He could not even imitate himself.  One never knew in advance just what he might say or do.  He seemed to be unpredictable.  The only thing that was predictable was that he would see things as others did not see them and that he would leave you laughing.  In a way he was our modern Dante, writing his Inferno.  He depicted all the hellish experiences of humans and then turned it all into a divine comedy.

 We first met back in 1979 when I was a moderator at the Executive Seminar of the Aspen Institute.  It was a rare group.  In the 26 years that I moderated at Aspen, I found that just about every group resolved to have reunions.  Few did.  Some did just once.  But this group has met for 22 consecutive annual reunions.  It was a rare collection of minds.  And David was the rarest.

 Apparently David thought highly of those conversations.  He invited me to do a mini-seminar for the faculty of the law school at the University of Iowa.  It was a most unusual exercise.  But what was unusual in general was the usual thing for David.

 In a way, David was an oxymoron, a self-contradictory thing.  In his concern for man’s fate and man’s future, he was profoundly serious.  Yet, somehow, he managed to put it all in terms that were entrancing, enchanting, and — above all — full of penetrating humor.

 Were he with us today, he might well say, “I told you so.”  He was always much aware of man’s inhumanity to man.  But, then, David might add.  “It happened before; it will happen again.  Yet, somehow we stupid selfish semi-savage animals have managed to survive.”

 David was the ultimate pessimistic optimist.  He is no longer with us.  But, he pointed the way for us and those to follow to see both the dark cloud and the silver lining.  And for that we will remember him.