David Lawrence Drennen
May 23, 1950 - December 20, 2021
It's difficult to tell the story of my oldest brother David without going too deep into family history. I dont remember David as being a boy, he became a man very early in life.
While my dad was traveling all over the world, David tried to take care of my mom. He did his best.
David loved my maternal grandfather Willard Truax who had a large farm in North Dakota. David loved working on the farm with my cousins the Truax's. I dont remember David being idle for too long. He was always building and experimenting.
One time he and his friends built a huge balloon out of dry cleaning bags. It must have been 10 feet high. They assembled one night in our friends the Waldo's back yard and heated it up so it would float way up high. They rigged a sterno burner under it which kept it airborne. The next day there were write ups all across the state of Montana about a UFO !
David was all of our hero from a young age. Believe me, we needed one ! He was always there to rescue you. We had a very volatile family so it was good to see him coming !
He left home right after he graduated and went to college for a short while in Minnesota. We still lived in Montana after leaving North Dakota.
Shortly afterwards he enlisted in the Navy and had some good years in the military. He married his 1st wife Pat and had 2 sons who he dearly loved.
When his 1st marriage ended he went into the US Army and served in Germany. This was before the Berlin wall came down. He was an Army Scout and patrolled the German border .
I have a picture of him in civilian clothes standing in front of the Russian Kremlin. He was smuggling bibles into communist Russia.
About this time he came back into my life. I had a pretty serious accident and my life was in a shambles. He came out to California and stayed with me and really helped me get back on my feet. Together we formed Bro Construction and worked all around Vallejo until we saved up enough money to journey across the country on another great adventure.
We drove across the country in my van and I still remember everything. He had to stop everywhere that was interesting.
I went to visit him in Alabama before he left for Europe. This was a truly life changing weekend. We went spelunking in some caves that he and his friend Steve Calvert knew about. I'm not sure how bright it was but it was interesting!
We were going to go to Europe and tour around together. I wasn't able to go but he did.
He ended up back in Germany where he became a German trained engineer.
This is when he met and married his dear wife Heide.I believe this was in 1986.
My life took some serious changes that year for the good and we always stayed close to each other. Neither of us held back on our beliefs but we always ended things peacefully.
We didn't agree on everything such as politics and religion but we always stayed close friends. We agreed to disagree..
We just decided that we would be close regardless.
We often talked on the phone, it was always "hello bro" and ended with "I love you bro".
David was a deeply religious person and was totally engrossed in politics. He studied and taught constitutional law.
He worked as a systems engineer in the automotive industry. He was working right up until he contracted COVID a few weeks ago. It turned into pneumonia.
I will miss you bro ....
P.S. David was very private and hated the internet but I wanted him to be remembered properly.
The black and white picture was in 1967 just before my brother Dale was struck by a car and killed. Dale is holding the cat. He loved all animals. The car missed David by inches. David is in the back row next to my dad. My brother Gilbert is in front, I am in the next beside my sister Leah and just in front of my mom. My brother Dana is next to me.
