As you can see, I wasn’t always known as “Tall Dave”! I was born in Minneapolis on October 26, 1960. I grew up in New Brighton, Minnesota, where I spent way too much time watching TV (which is strange because I never watch television now).

When I wasn’t watching reruns of “Gilligan’s Island” or “The Brady Bunch,” I enjoyed reading, drawing, acting out make-believe stories with my neighbor LuAnn, and annoying my older sister Debbie.

Some of my favorite gifts as a kid included a tank of helium (I wanted to become a balloon man), Spirograph, and packs of brightly colored construction paper. I could spend hours making things out of construction paper. My childhood hero was Charles Schulz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip, and if I couldn’t become a balloon man, I wanted to become a cartoonist.