Pete

I've been thinking back to High School a little bit this last week. I suppose such reminiscing might produce a series of related blogs. Then again, as often as I blog, maybe not.

It seems to me, that, even as we get older, there is a little part of us that is always back in high school.

I don't know what about that period in our lives is so defining. Maybe its just nostalgia, looking back to when things seemed simpler and easier. At least, maybe that's how it is for those of us who enjoyed that period of our lives. I know some people who hated those four years, and are glad to have left them in the past. Maybe it's different for them. I don't know.

Anyway, when I go the news last Wednesday that one of my former classmates had died, I think it kind of brought "high school Troy" out from the recesses of my mind. I like him. He's younger, more optomistic, full of possibilites, he's a lot less jaded and still has a touch of innocence.

What can I say about "Pete?" He was a year older than me. I remember him first and formost as a friend. He was a football player. He loved football. It really was a pity that his physical gifts weren't greater in that area. Don't get me wrong he did well on the high school team. As well as you could on our (at that time) dysfunctional football team, but he reminded me a little of Rudy, more heart than ability.

Pete was an overacheiver, he was loud, and crude (he told legendary lunchtime stories which are not fit for reprinting). You couldn't have attended my high school those years and not known who Pete was. He was also a loyal friend. Of course he did have some idiosycracies. Like the time he and Steve (anothe HS friend) went golfing and place bets $1 for each hole won. Steve came out ahead by 10-15 dollars. Pete tried to pay off his debt by offering him one of his old T-shirts. Steve was like, "Dude, I don't want your shirt. I want the money you owe me." Pete's answer was something like, "This is a good shirt. its worth at least the money i owe you." Steve's reply was the same as the first time.

Pete loved fishing, he loved the outdoors.

Steve & Pete were the ones who masterfully planned the Senior Class Prank I was associated with. It was amazing. Its a story for another time. A story that doesn't really translate well into subsequent decades, but for its time period . . . well, still one of my favorite High School memories.


I don't think that I'd seen Pete in over ten years, maybe fifteen, when I got the call. I know he had been a teacher in Alaska, he had a law degree, he was teaching in Eastern Oregon, he had even written a book.

It's just not the way things are supposed to end, ya know. Not at all the way I pictured things to turn out when I was still a high school junior and the entire world was in front of us. Pete was supposed to live forever. We were all supposed to live forever. It definitely wasn't suppopsed to shake down this way.

My prayers are with his family.

Anyway I read the newspaper article a few days back. It's probably pointless reading unless you knew Pete. It made me sad.

http://www.eastoregonian.info/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=84525&SectionID=13&SubSectionID=48&S=1

I think in the reading I became just a little more disconected with who I used to be, and my memories of back then lost little more of their innocence.