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“if
a fellow is born to be hung, he will never be drowned”
Davy Crockett--1834
Dave wasn't particularly athletic or interested in the activities that occupied his childhood peers, but he and a circle of loyal friends enjoyed a rural northern California playground that presented endless opportunities to any imaginative child.
In 1978 the Crockett family relocated to northern Utah. In new surroundings Dave, the skinny, bookish eighth-grader from California, was a prime target for schoolyard bullies the likes of which he had never before imagined.
It wasn't long, however, before Dave had surrounded himself with good friends and mentors. As he emerged from geekdom and began enjoying his new life in Utah, he forgot about the belligerent pinheads who had made his first impressions negative. His circumstances were overwhelmingly favorable. There were good people, snow (which he had never experienced in California), and his new home nestled in the majestic Wasatch Mountains.
Dave graduated high school in 1984. After some young adult aimlessness, he finally received his BA in English from the University of Utah in 1993. Today Dave lives in Cedar City, Utah. In his professional life, he's an artist, of sorts--designing marketing materials for a large insurance brokerage.
All grown up? Hardly. People who know him well marvel at his callowness. Physically, he's pushing 40; but inside he's a thirteen year-old with a drivers license and a big truck. But he'll muster a "grown-up" vocabulary to tell you what he loves about the Basin. He considers it one of the few remaining scenic treasures in the country--near-perfect circumstances for an overgrown kid -- a canvas for the imagination, time-out from the "human race", a playground for the senses, therapy for the soul.... His trips there are therapeutic, and all too infrequent.
Dave shares with his younger brother, Ryan, a tendency to mess with your mind--often to his own detriment. It has been said that you might know him less after five years than on the day you met him. He has a long list of gripes, and a temper that can scare the bejesus out of you. But it's all bark--he's never bitten.
His ideals sometimes keep him out of the mainstream, where greater opportunities and conventional "success" may be waiting. He believes that people are infinitely more important than "programs", that meetings are a tragic waste of precious time, and that day-planners ruin too many lives. He will never live in a sub-division, and will probably never be wealthy. What's sacred to Dave may not be sacred to you, and visa-versa. He's been around long enough to know that life is short--some things matter, some things don't. And he won't leave this world without having reveled in its splendor.
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