In memoriam — David M. Pearson.
11/1/38-6/8/2008
Wow, years have passed. My 6-2 with eyes of blue left Pagosa for unknown places.
This was written by Richard Oetinger of Portland, Ore., who went to school with Dave.
“It was the best of times when Dave and I were neighbors, classmates, fellow iconoclastic types in Portland since 1950 until he moved to Seattle and onward in about 1958, but we did at least keep in contact. We had a lot in common although Dave was about 10 inches taller than me. I always admired his intellect, independence and ever inquisitive mind. During the early 1950s, without TV and computers, our time was spent with paper routes, mowing lawns, painting buildings, swimming, fishing, general craziness, riding our one speed fat tire bikes all over the place. A favorite destination was the Portland city dump and rummaging through the junk. In spite of Dave’s dislike of school he was an excellent student who always pursued the most challenging classes (advanced physics, chemistry and calculus). He always attained the highest grades, but shop class was his favorite. Some of the high school teachers tried to encourage him to join the National Honor Society; he refused because it was then known as a nerdy Charlie good boy organization. Dave wanted nothing to do with college, but had a preference for work and the school of hard knocks. One of the many crazy experiences I cannot forget was freshman gym class when Dave landed wrong on his arm at the high jump. The next event was pushups, from 50 feet away you could hear the craaaack of his forearm snapping, the sight of his bone sticking out and all the blood still gives a shiver up my spine. Another time, at age, 12 we saved our money and had an eating contest at Bock’s 19 cent hamburger joint (they were actually pretty good size, with lettuce, dressing and onions). We both managed to down 12 of ‘em, plus five orders of fries each and washed it all down with giant Pepsi’s. Then we went home to have dinner.
There are more stories, but too many to include here.
Many thanks for the memories, Dave.
