A new friend passes & a movement feels his loss
Dave Thompson was a a man who saw the comedy in life and laughed often AND was also a fierce advocate for social justice and for improving the lives of working class folks and their families. Foto was cropped and modified from the one posted on the Socialist Alternative website. Unsure who took the original picture sometime during 2012-2014.
Copied & pasted directly from my posting on the Legacy website:
As time already passes into the past, I contemplate Dave’s various circles of friends, some of which overlapped for the first time at his lovely Memorial Service. I feel impressed how his friends, family, & colleagues from each circle each spoke to his brilliant intellect, his loyalty, his do-anything-not-can-do-but-will-do attitude, his quiet yet ferocious stands on controversial issues, his humbleness & lack of ego, which is rare for us political activists. Dave was funny, too. Made us all laugh together.
I first met Dave a couple of years ago as we both joined Socialist Alternative about the same time. I liked him immediately. I valued him immensely. And looked forward to cultivating a friendship outside of politics where we can just laugh at stuff. Especially as we didn’t get to see each other all that much. We were both divorced, he with a loving family right here in Cascadia, me with 3 daughters in Seattle but everyone else back east in Virginia & the Carolinas. I felt great sadness none of that will come to be, and I feel deeply grateful I got to know him as little as I did. He was incredibly committed to his passions.
What I remember the most about Dave is his listening. He listened deeply. Such deep listening is rare. Lots of folks hear, and few listen. Then Dave would respond with straight talk, but do so he addressed the issues without making it personal. Those are rare traits, too. His capacity to listen, tho, stands out as more of a contribution than a quality.
He’s missed already.
William Bass,
Seattle, WA
January 15, 2015
Dave is the man in the center, the 5th red shirt from foto left. Cropped & modified this picture from the one posted by a fellow activist in the Legacy obituary. They’re supporting the employees of a Seattle Starbucks store in their bid to unionize sometime in 2013-2014. The Starbucks on Broadway finally was able to unionize in March of 2022, and then Starbucks shut the store down later in November of the same year, blaming the closure on rising crime. Those in the know claimed Starbucks really did so to thwart the unionization drive, the movement Dave fought so hard for nearly a decade earlier. The person who took and shared this foto is unknown to me at this moment.
New by me in January 2023:
Dave died while on a family vacation to Hawaii. Apparently he got caught in strong, turbulent currents. In his struggle to escape, he had a heart attack and drowned. People were unable to resuscitate him. These details I learned somewhat later.
Also, got an email from Legacy dot com out of the blue on 27 December 2022 reminding me “being remembered matters” and inviting me to share “another memory of condolence.” It all felt strange popping up as it did as I don’t recall any other such annual reminders. For nary a second I drew a blank when I first saw the email. Dave who? Many people named Dave have passed thru my life. I work with people I know as Dave. And then all those memories of who the man named David Thompson was came roaring back like the sea itself.
William Dudley Bass
Tuesday 10 January 2023
Shoreline/Seattle, Washington
USA
Earth
Sources:
Spear, Jess. “Obituary: Dave Thompson 1961-2014,” Socialist Alternative, 9 Feb 2015.
https://www.socialistalternative.org/2015/02/09/obituary-dave-thompson-1961-2014/.
Article Copyright ©2015, 2023 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons except for the two pictures. Those two photographs are from unknown photographers. Thank you.