10 | Snowmobile VERMONT In Memory I don’t remember when I first met Dave. It might have been in the late 1970s when we were both working in a shopping center gone business park in Essex Junction. New England Telephone, his employer at the time, had an engineering and planning operation in one section of the buildings. My company occupied most of the rest of the buildings (there were only two at the time. Or, it might have been in the early to middle 1980s when we both had daughters in the local Brownie Scout troop. In any event, we probably knew each other without really knowing each other. We basically lived in parallel universes in the same town for the next 20 or so years. He with a career at the succession of phone companies which are today called Consolidated Communications, and I with another company for at least 15 years, and a few shorter gigs with several large and small companies until my retirement. Through the miracle of buyouts, Dave got to enjoy an early retirement in 1996 from his job as a planner at big telephone. But retire? Not Dave… he volunteered to be on the Essex school board before and after retirement to the tune of 24 years. He drove a school bus for three separate school districts in “retirement.” And when not otherwise busy, he volunteered his time and tractor to work on our snowmobile club’s trails. It was during this period of time when I really got to know Dave. Sometime around 2002, our club went from a “little” non-grooming club to a “big,” in relative terms, club. Although we didn’t own it, someone bought a Class 1 groomer and parked it in our midst. There were lots of trail projects, bridges to build and other needs to have folks operating and maintaining a big BR-400 groomer. Then we bought a Class 4 groomer and there was more stuff to do. Suffice to say, Dave and I became involved maintain trails. How wide did you want to brush hog it? Didn’t matter. Dave would make it wider and higher. Dave would put you in the tractor bucket with a pole saw to get any limb that snow could possibly load down enough to hit the groomer when he drove it or rode in the passenger seat. Dave also had a smaller 2WD Case tractor for the simple jobs. That tractor saw frequent brush hogging service as well and not just for our club’s trails. Dave helped adjoining clubs who were not fortunate enough to have their own equipment. This past summer Dave was out on the LVRT brush hogging for VAST. He did not charge for that either. Dave loved to tell stories. Indeed, Dave had a story to explain the solution to any problem you came up with. He particularly liked to tell the story of having slid the groomer off one side of a drainage ditch bridge in Fairfax, then having to call Smuggler’s Notch Club to bring their groomer over to pull him out. Dave had stories for every occasion. These came from his growing up in Lisbon N.H., working with his father and uncles in construction and solving the numerous problems they encountered over the years. He was also a career field engineer and planner for the phone company. One story was about how they got the local ski tow going after years of disuse. From felling trees as a teenager to designing and building his own tractor hauling trailers, Dave could spin a yarn with an inner meaning with the best of them. When Dave passed away on Nov. 27, 2018, he was working on building his final trailer. It wasn’t as big as the one he designed and built after his first retirement. It was just big enough to haul the smaller Case tractor or perhaps a small car now and then. I’m not sure if he really wanted another trailer or just a meaningful project to teach his grandsons welding skills. I want to believe it was the latter. in each other’s worlds. I didn’t know it, but Dave had owned a 73 Arctic Cat sled since it was new. He still had it the day he passed away. It was a keeper, I guess. Did I mention his tractor? Rumor has it that when he made the case to wife Eva, that buying a big 4WD John Deere tractor would be a good investment because he could make a bunch of money charging folks for him working with it, he failed to mention that he would never get around to charging for the use. Just ask his neighbors and friends. Among his loyal friends was the Saxon Hill Riders Snowmobile Club. He volunteered his tractor so often that he got to be club president! Yes, a few years ago we were holding an election of officers when the past president no longer wanted to serve. No one attending wanted the job and Dave was not at the meeting. So we elected Dave - and he did not decline (then, because he wasn’t there and later when he found out). When I say tractor, I mean all that goes with it. Brush hog, rototiller, bucket loader, chipper, wood splitter, cord wood saw, truck and trailer big enough to haul it all. Dave liked to use any or all of his toys to clear and Remembering DAVID R. CLOUGH By Roger Haskins