David Alan Black
February 8, 1948 – November 8, 2008 
Returned to the Sea He Loved
February 8, 2009
Outside the Golden Gate, San Francisco
from the “Lovely Martha”

Dave lived the life of a Marine military brat. He spent his early teen years living on the island of Oahu, running with the locals and learning pidgin, and getting in and out of mischief. When his father retired, he attended high school in Vista, California, next to Camp Pendleton, with three sisters and a brother.

As Dave told it, he found even more mischief, and ended up going before a judge who told him it was juvie or the Army. Dave took the Army – his father had told him that the Marines would teach him only how to fight, but the Army would teach him a trade. Unfortunately, there was a little skirmish going on in Southeast Asia at the time, and Dave landed in the middle of it as a heavy equipment operator in 1966, after a year or so of training.

He continued his mischief, garnering an Article 15 that stated that he “did wrongfully appropriate one five ton dump truck… withholding said vehicle from the government service by deviating from the assigned route without authority, with intent to visit the city of Qui Nhon, Vietnam.” Dave’s response, “I used it to go to lunch. In fact by eating lunch in Qui Nhon … I didn’t take as long as if I traveled to LZ Hammond, because it was twenty miles shorter going and coming back.” He was nonetheless honorably discharged in 1968 and returned to Southern California.

Dave’s sisters say that he was a very different person when he came home from Vietnam. He had seen horrible things and done things he couldn’t leave behind. He wrote, “The guys I was with from California were going to go to college together – four of us in all. Two are dead the other a paraplegic and I hate…. You’re invited to my alumni meeting – any day of the week at the Presidio Cemetery.”

He went out to buy bread one day, and ended up in San Francisco, dealing speed from a Haight Street doorway in 1969, well after the flowers of the Summer of Love had withered.

He retreated to Hanalei on Kauai, making friends with some and antagonizing others. He saved a drowning baby in a flash flood on the Wainiha River. He met Neil Hirsch, who remained a stalwart friend.

He returned to San Francisco and wandered, as so many of us did, into the Haight Ashbury Switchboard. The people he worked with there became a family, even as he managed to offend many of them. He helped countless callers and drop-ins, and offered comfort to several of his fellow volunteers along the way. We pointed him to Rock Medicine, thinking it would keep him out of the bars at night, and it did, to some degree. He labored to keep a cranky old van, inherited from Synanon’s demise, running well enough to move the Rock Med equipment and supplies from 409 Clayton to the shows.

He and Leigh connected in the mid-’70s; he took her to a Grateful Dead concert on the Rock Med list. He brought home Harold the English Bulldog and Foxtail the Manx cat. He envisioned a settled-down life with kids and a house and a steady job that never came to pass. He did take on “a piece of cake” repair of the house in Volcano, having built two “houses” in Hawaii.

 He supported himself by tending bar at the Theatre Club, fixing cars and trucks, and dealing drugs. He was a bouncer on Broadway. He had a tiny pension from the VA and SSD. He brought home freezers full of striped bass, sturgeon, salmon and rock cod, along with an occasional haunch – or more - of “road kill” venison. When he was really morose, he’d listen to Joan Baez: “I told the boys in ’68 I’d rather listen to your voice than make love to the Stars and Stripes pinup girl. Do you know, I was just a kid. I’m half drunk listening to your songs, 1983.” There were many calls to and from O.R.

When he and Leigh split up in the mid-’80s, he and Terry Garvin became a couple, living in vans on the Panhandle and eventually getting a room in an SRO hotel in the Tenderloin. They did a lot of drugs. At one point he ran away and joined the circus, working as a roustabout and taking care of the big cats. He came back to San Francisco and Terry. He went to Alaska and worked on a fishing boat for a couple of summers. He was always a hard worker. He came back to San Francisco and Terry. He sobered up, cleaned up, relapsed more than once. He drove cabs and airport shuttles.

In 1992, Hurricane Iniki ravaged the beautiful island of Kauai, and Dave went over to help the friends he’d made in the ’60s. He pulled down the remnants of demolished houses, he cleared trees that had fallen across the roads, he helped the people he loved rebuild. He grew taro, from which the infamous poi is made. He hunted pigs in the hills, he tended the horses, he fished. He drank. He came back to San Francisco.

In late 2007, Terry died. Dave had just received a large retroactive settlement from the government and his dreams of finding a piece of land so they could get out of the city and clean up disintegrated.

Dave loved helping other people; he could not let other people help him. Many people loved him and many now mourn him. So there are the bare bones of a man’s life. How do you convey the caring and carelessness, the consideration and neglect, the joy and despair, the ecstacy and terror, the love and hate?

We send you our  aloha and hope that the hunting and fishing are abundant, that Harold and Foxtail are loyal companions, and that the music is always the Grateful Dead and Joan Baez.

If you can join us, please RSVP to Leigh (e-mail below) so we can get a head count.

On February 8, 2009, David Black's birthday, we'll be scattering his ashes from the "Lovely Martha," as he requested, weather permitting. We'll leave the dock at 11 a.m., and the trip will take about 2 hours. We'll board the "Lovely Martha" on Jefferson Street, near Jones. Please plan to arrive at the dock about 10:30 a.m.

The captain of the Lovely Martha remembers David from the '70s/'80s when David organized groups from the Theater Club to go out sport-fishing. He says it's an honor and a privilege to do this for Dave. He's taken out others in the extended family as well, over the years. http://www.lovelymartha.com/

Then we'll rendezvous at Lou's Pier 47 about 1-1:30 pm for a no-host lunch. Lou's is at 300 Jefferson, near Jones. Bring stories and any pictures or other memorabilia that we can share in a public place.  http://www.louspier47.com/

Space is limited on the boat, so please RSVP to LeighSFO at Yahoo dot com with your phone number if you can join us. Please also let her know whether you'll be going to Lou's, so they can set aside enough tables for us.

Thanks to Andie and Bob for spreading the word about this.
Leigh Davidson

[Click on Photo to see David's friends]

Here's another photo of DB that our friend George sent over, George is second from the left.

George - That's great - I'd forgotten about this one. I love how DB is the one in the white hat! I think I have one somewhere with Dave and me. I ended up with the costumes, or at least the women's gowns, and donated them to the theatre group in Volcano.

Take care, and thanks,
Leigh
 

Leigh, Mike Z, Bob, Carla, David Black, Steve & Pat
We're all having a good time, Christmas Dinner at Leigh's house (late 90's).

P.S. I can't end this with out a link or two to music. I had no idea who David's favorite artist was so I called Leigh and she said David would talk about how much he enjoyed listening to Joan Baez while in Viet Nam. I know also he enjoyed the Dead. I still remember the Switchboard meeting where he had a free ticket to the Dead at Winterland which he gave to me. And thus I saw my first Grateful Dead concert. So I guess I can always say "Ha - it's Black's fault."

I don't know if David listened to this in Viet Nam but I want to think he did.
With God on our Side - by Joan Baez (written by Dylan)  

(See the lyrics & find the links)

I met David working as a bouncer at a club on Broadway in 1975.I had wanted to see a show and knew he had an in. When I asked if he could get me in his answer was " No, but if you want to work it call Rock Medicine, you can volunteer." He introduced me to Rock Medicine and for the next few years that was home to me. I felt like I had truly found one then. As time passed I got my EMT certification and saw my 1st Rolling Stones show working on the right field OD team on what was indeed a Very Special Day On The Green. I was lured away from Rock Med by the bright lights of working directly with Bill Graham Presents but David was always a friend that I would run into at shows or in the Haight when I lived there. My spot with BGP led me to many, many interesting assignment including a wonderful 5 year stint as the guy who held the key to the Grateful Dead's dressing rooms at the majority of their West Coast shows between '83 & '88... I have always been an avid music fan but try as I might cant really play that well. David is responsible for me seeing literally hundreds of shows, some of the best times of my life and some of the greatest people I have had the pleasure to know. I will always remember him at the first note of "Here Comes The Sun" or at the last note of "Truckin'" and everywhere in between. Thanks David I had a great ride on that call. I'll always be in your debt for that.

"May the four winds blow you safely home"

Cheers!
John Taber

Hi - Fabulous picture! That's the bathtub on Cole Street, I think. Dave always had a fishing license. It was like a religion, and he was very serious about it. As for a hunting license? Well, maybe sometimes....
Thanks,  Leigh

David went to Kauai in 1992 to help his old friends in Hanalei clean up after Hurricane Iniki.  Leigh and Raz visited him a couple of years later, and helped make poi (www.WaipaFoundation.org).