all don’t need to sign up for any program or whatever. We can just go hiking together.” Each summer we reunited, and the mountains of Washington State echoes with cries of, “valderi . . . valdera . . .” I’ll always remember the day we planned on ascending the backside of Bandera Mountain. As we were refilling at a highwayside station, Ranger Dave casually looking over the map, his head suddenly popped up and he pointed at the horizon proclaiming, “**that peak’s not named.** We’re going that way!!!” We made it to the top and found a summit box naming the mountain Pete’s Putrid Peak, aka P3 (sadly thwarting our desire to name it Getaway Mountain, it’s a long story, I’ll explain later), with notable summit journal entries such as, “Today, we climbed the mountain naked / Tomorrow, who knows.” To be clear and explicit: That day of scrambling up dried riverbeds and carefully traversing screes was not only one of the best hikes I’ve ever been on, it is one of the best and most cherished memories of my childhood. Thank you, Ranger Dave Finally, I knew him as most of the other people here knew him, as simply Dave.

We put together a slideshow of Dave pictures. Thanks to everyone who sent photos! Helena had the great idea of making the soundtrack Polka and Persian music 🙂 I think Dave would get a kick out of it. Here is the link to watch the slideshow: https://youtu.be/nMANC3gRyf4

I spent the other day working my way through the boxes of Dave’s old files that he had meant to organize but didn’t get around to. No surprise that the single largest folder is simply titled “Nice things that people say”. Here are a few selections from his students over the years that I think really speak to the infectious enthusiasm he brought to everything he did, and how much everyone — whether 5th graders or octogenarians — appreciated him for that.

In 2023, we had a Yalda night (ancient Iranian festival to celebrate winter solstice) with Dave, Mo, Helena, Chase, Eben, Rose and Ashkan! We drank so many Persian drinks such as Ablimoo! We also had fortune telling using Iranian poetry 🙂