Pete

Pictured above is Ken's parents, his mom and his dad. Ken called me from the research station in Cooper Landing today and told me his dad had passed away. Pete was nearly 90 years old and had been suffering from Alzheimer's.

I didn't know Pete well; we had visited him in Cable, Wisconsin nearly five years ago. We attended a graduation at Claremont College in California, then flew to Chicago, rented a car and drove nearly eight hours to see his parents. Because we got a late start, we stayed overnight at a quaint roadside motel, ate down the street and had wonderful steak dinner for under twenty-five bucks. It was a short adventure traveling to the Mid West but a signficant passage. I had often spoke to Ken's parents on the phone but this was the first time meeting them face to face. It was a delightful four days of cruising around the area, hanging with the folks, meeting with neighbors and one afternoon we drove to Lake Superior.

It is sad how little we know of each other. I knew Pete via Ken who would tell me stories from his childhood; family dinners and heated discussions, the Lithuanian neighborhood in the south side of Chicago where he grew up. There are many other accounts that I will never know of I suppose, perhaps secrets that shall remain forever hidden.

The past is always around the corner while we take the present many times for granted. Sometimes I cringe in fear about dying. Who wants to die? Not me I shout inside myself and I go on living like I never will. People's deaths remind us of our own. And to every season, change, change, change. And to Pete, my thoughts are with you this evening.