John W. Davies

John was one of my best friends from when we first met in 7th grade English class (both of us making fun of the teacher!) through my late twenties. I have a ton of memories – times I will always remember. John and our friends Kregg and Todd smoked cigars and celebrated the night my son was born. I was his best man at his first wedding. One of my most fond memories is the time we spent at the cabin in Nevada city – we caught a bat in the oven after John smacked it with a stick flying in the kitchen and killed it with bug spray, we shot everything that moved (probably took the bird and lizard population a few years to recover from that), we almost stepped on a 5 foot rattlesnake walking back from town (to buy a snake bite kit and more ammo!), we almost got killed by the Nevada City Sheriffs Dept when they came marching in the middle of the night one night to check on us and we had cleverly tied a lead fishing weight to the some fishing line from the pull chain of the ceiling light so we could turn it off laying down in our sleeping bags on the floor – when we heard the dog barking and people talking I looked out the window while John grabbed a gun when I saw it was the police I told him to turn on the light. Well, he grabbed the fishing weight and pulled it so hard that it bounced on the line a couple times turning the lights on – then off – then on – then off again. The cops all dropped to the ground and pulled their guns! Somehow we survived and the cops told us that it was ok if we shot any people coming to rob the cabin. We launched a model rocket at an airplane flying over his parents house on approach to land at Phoenix Field Airport – we just missed the cockpit/wing. It was harmless and wouldnt have hurt the airplane but we got in trouble and told never to do that again. John once was showing me how much fun it was to throw oranges from his house out onto Greenback Lane – when a Sheriff pulled into the driveway with an orange on his windshield and John holding an orange ready to throw it! Kregg and I talked John into cutting high school one afternoon to go down to the American river and swim Kregg and I did not get caught for that day or many other days but when John got home the vice principal was sitting at the table with his mom! I once dared John to dance the cancan while we were waiting for his dad to come get us (his car broke down) – he danced in front of the Winchells Doughnut Shop to the horror and bewilderment of the customers for over a minute. John and I both moved to Kauai for nearly a year to worked for a tour business. I cant even begin to tell all of those stories. Good times! I have a thousand stories I could tell, all true. We did so many fun and crazy things – the movie Stand By Me doesn’t hold a candle to us. So many memories… John and I grew up together, he was part of my family and I was part of his. My parents knew John and loved him and his parents knew me and loved me. I remember Suzanne and Beth (I actually had a secret crush on Beth at one point) and Myra. My brother Gary and Johns brother Dan, we were all friends. Life eventually took us down different roads, but I always had John in my heart and thought of him over the years. I am very very sad to hear that John has passed. I had always hoped that we would meet up some day in our old age and talk about everything. I am grateful to have been best friends with John and he will always be in my heart. Requiescat in pace, my friend.