David R. Swanson
1938 — 2015
Whether you called him Swanny, Shorty, David, Dave, Dick, George for his unlikeness size-wise to the great George Mikan of the Minneapolis World Champion Lakers, or, as in one case I know of, Boo Boo, it doesn’t matter. We knew who this person was and he was our friend.
Swanny graduated from Falls High, home of the Falls Broncos, in 1956. He was on the state championship football team. He accurately reflected our class motto: “Hard as nails, tough as bricks, Bronco Class of ‘56.” In our year book, the entry with Dave’s picture is, “Quality—not quantity.” Quality for sure.
Shorty played football (smallest on the team), baseball (for the Broncos in the Minnesota State High School Baseball Tournament of 1956), he was a key member of the “Foggy Five” basketball team made up of Falls High Seniors. In the 1956 City League tournament the Foggy Five upset the coaches’ team and then defeated the formidable, and heavily favored, Falls Creamery to win the International Falls City League Championship. The deeds of Swanny and the team are celebrated in the epic poem, “The Ballad of the Foggy Five.”
In college Dave became a wrestler. He delighted in wrestling. At last a sport in which he could take advantage of his strength; where his size was not a disadvantage. He was an excellent wrestler. Along the way, Shorty suffered more than his share of hardships and setbacks. Not least was getting crushed by a fork-lift truck in the Insulite factory in the Falls during summer vacation, an accident that made him miss much of a wrestling season at Gustavus.
Swanny was an eager student and a voracious reader. In addition to much other reading, he read the entire newspaper every day, an activity he promised to himself with his retirement. A person needed to be careful challenging Shorty should one be inclined to do so. His excellent, open mind did not prevent him from having strong opinions. He could become, as it is said, “hot under the collar.”
Dave had theological passion and it persisted throughout his life. You may know that he barely escaped graduation from Augustana Seminary in Rock Island, Illinois. Over the years, Swanny became increasingly skeptical of formal religion and came to dislike the Bible. He was skeptical in spite of the fact that he and Marion were Volunteers of the Year several times for the journal Pietisten.
Dave liked Pietisten a lot. He enjoyed the friendships, the conversations, the Swedish connection, the Lutheran allusions, the humor, all of it. But, that did not impede his skepticism.
About a year ago, Swanny resolved to read the entire Bible to make sure that his dislike for it was warranted. I doubt there are many people who would put their convictions to the test like this.
When I would ask him how far along he was, he’d say for example, “I’m almost done with Chronicles.” “How is it?” “It’s bad—but not as bad as Leviticus, Gawd!” Next time it was Job and the Psalms in which he saw no improvement.
“But, Swanny,” I’d say. “It’s great ancient literature. The Greek stuff isn’t any better. It’s every bit as filled with mayhem and slaughter. Besides, why are you reading it?” He just smiled and kept going on his quest. It was only very recently that he could do it no longer.
So Swanny, there is so much to say about you. We love you, we cherish your memory, we are grateful for your friendship, we are not certain you will be satisfied to rest in peace. May that be as you wish.