This past Monday was my father-in-law Dave’s birthday and he would have been 91 years old.
Terri Anderson Burnett still greatly misses her father and I miss him too.
It has become our tradition to honor ancestors of our time.
We acknowledge and celebrate Dave’s birthday quietly in our home between the two of us.
Terri found this Polaroid photo of him while organizing and labeling the pictures within a box of her parents’ snapshots.
I first met Dave in 1980 when he and T’s mom Sintha came to Germany. They took the opportunity to tour Europe and visit us there before we transferred to the First US Army Band that was based out of Fort Meade in the Military District of Washington back then.
Dave passed in 2010 surrounded by his loving family after a courageous battle with cancer, at age 77. He attended Waite High School, married Sintha in 1954, and also served in the US Army.
When I met Dave, he was still working at the AMC/ Chrysler/ Jeep automotive manufacturing company in Toledo as a plant electrician. He ultimately worked there for 40 years, retiring in 1991.
Dave helped me select my first real home handyman tool box along with the tools that I needed to go in it.
Dave was a knowledgeable fan of the big bands and knew all of the major bandleaders as well as numerous others that I had never known existed.
He had a pristine collection of vinyl records by numerous of his favorites among these bands.
We would listen to music during our visits over the years. Vinyl and cassettes mostly at first.
And our last listening sessions were using the digital music service called Rhapsody, a precursor to Amazon, Apple Music and Spotify.
We still love and miss Dave tremendously but the pain of knowing he is not in Ohio with Sintha to go visit isn’t as searing as it was for so many years.
And it’s also comforting for us to know that they’re together again and this time for the ages.
Happy Birthday, Dave!
👩🏼💻👨🏽💻 🔗 BurnettFamilyUS.org