My name is David P. McDonald, Jr. David P. McDonald, Sr. is my father, who is Harold's nephew.
I'm going to be 31 in only a few months. In nearly 31 years, I never had the opportunity to really get to know Harold's brother, MY Grandfather, William Paul. I never got to know William Paul the way I came to know Harold when I was older. The time I spent with Harold's brother, my grandfather, was brief, when I was very young, so I don't have any memories of him. I wish I did.
I DO, however, have memories of Harold, and I'm very thankful for those memories. I remember him the way anyone should remember a person- as a kind, gentle, incredibly caring and generous man, who taught me a lot about my extended family. For a million different reasons, I never had the opportunity to really connect with extended family who are probably reading this message, so I'm happy to share that Great Uncle Harold represented our clan very well.
One of my favorite memories of Uncle Harold was from a time, a few years ago, when he'd come over to Mom and Dad's house in West River just to visit. My father is one of the greatest men I'll ever know. In that greatness, is a superhuman ability to make a penny scream. My entire life we'd had big tube TVs. We had cable and internet forever, so I'm thankful for that, but GOD did we have some monster box Tvs. People had been walking the earth with slim phones that could receive signals from outer-freakin'-space WAY before we finally got a flat screen tv in our house. We always gave Dad a hard time about it.
Uncle Harold came in one time, all smiles, just happy to be alive and livin', and strolled right in and said.. "Dave!? Where the heck are your flat screen Tvs!?" Now, I love my Dad more than life itself, but any opportunity to make him blush is just too good. Uncle Harold knew exactly what he was doing, because he knew my Dad, and he absolutely nailed so many things with his awesome sense of humor. We laughed a LOT at that moment. In fact, I remember always laughing when he was around. I'm thankful to Uncle Harold for showing me that the McDonald sense of humor is genetic.
I remember being so thankful that he'd taken so much time and energy, and money, to research our family tree. He came over one time with a big old packet of family history. Things I could have never known if Uncle Harold weren't around to be the kind, caring, inquisitive man that he was.
If Harold is remembered for anything, I hope it's how eager he seemed to be to connect with family and other people- how eager he was to care about them, and that's a really unique thing.
I always enjoyed learning about Harold's history with the Fire Department, and some of the struggles he'd encountered in his life. There was wisdom in, well, MOST of what he had to say. :)
I want to express my deepest sympathies to Uncle Harold's immediate family, and to let them know that he was very important to many people, and loved by many people. He will be greatly missed.
-David P. McDonald, Jr.