David

In many ways, talking about my twin brother David is harder than writing about my other brothers. I thought of us as a unit when I was a kid, because we were always referred to under the collective term "the twins". We were always together. We played together, we watched cartoons together - we even had our little imaginary friends together. We named them Picky and Bozo. I realize now that we must have been referring to Pinky Lee and Bozo the clown.

I remember my mother making us "matching' outfits of a shirt for David and a dress for me out of the same fabric. I was convinced that when we dressed alike no one could tell us apart - the twins on tv all looked alike so we must also. I thought the only difference between us was that I had long hair. (I didn't consider that other difference at that young age.) After the neighbor girls cut my hair I tried to make my mom feel better by saying "Well, at least now no one will be able to tell David and me apart!". I don't think it worked.

David is an incredible musician. We both began music lessons with Clyde Heck when we were about 12 years old. (I had taken piano earlier, but that didn't work out.) David learned the drums and I learned (or tried to learn) guitar. It didn't work out for me, but David took to it like a fish to water. He started playing with an accordion group first (hooray for the Polka!) and then started a garage band. Over the years he has continued to play and still does to this day with all sorts of different music groups from country to reggae to blues and rock.

Back in the day before electronic drumming, the guy keeping the beat was key to a bands' success. Once at a high school talent show David's band at the time played and rocked the house. A newspaper article ran a picture of David and commented on his 13 minute drum solo!

David also got all the artistic talent. From a very young age he could duplicate cartoon characters while I was stuck on stick figures. It seemed to be one of those things that just came naturally for him and he was constantly drawing.

He also has a natural mechanical ability. He was always working on cars, and I don't recall anyone ever teaching him how. He just did it. For several years he made a living as a mechanic. He is currently self-employed as a contractor. As with other things he's been involved with or done over the years, his work is meticulous.

He married Debbie Boyer right after she graduated from high school. They had two children, Chad and Jenny. The marriage didn't work out and he later met and married Fran. For several years Dave and Fran ran a small restaurant/wine bar in downtown Ventura. They sold that business a few years ago.

As with my older brothers, I've barely scratched the surface of who David is. I think it's going to take me a lot longer than I originally thought so I'm going to intersperse stories about our family with posts about my day-today stuff.

(the picture at the top of the page is my brother Jim, Grandmother Mabel Stewart, Bill, Dick, David and me)