We would take off on our bikes to visit the far reaches of our suburban world. These included biking through some of Pasadena’s more seedy areas, and up some pretty steep hills, to play basketball at the Pasadena YMCA as well as shorter trips to Pedrini’s, a used record store in Alhambra, located between two rather sleazy bars, it being a point of honor for Dave not to pay full price for a 45rpm record. There Dave introduced me to Sport Magazine, and I read so many of the old issues that my base reading score improved two grade levels.

 

Dave picked up strays of all sorts, mostly kids. Although he could have moved in any of the social circles of our cliquish suburban junior high, he made a point not to, and if a particular kid experienced rejection you could be sure he’d soon be found in Dave’s company. He always had a soft spot for the underdog, and this was especially true of minorities. Here Dave was uniquely ahead of his time, for most of us in white South Pasadena either pretended minorities didn’t exist, or were actually unaware of their existence, their poverty or their struggles in white America.

 

Among Dave’s many talents was his uncanny ability to locate an open gym to enjoy his all consuming passion for the game of basketball. He would now be called a gym rat. If the gym wasn’t open, Dave had a variety of techniques to remedy the situation. His expertise in defeating a locked door could be observed but never duplicated, and in some situations Dave could even produce a key, mysteriously obtained.

 

While other basketball aficionados plied their game on blacktop, shooting at rickety, netless rims, Dave and his disciples could usually count on glass backboards, hardwood floors, drinking fountains and clean restrooms. Dave was uniquely talented in all aspects of the game of basketball, but on courts where the “winner stays” rule existed he was often dependent on the skills of lesser players he could round up on any given day. It was his exceptional gift to raise the game of everyone on his team, combining charismatic motivation with a baffling ability to sense and bring out the best in his teammates.

 

And of course, Dave could really play at any sport. Sometimes you could get so caught up in watching the magic of what he could do with a basketball you forgot to play and became a spectator. This could be dangerous because if by some miracle you were open for a shot and not paying close attention Dave would find you and ball would magically appear as if making a jump from hyperspace. A failure to focus was to risk being hit in the face with a basketball.

 

As we grew older, the search for the open gym and competition ranged widely into neighboring communities. This brought us into contact with people very unlike those in our little all-white community of South Pasadena, broadening our horizons in a time of social upheaval most people tried to ignore. Dave had a special pantheon of distinctive personal heroes that included Satchel Paige, Connie Hawkins, Fats Domino and Martin Luther King. You might have noticed these men are all black. My personal hero was Mickey Mantle, pretty superficial and predictable, but in my defense Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine was my number two. We all learned a lot about the real world through Dave, and no one was surprised when he became a teacher.

 

For the most part, Dave and I went our separate ways after graduation in 1961 but I’ll never forget his last piece of basketball advice:

 

“In a pickup game, never offer to guard anyone who sweats profusely, has excessive body hair, or wears combat boots. These people may mean well, but they will hurt you every time, and remember that whatever time it is, there’s a gym open somewhere.”