Andrew’s Eulogy for Peter
CELEBRATING PETER!
Even when very young Peter expressed a great love of history, and especially military history. Like with the entrance to Narnia from C.S. Lewis’s story, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, one entered Peter’s private domain through the back of the closet, which in our case was a large, very well-lit, crawl space. Once inside, one discovered one of Peter’s elaborate battle scenes in which two well-matched forces of at least a hundred troops on either side, sought to gain strategic advantage over the opposing forces complete with cannons, camouflage, arms depots and natural obstacles such as rivers or forests.
Peter served as our general on the rocky slopes of Prospect Park. There, on that road, he deployed us to ambush our arch nemesis, the sharks, or maybe it was the Jets, who lived down in the valley down along Beaumont Avenue. Peter would arm us with long whips from bushes to rout the gang who would venture into our territory; and would engineer glorious victories waving flaming Cattail plants aloft over our heads that Peter had previously directed us to gather from the edge of the marshes by train tracks that ran along the West Side Road alongside Farmer Cross’s field; a field that lay in front of our A-Frames in Conway, New Hampshire. In time, however, Peter moved on from leading us in military sorties to turn his attention to conquering new heights in his love of mountain climbing. He became an avid hiker and later a rock climber. This change in his focus brought an end to a history of unrivaled military campaigns in which Peter’s legendary military planning rivaled and, I am quite sure, surpassed those of Odysseus, Alexander the Great, and that Corsican gentleman, Napoleon, “Oh, if only those empires had not been previously conquered!”
Peter always had an adventurous spirit, as was evident as he recounted his plan to climb the Matterhorn in Zermatt Switzerland without what he considered the absurd cost of hiring a climbing guide, [which, in those days was $150]. Leading his climbing friends, Phil LeBoit and Reverend, Greg Sapp, who was a climbing preacher who had earned his ordination off the back of a comic book advertisement for the goodly sum of three dollars. We spent the night at the base lodge of the Matterhorn. At three-thirty in the morning, Peter awoke alongside the paid guides and led his hearty crew toward the mountain face planning to reach the peak and return to base camp before nightfall.
All did not go as planned, however, as a paid guide misdirected the holy trinity of Peter, Phil, and Greg onto the dread North Face, where various unfortunates who also had chosen not to pay for guides had recently met their doom, (a fact that only served to increase the rates for hiring a climbing guide). Happily, Peter and his gang recognized they had been misled and, regaining the proper route, reached the peak successfully. The delay meant that Peter, Phil, and Greg began descending from the peak as night was falling.
As every climbing group, led by the Swiss guides returned to base camp, they recounted having seen this bunch of crazy Americans who were still ascending to the peak, as they were descending to return to the base camp. In the meantime, I was keeping vigil at the base lodge doing my best to beg and borrow binoculars and asking each group of returning climbers for any snippets of information about the climbing trio.
As night closed in, I began investigating the cost of helicopter rescue and struggled with the thought of how I could explain to my parents that I had lost Peter on the mountain. The last group of the day returned to the camp at almost 9:30 at night, sharing that Peter had told them that they were aiming for the emergency shelter, high up on the icy sheer slopes of the Matterhorn. They intended to wait out the night in the shelter and return to base camp the following day.
I spent a sleepless night worrying whether Peter, Phil, and Greg would manage to reach the emergency shelter before the temperature dropped to frigid extremes. One after another, the guides shared their certainty that unless they had reached the shelter, they would have had little chance of surviving the night out upon the rock face. At 11:30 the next morning, the three finally could be seen threading their way back down toward base camp. Peter strolled into camp elated but doing his best to appear as if their spine-chilling experience had been barely worth noting at all. When I recounted my concerns to him, he thought it wonderfully funny that I had worried about what I would have told our parents, “If only you had made that call?” he laughed, “You know, I’m not that easy to get rid of. Now, the least you can do is carry my pack,” and, in my joy at having him back—I did!”
Although, I have many other stories of Peter’s wonderful spirit and humor. My final story today is one that involved my father and Peter. When growing up, my father often tasked us with chores that involved household upkeep, cutting the lawn, raking leaves, shoveling the driveway, washing the car, and putting on—and later taking off the storm windows. I had grown well used to returning from vacation, college, and New York to a list of three or four chores that my father asked me to do during my time at home.
One time, however, I came back to a three-page list of more than 40 chores that he had accumulated and wished for me to complete over my two-week vacation from school. After surveying the horrifically long list, I raised the objection, “Peter lives only a few miles away. Why didn’t you ask him to do all these chores?” My dad looked at me, and shook his head,
“Who do you think thought up all these chores for you? I only came up with three!”
So, there you have it. My brother was a great historian, military general, businessman, poet, inspiring leader, and wise guy! Thank you all for joining me in celebrating a life very well lived! I’ll miss you Peter—You will never be far from our thoughts and our love for you!
--By Andrew Hermann, Peter’s brother, 10/30/23
