Pete was a kind and gregarious guy I met while running cross country and track at East. We didn't stay in touch until we, literally, ran into each other out running in Iowa City, where I had transferred as an undergrad and he was attending summer session courses there. He introduced me to some of the better places to hear music in town (I'd only moved there the preceding January), and we hung out, played some softball, ran together off and on, and then parted ways. I only heard, perhaps 8 or 10 years later that he had passed away. My mom, who was living then, had read his obituary in one of the Pioneer Press weeklies and if I rememer corrrectly she said he had died of lung cancer (the fact that we would get to gether and go for a run and then after cooling down, light up a cigarette was sort of shared ritual and a joke....) Pete had a great smile, and was a familiar face in a place where I had just moved and knew no one. I was too broke to afford a pair of actuall running shoes at the time and had been running in my black converse high tops that were also my regular foot wear...which meant my regular foot wear got funky in a hurry. Pete and I had roughly the same sized feet, so he gave me a pair a fairly new running shoes saying he had several pairs. But I suspected then and am fairly sure now he gave me the pair he'd only recently bought and then went out and bought a new pair because when we ran again a few days later, his shoes were bright and blindingly shiny in the way only new sneaks can be. He was generous in a quiet way that I admired then and aspire to yet.
Will (Bill) Jennings
Pete was a kind and gregarious guy I met while running cross country and track at East. We didn't stay in touch until we, literally, ran into each other out running in Iowa City, where I had transferred as an undergrad and he was attending summer session courses there. He introduced me to some of the better places to hear music in town (I'd only moved there the preceding January), and we hung out, played some softball, ran together off and on, and then parted ways. I only heard, perhaps 8 or 10 years later that he had passed away. My mom, who was living then, had read his obituary in one of the Pioneer Press weeklies and if I rememer corrrectly she said he had died of lung cancer (the fact that we would get to gether and go for a run and then after cooling down, light up a cigarette was sort of shared ritual and a joke....) Pete had a great smile, and was a familiar face in a place where I had just moved and knew no one. I was too broke to afford a pair of actuall running shoes at the time and had been running in my black converse high tops that were also my regular foot wear...which meant my regular foot wear got funky in a hurry. Pete and I had roughly the same sized feet, so he gave me a pair a fairly new running shoes saying he had several pairs. But I suspected then and am fairly sure now he gave me the pair he'd only recently bought and then went out and bought a new pair because when we ran again a few days later, his shoes were bright and blindingly shiny in the way only new sneaks can be. He was generous in a quiet way that I admired then and aspire to yet.