All, I don't get over her nearly enough these days since having online responsibilities elsewhere, but Al Norris was kind enough to cross post about Dave's passing over there.
Though Dave and I had not seen each other for some time due to my time constraints, he was one of the formative people in my entry into the gun world at a relatively older age of 35 as I stumbled into THR looking for advice on many things back in 03, but specifically on shooting trap.
Dave invited me out to PGC on a cold snowy morning with my freshly purchased 870 and walked me through the game and showed me the ropes of how to hold the gun.
We met a few sessions either by design or happenstance as I was really into shooting trap recreationally at the time. Dave went so far as to give me a better stock for my 870 and a Morgan butt pad for which he refused to accept a penny, thus introducing me to the concept of "passing it on".
It was always a joy to see Dave with his beloved 870 ripping doubles, shooting rounds of "Chinese" as he called it and always giving the guys with their fancy autoloaders a run for their money if not outright besting them.
I hope that this will be an example for all of us, that we are all mentors, teachers and role models and that we never know how far a simple act of kindness, understanding and patience can ripple outward manyfold.
As the years have gone on, while I haven't shot trap nearly as much as I would care to due to time constraints and bad shoulder injury, those few simple sessions together magnified themselves into leadership on the MD forum and directing our state-level political activist group.
Things may have been very different were it not for a cold winter's morning many years ago.
RIP sir.