The Dave Clark Thousands

Happy birthday to Dave Clark of the Dave Clark Five (DC5)!  


I’m not saying that our Abraham Lincoln High School football coaches weren’t bright, it’s just that they didn’t figure out that there were two Dave Clark’s on the football team until they drafted the depth chart and couldn’t figure out how one guy could simultaneously play guard and tight-end.  (No wonder we didn’t win very often).

In our little school, there were three of us, three David J. Clarks. I’m convinced that I still carry David James Clark’s ‘B’ instead of my ‘A’ on my official transcript--not that I’ve been holding a grudge all this time. But the fact that our history teacher was also a football coach does add credibility to my suspicion.

I’ve met a lot of David Clarks who are my age. Apparently the DC5 was so popular that when our parents produced male offspring they had a readily available name. I read that if you are a male child born into a Clark family during the ‘60’s you have a one-in-six chance of being named David.  The Dave Clark Five became the Dave Clark thousands. For the record, my parents say that I was named after three Davids: King David of the Bible, Dave Clark of the DC5, and David Nelson from Ozzie and Harriet (my brother was named Ricky).

People give away their ages all the time. I know this because when I meet them, people who are my parent’s age will invariably mention the DC5.  When I was the guest preacher for Dayna Kinkade at the Norwalk Christian Church, people of a certain age requested we sing “Glad All Over” as our opening hymn.  I’ve never minded carrying the same name as the famous Dave Clark because I’ve been given an easy way to begin conversations with a whole generation of folks.  As my hair grays, I worry that new people I meet will be disappointed when they learn that I’m not that Dave Clark.  I’m beginning to identify with ESPN’s commercial about people getting their hopes dashed when they get to meet Michael Jordan, who turns out to be a middle-aged pudgy white guy.

For those of you who are too young to know about the DC5, just think of a cleaner cut version of the early Beatles who never evolved much out of their 1964 style.  Yet, Dave Clark was part of a revolution that transformed music as we know it. As a way of celebrating the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Famer’s 70th birthday, may all of us who bear his name work toward transforming our little part’s of the world into better places.If one of us plays guard and another TE and another quarterback and so on, maybe we could move the ball down the field a bit and make the world a little more user friendly.