David J. Read

Editorial published (w/o photo) Mon. Jan. 14, 1963, Oswego Palladium-Times

Dave Read, who died tragically in an airplane crash near Detroit Saturday, was one of those rare and fortunate individuals for whom things were either black and white – right or wrong – and who had the ability to make the distinction with an amiable assurance and great accuracy.

His loved his family, his church, his friends, and his profession. He liked ceremony and tradition, well-cut clothes, good tobacco, thick steaks and Canadian beer. The Toronto Maple Leafs were high in his esteem, as were a lively and intelligent argument, golf, the conservative principles of the Republican party, St. Patrick’s Day, authentic Irish and bagpipe music and military marches played as loudly as possible.

He loathed with articulate vehemence and well-reasoned cause any infringement on human freedoms; phonies, pretense and fuzzy thinking. He scorned indolence, discourtesy, what he regarded as the socialistic trend in government, the New York Yankees, teabags, timidity and undue caution, sloppiness, physical ailments and any suggestion that he allow for his spectacular hook on the golf course.

Dave Read was a skilled and tenacious attorney. Fluent and persuasive in court, careful and painstaking in the preparation of his cases, he was a lawyer who had gained, by achieving the high standards he had set for himself the professional respect and personal affection of his colleagues. As city attorney, in the four years of the Iles administration (1955-59) he handled the mountain of detailed work which went into the preparations for and construction of the city’s new water system. He was rightfully proud of the part he played in bringing that asset to the community.

Dave Read was a deeply religious man, and a student of his faith. Quite simply he lived it daily; it pervaded his whole being.

Whatever Dave Read did, he did with a flair and an all-out devotion to the task. Trite though it may sound (and he didn’t like triteness either) he lived his life fully and well. He was an extraordinary man – one who made his mark in this world, and who never will be forgotten by those of us who were privileged to share his friendship.

Rockefeller campaign

I find it necessary to post this photo of my father, seen on the campaign trail with Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, who represented the mainstream of the republican party during my father’s lifetime. The party sold its soul to the devil in 1964, when Rockefeller’s rival, Barry Goldwater rolled out the red carpet for South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who was eager to quit the democratic party then in the hands of that notorious civil-rights-lover, LBJ! (On my father’s left is his brother-in-law, Assemblyman Ed Crawford.)