David C. Snyder was a doorman for Wildwood nightclubs for more than four decades, but even if you were a person who just liked to loll on the beach or boardwalk, you couldn't have missed the robust man in the white shorts - winter and summer - walking briskly through the sand.

He was the guy whom lifeguards and many others hailed as he strode by, and he always responded with a big wave and a big hello.

That was Dave, the legend, who earned the moniker just by being a lovable character, known to everyone in the resort city and to most of the visitors.

Both he and his friends agreed that he clocked more than 88,000 miles on his hikes.

Dave died Sept. 23 at age 88. He lived in Wildwood. He was still working - and walking - until about five years ago.

His career as a doorman/bouncer at Wildwood clubs went back to 1948. The old resort town really rocked in the '50s and '60s, with big-name entertainment and clubs where you felt out of place if you weren't wearing a jacket and tie or a gown.

People flocked to the sea to escape the heat in those days before air-conditioning, and Wildwood was a favored place for many Philadelphians.

And standing at the door of those rockin' clubs, natty in a tuxedo, was Dave Snyder.

Dave was the guy who saw to it that you enjoyed yourself, free from inappropriate disturbances. He was in charge of keeping order, but he was the kind of man who would rather talk than fight.

"You didn't mess with Dave," said Ernie Troiano Jr., longtime friend and Wildwood mayor for the last six years. "He was very strong, but he was the kind of guy who would rather talk you out of a fight.

"Whenever I saw him, he'd yell, 'Hey, Ernie, how you doin'?" and give me that big old smile."

A serious sports buff, Dave would grab you on the boardwalk and ask you trivia questions: "What year did 'Concrete Charlie' Bednarik knock out Frank Gifford?"

"You had to like him," Troiano said. "He never offended anybody. He would take care of you. When I was parking cars at the Oasis Club as a teenager, he would come out and say, 'Hey Ernie, you come in here after you're done and I'll let you in. Nobody will mess with you. Anybody gives you s---, you come to me.'

"He was a sweetheart of a guy," said James Kelly, who knew Dave when Kelly was a Wildwood cop in the late '50s and early '60s. "Thousands of people - maybe hundreds of thousands of people - saw him at the clubs or walking the beach. He was the guy with the white hair and the white shorts - summer and winter. I knew him when he worked at the Hurricane. It was a classy club, very hotsy-totsy, and there would be Dave outside the door in his tuxedo. He looked like a million dollars.

"He had a hearing problem," said Kelly, who went on to become a Philly cop and a federal agent. "And when he bent down to hear what an unruly customer had to say, he scared hell out of them."

Dave was born in Philadelphia to Harry and Isabel Snyder, and was raised in Wildwood. He dropped out of school in the eighth grade and had a couple of other jobs before he started as a doorman.

His hikes along the beach extended from Lincoln Avenue to Moore's Inlet in North Wildwood, back to the end of Wildwood Crest and back to Lincoln Avenue - twice daily.

Dave never married. He had four brothers - Harry K., Paul, Warren and Richard R. - all of whom preceded him in death.

Services: Were Sept. 29.

Donations in his name may be made to the Love of Linda Cancer Fund, Box 1053, Wildwood, N.J. 08260.