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My twin brother, David T. Johnson, of Shoreline WA, passed away on 12 April 2025 after a two-year battle with cancer. David soldiered through his initial stage 4 cancer diagnosis with all the courage, resilience and resolve earthly possible. He followed all the doctor’s advice, he did the chemo and other treatments, he even did the “cutting edge” modified T-cell treatments. He was quite active during most of this period, with travel to Lake Tahoe, San Diego, Palo Alto, and Hood River. Like a true soldier in a battle for his family and friends he never gave up hope and the belief he could overcome his malady and regain his life. Only after nearly two years of grueling battle did his doctors tell him that he had run out of treatment options – he passed away a few weeks later. David is survived by his wife Suzie (nee Viggiano of Palo Alto) their three children, Ryan, Nicholas, and Stefano (all living in the Seattle area); their three spouses, Kathryn, Kelly and Tori, and his four grandchildren, Nyla, Emma, Svea and Nina (all living in the Seattle area). Clearly, David’s greatest achievement is his family legacy, Seattle and the world are far better off because of David and the family legacy he left behind.
David and I were born on 30 August 1955, as fraternal twins in Santa Monica, CA. David and I shared the same room together for the first 7 or 8 years of our lives, first in the LA area (Mandeville Canyon, until age 2) and later at 474 Churchill Ave in Palo Alto.
David was almost immediately recognized as a true athlete. At an early age we began playing hockey at the Winter Club in Palo Alto on most Saturday mornings in the winter, and David excelled in this sport. We also spent summer weekends at the Palo Alto Yacht harbor sailing our little El Toro sailboats in the harbor while our father raced his 505 sailboat out on San Francisco Bay. David proved himself to be an avid sailor during this time. Later, swimming at the University Club in Palo Alto, David cleaned up, and won a huge number of trophies at the swim meets. We began snow skiing at Badger Pass in Yosemite in 1959, at the age of 4, and David really showed his abilities in this sport, just bee-lining down most runs. Later, around 1963 we began skiing at Squaw Valley, and it wasn’t many years until David was skiing down West Face of KT-22, now labeled as a double-black diamond run. He went on to be the #2 downhill racer on the Squaw Valley Race Team in 1974.
Over the 69 years that I had the honor of knowing this incredible human we had many adventures together. I’ll list of few of them here, not in any particular order.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YtWYqt9sXwSLJ5nKCe671YsND1i1wEBk/view?usp=sharing
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Jeff Williams
Russ, I am so saddened hearing of the passing of Dave. My heart goes out to you and the entire extended family. Dave demonstrated a deep sense of kindness and good cheer to everyone he met -- a set of traits all too rare these days. His sense of humor and broad smile always put people at ease, even during times of stress.
I absolutley love your recounting of the many adventures and skills he exhibited throughout his vibrant life! It brought back so many fond memories of the wonder of David. Here are a few of my own rememberances . . .
On the Paly tennis team, Dave and I played doubles together in our senior year, after several years of playing singles. Our thought was to 'take it easy' during our senior year, as we could fairly easily beat most doubles opponents during tournaments. Well, that was true until the CCS finals tournament in 1973, hosted at Woodside High School. It was there that we more than met our match. In our finals match, we ended up playing against a team from Woodside that consisted of Rich Kelly (7 ft. tall, later played for the New Orleans Jazz NBA team) and Nick Saviano (who became a pro tennis player later that year, ranked 48th in the world). Needles to say, we did not have a prayer against these guys. They charged the net almost every point, with a winning volley or overhead smash whistling by our ears. And with a 7 ft. Kelly at the net, there was absolutely no way to lob the ball over him. We were getting decimated, eating fuzzy tennis balls left and right. Well, after trying many futile strategies to survive the onslaught, David came up with the perfect solution. He turned to me and said, "OK, since we are going to continue eating tennis balls, let's at least fuck with them a bit", accompanied by his signature huge grin. "Just follow my lead". I was not sure at first what the plan was, but quickly caught on as I watched my fearless partner lob the ball high in the air and then RUSH THE NET! It was a full Kamikaze move, but it looked like fun so I followed suit. Each time they would come to the net we would lob the ball high and shout "RUSH THE NET" as we charged forward into certain doom. It was a bit painful, as we continued to get hit by overhead smashes, but now we were within mere feet of the their rackets. Dave's goal of messing with their heads definitely worked, as demonstrated by the dumbfounded expressions on their faces. And, we finally did manage to get a point or two. Once by a lucky volley by Dave, once by a bank shot off of my face, which actually counted. Excellent plan Dave!
On the topic of skiing, I had the dubious pleasure of skiing with Dave one bright and sunny day at Heavenly Valley. As I recall, it was a midweek day, with absolutely no skiers in the lift line, so we could ski down a run without stopping, ski right onto the chair, then rinse and repeat. For Dave, this was a walk in the park, as he had previously been training to most likely become part of an Olympic downhill team. It almost killed me. The slope Dave had chosen was the Gunbarrel run, otherwise know as "The Face". A 1600 vertical foot double black diamond run with moguls so high you could disappear behind them. I desparately tried to keep pace with him, to no avail. He was always waiting for me at the bottom, with a warm smile and a gentle jab, "should we find a run that has a little more speed?". I kept track of the number of runs we made, as I always relished "getting my full money's worth" for the high price of lift tickets. When we finally paused for lunch at around 1pm, we had skied down Gunbarrel 24 times in less than 5 hours! Needles to say, my legs were like limp noodles and I had to call it a day at lunch. David went back out after lunch, racking up even more runs for the day. The strangest part of this story is I learned many years later that ski legend Glen Plake formed an event called the Gunbarrel 25 in 2004, which challenges fearless contestants to ski 25 runs down Gunbarrel in under 6 hours. I guess Dave was on to something . . .
On the topic of Boy Scouts, I have two incidents that I can recount. The first was spending a week at Camp Oljato at Huntington Lake (7000 ft.), where David and I participated in a one-mile swim, life-saving merit badge tests, and the mysterious "Ordeal" to join the Boy Scouts 'Order of the Arrow'. Looking at the current Boy Scouts website, the Ordeal still exists to this day, but I seriously doubt that today's requirements in any way match what Dave and I went through. Here is how the 24-hour Ordeal went down. Starting around noon, each candidate had to make a loin cloth from a small sheet of deerskin and a thin leather lace (to hold it up around your waist). Next, we were instructed to remove all our clothing, including shoes, and wear only our loin cloth for the next 24 hours. We were then told that we must remain silent, talk to no one, and work on a project to repair the camp's storage barn as a way to provide a service to the camp. We did this until sunset. At this point each of us were given only a pocket knife, a flint, and a compass and told that we must hike into the woods and find a place to shelter for the night. No shoes, no sleeping bag, no food, no water. Just straight up survival by yourself in the woods. Granted, it was only for one night, but we had strict orders to be on our own. So, I watched David head off in one direction, while I headed in another. We both ended up cutting small branches from the Ponderosa pine trees in the area to make a 'bed', and several more branches to serve as a 'blanket' to provide some relief from the overnight drop in temperature. Needless to say, it was not a pleasant experience, but we both survived. I suspect that the Boy Scouts have since changed the degree of rigor required for the Order of the Arrow, given current legal sensibilities . . .
The second memory of the Boy Scouts was during a 50-mile backpacking trip in the Sierra mountains, where Dave helped to save my life. There were about 20 scouts in our group, headed up by Walt Frykman, along with his son Dave Frykman. We had just finished a long uphill hike to a small lake near a 10,000 foot summit, and we were stopping for a lunch break. I still had my backpack on, full of gear (about 25 lbs worth). I was walking along the shore of the lake when I slipped on a rock covered with snow and fell into the lake. I broke through a layer of ice on the lake, struggled to kick back to the surface, only to find an intact layer of ice above me. Luckily, I had a quick-release belt on my backpack, so I was able to get free of my backpack, but was still searching for a hole in the ice to be able to catch a breath of air. I could see many of my fellow scouts above running around and shouting for help. Of the many trying to help, I remember Dave Johnson breaking the ice layer with a rock, enabling Dave Frykman and others to pull me to safety. Thanks to both Daves for coming to my rescue!
One last memory involving David and a lake. This time a big lake. Lake Tahoe. I was fortunate enough to spend a few days at the legendary Johnson house near Rubicon Bay. On a beautiful sunny day in February, Russ and Dave suggested that we do a little "inner-tubing" on the lake. Although the air temperature was probably in the balmy 50's, the lake temperature was probably a bit lower, as there were patches of snow floating near shore. "Never mind a bit of snow, this will be fun", proclaimed a jubilant Dave at the helm of the Chis-Craft speedboat, as he announced the rules. "It's quite simple, you jump into the water, swim over to the truck inner-tube at the end of that long rope, climb up, and hold on for dear life". What Dave failed to mention was what would happen after he launched the boat full throttle until the slack in the long rope was gone, with you at the end of that rope. Well, let's just say, it wasn't pretty. For most of us (me included), the ride ended in an instant. When all the slack came to an end, the inner-tube was pulled with such ferocious force that it elongated into a long oval (picture a clown pulling his lips apart widely), with the rider trying desperately to continue holding on to one end of the ovalized inner-tube. This is where physics usually wins, leaving the rider alone in the cold lake, treading water until the speedboat could circle around to pick him up. When it came time for Russell's turn as a rider, his deeper experience with David's boating skills came in handy. Russ knew exactly when the torque would hit him and he managed to hang on, despite Dave putting the speedboat through several 90 degree (and even a 180 degree) turns! As we all know, the Johnson twins are on the far end of the fearless scale, but they also have a sense of fair play. So, the rules of the game dictated that the last person who was a 'rider' then became the next pilot of the speedboat, trading places with the pilot who had just tried everything in their power to shake them off the inner-tube. Thus, Dave then jumped into the fridged water and swam out to the inner-tube, as Russ took the helm of the speedboat. To this day, I can still remember the cackle of Russ's laugh as he contemplated the punishment he was going to dish out to his brother, and the broad, defiant smile of Dave in the cold water, awaiting his "fun" to begin.
David, you are dearly missed,
Jeff Williams
Janet Ransom (Fimmel)
A life well lived.... gone too soon. Cherish your love ones.
Russell Johnson
Great life stories and comments about David from all of you.
Jeff Williams, you spent a great deal of time with David and your thoughts and writing are awesome. I will definitely share your extensive thoughts at Dave's celebration of life on the 10th of May in Shoreline WA. David's celebration of life is at his house, 2133 NW 204th St, Shoreline WA, between noon and 4 pm. All are welcome.
Jeff, it would be great if you could attend; otherwise, I will share your stories along with the picture/text book I created for the event with his family and large number of friends. Jeff, your stories are great, and so well written, and definitely representative of David's life, personality and disposition.
Thanks for your thoughts Jeff ( I was hoping you would offer your thoughts, clearly you spent a good deal of time thinking and writing about this. Thank You.)
Russ Johnson
Jeff Williams
Hi Russ,
Thank you for the invite to Dave's memorial up in Washington. I am sorry that I will be unable to attend.
I am glad that my stories revealing the 'awesomeness of Dave' resonated with you. It gave me such joy to think back to some of the crazy things we used to do back in the day. And the more I thought about specific events and situations involving Dave over the decades, the more it became clear just how authentic he was in the way he approached life and all the people around him. If you asked him for his opinion, he would tell you his thoughts straight up, without sugar coating. But he would do this with a gentleness that invited discussion and debate. He could always see the other person's point of view and respect it, even if he did not agree with it.
When you were talking to Dave he would look you straight in the eye, but not in an intimidating way, but rather in a "I am truly interested in what you are saying" kind of way. This unique skill put even complete strangers at ease, opening up conversations that made them feel welcomed and valued. His calming, warm sense of humor brought a bright light to all situations, which made him fun to be around.
In summary, he was a truly good human being . . . which is all too rare in the world we are living in.
Russell Johnson
One of my favorite pictures of David and me. This picture was taken and made into a postcard by a visiting swedish scout who helped on the construction crew at Camp Oljato. In the postcard he thanks David and me for making that summer in 1976 the best of his life.
Rose McCarty (Emanuel)
Russ
I'm so sorry for your loss. I fondly remember you and Dave as being twins too, AND sharing TC and my birthday!! Blessing to you and your family!
Rose (McCarty) Emanuel
Russell Johnson
Two of my favorite pictures when we were toddlers.
Dave cornice jumping at Bear Valley in 1972
Agate Bay, Lake Tahoe, 1973 (front to back: Russ, Dave, Karen and Rick)
Diving off our Agate Bay (Tahoe) pier in 1972
Russell Johnson
David, Russ and Phil Osborne skiing the really steep chutes at Kicking Horse ski area in western Canada (2007) - with names like Terminator, CPR Ridge, Tunnel Vision, Two-Trick Pony, etc.
Mark Fisher
Russell, I believe I speak for our whole class of the heartfelt sadness at the news of David's passing. In school, and after, you and Dave's zest for life has always been an example of a great way to live life. When you, Dave and your family was kind enough to host our Class of '73 reunions, it was another example of a gigantic kindness and generosity of spirit. I had to write something here, because I'm really feeling the loss,and I know darn well I speak for others,too.My best to you and your whole family.
Mark
Russell Johnson
Thank You Mark,
and the entire class.
Stay Well,
Russ Johnson