RIP, David Samuel Bommer

An old friend of mine died recently, one of those childhood friends you don't see or hear much about after you're grown. I believe I first met him in the fifth grade, but I might be wrong; and I believe the last time I saw him was in Dallas, by chance, nearly 25 years ago, but I might be wrong about that too. Things are a little fuzzy at this distance.

There was a time in late elementary school when I went over to his house fairly often, where we spent a lot of time playing pool. Perhaps my fondest memories of David, however, were in junior high, when he and I and another fellow, Steven Lozano, made movies -- silent movies -- with an 8mm camera that David had access to. This was 1974 and '75, long before video cameras became ordinary household equipment, so that camera was a novelty. At least, David was the only person I knew who had one.

Our movies were mostly juvenile spoofs. We did a couple of science fiction stories, such as the one in which "Tedees of Titan" (David, in a bald wig) came to Earth to kidnap an earthling (me), a genius at "physics and poker." Special effects included a model spaceship -- it might have been an upside-down model Enterprise -- traveling by crude stop-motion photography against the backdrop of the pool-table velvet, with the cue ball as a planet.

My own favorite was The Assassin, in which as Hans Lan, a Swiss spy, I wore an overcoat and a red hat with a feather in it. The entire plot of the movie was Steven, the assassin, trying to kill Hans Lan, and failing each time, though inadvertently killing a number of innocent bystanders, each played by David in a variety of clothing. For one scene, we set the camera on a tripod and filmed me reading a newspaper while sitting in a patio chair. Steven, with a huge rubber knife in hand, sneaked up behind me. At the last second, I threw the paper behind me and into Steven's face, and then walked away. He fumbled with the paper for a few seconds, not noticing that David (wearing that bald wig again) had come over and sat down. Then the assassin got him instead of Hans Lan.

In high school, David and I were both in band, but we weren't the friends we had been. He studied music at SMU and as an adult, I understand, he was a professional organist. In band, he'd played baritone sax, and I had no idea he was learning organ at the time too. His obit in the San Antonio Express-News is here. RIP, David.