Peter,
You were a great uncle and you will be missed by all who loved you.
We all have so many great memories of you that we will cherish forever. One of my favorites was during the annual 4th of July cookout at Grandma & Grandpa's house.
Their house was on a river in Gloucester. For those who have never been to this event its a great day with most of the family. The kids go swimming in the river, the adults have a few drinks, there's lots of great food, and the night ends with shooting off the fireworks that Sammy smuggled back from Florida the previous winter.
One year Pete showed up with a motor boat he rented and he took my cousins Wayne & Brian and myself out for a ride. Wayne and I were probably about 13 or 14 at the time and Brian was around 10 or 11. The three of us all looked forward to it because we were all getting too big for that old, beat up canoe and didn't feel like tipping in the middle of the river and swimming back to shore arguing about who caused us to tip over in the first place.
We were in Pete's boat, cruising around the river. We drove past Wingaersheik Beach and eventually wound up in Gloucester Harbor. There was no radio on the boat (which looking back on it, probably wasn't the safest thing in the world) but all I remember was Pete kept singing the theme to "Hawaii 5-0"...after about an hour we all had the damn song stuck in our heads and were singing along! :)
Anyway, we weren't really sure where Pete was taking us...as long as he stopped singing that friggin' song we really didn't care. He ended up taking us to the pier where the Greasy Pole is. I have never participated in it myself, so as a kid who had been watching people walk it for years, it was so cool to be up next to it.
At his insistence, Wayne & I took turns climbing up the pier and onto the Pole. The St. Peter's Fiesta was the previous weekend so there was no grease left on the pole. So Wayne is on the pole and walks out to the end. Not sure if he's afraid of heights, regardless, he didn't look comfortable up there. The wind was blowing and with every step he took, the pole bounced a tiny bit. He reached the end and then just kinda stood there.
Pete kept calling him a "chicken" until Wayne finally jumped off the end. Now Wayne's a big dude, so when he bounced on the end of the pole, the damn thing launched his big ass straight up in the air until he came crashing to the water below. It was low tide too so he must have fallen at least 15 feet to the water. He didn't really do a belly-flop or land on his back, but it was definitly an awkward combination of the two. We all couldn't stop laughing. I eventually went up but didn't try to out-do Wayne. I just walked to the end and took an extra step and landed in the water feet-first.
Coming back, Wayne & I each took turns driving the boat. When Pete got sick of me driving or I went too fast, he said "Alright Frank, you're fired. Let me drive." Wayne & Bri thought it was funny that Pete "fired me" from driving the boat.
Wayne was up next. Now I don't know if he was messing around or is that bad of a driver, but he drove a little too close to shore and Pete had to step in. Pete says, "Holy s--t Wayne! You're fired!" We laughed even harder the second time around.
Wayne & I convinced Pete it was a good idea to let Brian take a turn driving the boat. Bri was flat out begging him. After all, why not let a 10 year old drive a boat? Being the good guy that he was, Pete finally caved in and gave him a shot.
We were down near "The Point"; a small beach near my grandparents house. So Pete handed the wheel over to Brian, who was a little young and probably shouldn't have been driving in the first place. So Bri takes the wheel and just guns it to full throttle and we dart off. We look up and see we're heading straight towards someone's dock. Pete dives for the wheel, turns to the right sharply and we avoid crashing. Our hearts were all beating like crazy, but Wayne, Brian & I are laughing. We look over at Pete and notice he's kind of quiet. We all got worried that he was going to be really mad. After about 20 or 30 seconds of him being silent, Pete looks over and smiles at Wayne & I and goes "That was f---in' scary". Then he looks over at Brian and goes "You're f---in' fired!" We all burst out laughing and Wayne & I kept saying "You're f---in' fired" to everyone for the rest of the day, laughing our asses off. Wayne would ask his mother for a hamburger and he'd say something like "What, no cheeseburger? You're f---in' fired!!!"
Anyway, that story always makes my cousins and I laugh and just thought I'd share it.
Peter, I love you and will always remember you and the smiles you gave everyone around you. Thank you for the memories and thank you for all the laughs. I think I speak for everyone in saying you touched our lives and will never be forgotten.
Your nephew,
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