Dave was a professor of mine in sociology at SMU. We ran into each other after I graduated from SMU in the Dallas community for a time, and we always stopped, chatted, and got caught up on what each other was doing. I knew that I would never forget Dave when I first met him. I will miss him more than anyone will ever know.

Tomorrow is Dad's birthday and in the past few years was usually the time of year our family visited him in Scottsdale. We'll be thinking of him and missing him, as we do throughout the year. What I miss most is  our weekly check in call where we filled each other in on everything going on in our lives. I'll be thinking a lot about the last birthday we got to spend together. I made him bouillibaise and he talked about that night often.

As I did last year,  I will celebrate David's birthday with a small cake and a beer - maybe two beers. I will think happy thoughts about David and the people he loved.



HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVID  

April 11 has come and gone.  It was David's birthday.   I toasted David with a good beer and bought a small cake and ate it.  I thought about him and the many good times we had together. It was a sad day, but the many good memories brought a smile to my face and even some laughter. 

Happy Birthday David

The photos are: left to right:


Our first Christmas together - 2003,  Attending a spectacular dinner show in Paris 2011,  Adorable infant photo,  College photo on a New Jersey beach, College photo with our beloved teddy bear which accompanied our ring.... and his Pole vaulting medal.
 
 Having these photos in front of me everyday keeps our special love alive and keeps David close to me. 

A potpourri of stories from our adventures with David.

            David loved to cook and eat.  When we were living in state college Joanne and Cindy prepared a fancy dinner featuring duck a la orange.  Not to be outdone, David (K) and Dave (H) on another occasion tried their hand a bouillabaisse.  This became known as the great cook off and there was much dispute as to the winner (both were great).

            We have had cats in our house all or married lives.  David was not particularly a cat person, but he put up with them when he visited.  One generation of cats, however, was particularly friendly and David really warmed up to them (see photo of David sleeping with two brown kittens).  Before we knew it he had taken Squeaker into his home.

            We visited back and forth between Edmonds and Victoria several times a year.  One year we thought it would be fun to have a New Years Eve party and invited David as the guest of honor.  Everything was going well until David announced at 9:00 he was exhausted and had to go to bed.  We didn’t let him live that one down for a while.  


Dave and Cindy Hultsch         

David always liked to impress the girls.  One night, he and some of the usual suspects,  decided to impress one of their female classmates.  They thought that if they blew-up her mailbox with "cherry bombs"  that would really do it.  Yes, we male of the species really think like that.  Well they did!  I don't know if she was impressed or not.  This was out in the farmlands where just about everybody was a customer of Bud's and everybody knew David and his car.  I know Bud was not impressed when he found out.  I can't remember if it was when David got home or the next day.  How I remember the story being told was that Bud just held out his hand for the car keys and never said another word.  The silent treatment was always the worst.  Always, when David told  this story,  he would smile ear to ear.  Maybe the girl was impressed.

One night Linda came home from an outing with some of her girl friends.  They had discovered Colt 45,  a high octane malt beverage.  It was late and Mildred and Bud were in bed asleep.  Their home on Main St.  was not friendlly to late night noises.  It was summer and they had the air conditioner in their room on - thank God.  If you remember, there were no "silent" air conditioners in those days. They all sounded as if there was an eighteen wheeler in the room. David heard Linda and her friend Fran crawing up the wooden stairs. Laughing, giggling, and beer cans banging all over the place. The cans were falling out of their pockets, purses, and bags and rolling down the steps.  David, always the fine Gentlemen, rescued Linda and Fran before Bud and Mildred woke up.  Somehow he got both of them into Linda's room and put them to bed before they were discovered. Then he cleaned up the mess.  I can just picture David's face - serious but laughing especially after tucking in drop down dead  gorgeous Fran. ( SISTERS DON'T COUNT )  The biggest mystery was what happened to all the cans, especially all the full ones.  I would be willing to bet David and his friends had a great time the next day.  

David and Linda had chores as most kids in the 50's had to do.  One was the Dishes after dinner.  There was ususaly an arugment as to who was going to wash and who was going to dry.  One night Linda had to wash and she was not going to take that sitting down.  She noticed that David was taking the dishes from only one end of the drying rack.  This was an opportunity she was not going to miss.  She hurried and stacked the dishes to insure a disaster.  Ture enough,  David was not paying attention and all the dishes went on the floor.  Smashed and broken all.  David, even at this young age, realized he had been had.  Not to get his innocent sister in trouble,  he took the blame and paid for the dishes out of his allowance.  He had the integrity gene at a very young age and never lost it.

On a road trip through the oil fields of Pennsylvania,  behind the thirty foot hood of one of Bud's Chryslers,  David noticed the oil well pumps dominating the landscape.  David,  always being inquisitive,  asked his dad what they were.  His dad explained they were oil well pumps and said they are called "pecker heads."  Well !!!!! In the next two hundred miles,  David and Linda could not stop saying pecker heads and laughing.  The could never agree how many times Bud had to pull the car over to the side of the road to get them to stop.  Even Bud had to laugh at this story when they told it.  Maybe that is when Bud's hair started to turn gray.  I can picture David's mom just sitting there in the passenger's seat tyring not to laugh out loud.

In the late 90's, a wager was made between David and me as to where the DOW would be at years end.The wager was to be prepared in the winners home for a party of eight and would be either the best salmon the N West had to offer or Texas aged beef, depending on who won. At no small expense, David brought fresh, beautiful salmon to east Texas and prepared a gourmet feast. His Parchment Baked salmon was a treat none of the guests will ever forget, complimented by just the right wines that David enjoyed chasing his host all over the country to procure.Our guests were from diverse walks of life and provided a great backdrop for David to tell lots of stories as we feasted and laughed well into the evening.There were no losers that evening, only winners who got to know David at his best,scary smart, a fun loving side, obvious integrity and one thru whom we were honored to be called a friend. We will always cherish our memories of David

I have lots of humerous childhood adventures from the David and Linda Sagas.
Here is one:

David and Linda's bedrooms were across the hall from each other.  One day they were on each others nerves, as kids can be, and Linda rocked her crib from her room,  across the hall, and into David's room.  As I recall the story, David was in bed sick and of course was innocent in these events,  but he was not going to take anything from his sister - sick or not.  So the spitting on each other contest started. It then proceeded to a fist fight and Mildred had to go upstairs and intervene.  This is a short version of the story.  Both Linda and David loved to tell it. Yes,  you read this correctly.  Linda in a crib throwing punches at her older brother.  This is why the two loved each other so much.   Talk about bonding!  I wonder why Mrs Kauffman ( Mildred ) was pematurely gray.

Squeaker was a somewhat old kitty by the time David moved to Scottsdale. She was very unsettled until David bought this house in March, 2004 and then she discovered how warm and cozy the flagstone on the back patio was. 

She would go to the sliding glass door, stand there and yowel (she was a Devon Rex and didn't meow like most cats) to be let outside. If no one came to let her out she would just get louder. This was before David retired and he would be totally concentrated on his work and finally with her repeated and loud yowling he would get irritated and go into the hall and yell, "Squeaker Stop That." Squeaker would take off up the stairs like a shot to go hide in the down comfortor that David had for her under our massage table.This interchange always made me laugh because it was a battle of wills as she was so insistent. We couldn't leave her outside alone because of predators, so I usually took her out each day.

By bedtime (or food) she would forget and forgive and curl up next to David's neck to sleep.

During the winter she loved to lie in front of the gas fireplace we would turn on each morning while we had breakfast.

David loved his kitty so devotedly for the sixteen years of her life.


This story is told in loving memory of both David and Squeaker.    

Jeannie  


       .  

Please see posted story,

David and I communicated by e-mail for three months before meeting on June21, 2003. When he came to my front door which had glass panels, I saw this handsome man with a huge bunch of red roses. There was a white rose standing up above the rest which he said was because "You stand out from the rest." What a charmer! 

From the moment we met we had such a close connection -- as if we sensed how special our relationship would be. It was as if we had each found our other half and we now felt whole. Sweetie was our favorite way to address each other throughout our relationship.

We only had ten years but they were wonderful and happy. I called David my Prince Charming because he was everything I could ever have wanted: my love, partner, best friend, and protector. And,he was such a romantic! Also, as everyone knew he was a great cook who took a delight in looking for new recipes and preparing them. We always had such wonderful meals.

David was the most wonderful human being and I felt like a better person just being with him. He was so kind, so ethical, so caring. He loved his family,his friends, and me, unconditionally. 

I love and miss him so very much.

His Sweetie,

Jeannie   .           



  

At 12 years old David had big dreams about becoming an Alaskan furtapper. He and a friend decided to invest in a couple of traps and start a business in beaver pelts.  For about a month they got up before dawn in icy weather, biked out to the river and checked the traps. Finally one morning there was a commotion in one of the traps and they biked back in the dark with the trap balanced precariously on the bike.  Turns out it was a furious muskrat, what Dad referred to as a "nasty beast". For the remainder of the several months they were in business all they caught were muskrats. They did kill, skin and manage to sell the pelts and kept it up until they just about broke even on their investment. Dad's dream of being a furtrapper quickly faded, and he took a job at Kauffman Brothers International Harvester Dealership and Garage, spraying manure off farm equipment. It beat skinning muskrats.

One of my favorite all time stories Dad used to tell about his childhood:

David grew up in a Mountville, PA, very small town America.  At a very young age children were allowed to roam the street they lived on  as long as they were back by dinner.  When David was about 4 his mother noticed that he had lost all interest in dinner. He didn't seem sick, he usually wanted lunch, just no dinner.  A neighbor finally tipped her off that little Davey had been visiting her house every afternoon to ask for a cookie.  Turns out, he had been doing the same thing everyday at every house up and down the street. For the next couple weeks Davey walked around town with a note pinned to the back of his jacket that read "Please, no cookies for Davey!"