David Fletcher
Memorial Service
May 2nd, 2008
David taught me how to golf, but I
never learned how to swear like him. It was a challenge for David to play golf
with me since he was so much better than me and he wanted so badly for me to
improve all the time. I was intimidated by his drive to want me to become a
better golfer. He taught me how to be competitive, but like in golf, to be
competitive with myself, to push myself, to always strive to be better. David
was a great athlete. He was better than me at most sports. The only thing I
could do better (maybe) was throw a Frisbee.
David taught me how to take a
Gretsky test, which was no simple feat. He had a knack for knowing exactly what
questions a professor would put on a test. David was just plain smart. He got an
A in Gretsky's class. He helped me to get a B and I was so proud. I have great
memories of studying for tests in college and getting a nudge about midnight
from David . he would say: "it doesn.t matter how much we study now . we should
go play Frisbee golf" . and of course we did . because David could talk me into
anything.
Here are a few things that come to
mind when I think of David:
- He always had several rolled
up towels wrapped in rubber bands to place under his neck when he slept. He
stretched his neck from side to side.
- David had dice which had
little pictures of playing cards on them to play liars dice. We found them
at his house. He had put small white labels over the worn down faces of the
dice and wrote the face card letters A, K, Q, J, 10, 9 on them with a
permanent marker. This is another classic David thing, he was frugal. He
could have gone to a game store and bought a new set for 5 bucks, but he
kept these for all his life. They were in the same plastic butter container
they had been in forever.
- David slept on a futon or
single mattress on the floor for many of the years I knew him.
- David would play the guitar
all the time. When I hear the Pink Floyd song "Mother", I think of David
playing his guitar.
- David never threw anything
away . as we were preparing for his memorial service at his house last
night, we were at his home and we found t-shirts from UCR intramural
championships, karate tournaments, and our UCR "Smaug" Frisbee club from 22
years ago.
- Every morning David.s knees
would take a few minutes to warm up.
- David loved lying. He played
poker and he played dice and he played both very well.
- David loved playing darts.
Cricket, 501, Around the World. We had many years of fun playing darts.
- David had a huge shitting
eating grin
- Pink Floyd, The Who, Led
Zeppelin, Supertramp. if it was a 70's band it was in his collection
- David spent hours making
compilation cassette tapes and later CD's. Of course he would use these on
this many travels.
- Of course David loved to
Travel, Travel, Travel.
- He made sun tea and he always
drank out of huge, huge plastic cups
- He loved his Dalmatians
- I lived with David for some of
the best years of our lives.
- David had a cupboard full of
Wendy's Chili sauce and made this macaroni, hamburger, cheese and chili
sauce mix. He would buy the huge (1 foot long) block of cheese at the store
to base many of our meals on.
- David has 6 sets of golf clubs
in his garage, most of which he probably made, he would spend hours building
golf clubs.
- As with many friends, David
made me my first set of golf clubs and taught me how to golf
- David has a "down under" clock
with numbers in reverse order around the face
- David was the only person I
know that put Black Pepper on pizza. He put it on a lot of things.
- Finally, David was the king of
long deep discussions: I recall one particular late night conversation at
UCR. The topic was about why we needed women in our lives and how we could
just spend the rest of our lives together--- that idea lasted about 1 hour.
I suppose we were probably under the influence of something that night.
David was someone you loved
completely and you knew he loved you completely.
- Chris Saso
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