obituary

"Santa" Dave Young passed away last night in the presence of many of his Cooler Crew Friends.

Being as sleep is alluding me, I thought I could share some information and memories of our friend Dave Young over the past 10 years.

He was raised on a farm near Brewster, MN. We know he has a sister still living in that area along with aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews. He still owned farm land that he rented out. He spent most holidays with a niece back in Brewster and always bragged about her cooking.

He was married once. He never had children.

He was a ham radio operator and a licensed pilot. He loved the State fair, the medallion hunt, micro napping, working on computers, and any gathering that involved a good dinner and people he liked being with.

If you went anywhere with him, it wasn't long and he'd run into someone he knew. He had a very long list of friends.

Almost without fail, when you said goodbye at the end of a time together or on the phone, his last words were "have fun!". That was his philosophy and there wasn't much of anything he wouldn't try if it sounded like fun.

Every Christmas season, he would dress up as a traditional Santa and would hire out for parties - either private family gatherings or organizations. One time when his "jalopy" wasn't running, we picked Santa up and drove him out to Eden Prairie for a party and brought him back home afterwards. We stopped at a McDonald's or Burger King near his home. All he had left of his Santa suit was the red pants.

Two young African-American boys came up to him wanting to talk to Santa. He very graciously did so. I know those young boys will always believe.

But that wasn't the only time we witnessed Santa in action...

One year at the State Fair, we were walking around with Dave and a mother with a little girl came up to him. The mother said her little girl wanted to talk to Santa. He, of course, talked to that little girl and was so very much Santa. Not only will that little girl believe for the rest of her life, but that mother will too.

One of the first times we went to do Fitger's Bock Hunt in Duluth, there was a group of us that were going to drive up... Allison, Inks, me and Eags was to pick up DDY and then we would head up to Duluth early on a Saturday morning.

Eags had been to his place, knocked on the door, didn't get a response, had looked in his car and after another round of attempts came and met up with the rest of us. We decided to go back and try one last time before leaving. After banging on his door and looking into his car, we were about to give up, leave a note and go. Took one more look into his car and there he was micro napping amongst the "stuff" in his car. You've seen his car you know it would be easy to miss someone snoozing in among that "stuff".

At that Bock festival later that evening, Dave participated in a black forest torte eating contest....no hands. You can imagine that beard! He didn't win, but he did that every year after until Fitger's quit doing the bock hunt as part of their festival.

If anyone ever needed anything, all you had to do was ask and he'd be there. If it was something he had in his car, he knew exactly where in that "stuff" he would find it. It was amazing.

He also did electrical work. His friend Jon built a house in western Wisconsin a few years ago. Dave did the house wiring for him and his wife Cheryl. During that time, Dave had fallen on some hard financial times and his "jalopy" quit running for the last time. His friend not only paid for him to do the wiring, he bought him a different car. Very recently, Jon had a heart attack and died. He and Jon had been close friends for over 40 years. Dave was deeply saddened by the loss of that friend and had been spending time helping Jon's wife take care of some things.

So now Jon and Dave are together again.

There are so many memories...we are so lucky to have known him.