Off the Record: First impressions

By Chris Spangler

We never would have walked across an empty bar to meet each other.

That’s what Pete and I always said, at least.

But we didn’t have to, because Peter’s great aunt, Della Pierce, decided to matchmake us.

I was renting Della’s upstairs apartment when she thought that her great-nephew and I would go good together. She slyly asked me to drive her to Pete’s dad, Paul’s, surprise 50^th birthday party in November of 1982 and I said sure. I had nothing else going on that Saturday night.

Pete answered the door and Della said, “Chris, this is Pete. Pete, this is Chris. Now you two go off and have a good time.” 

I never saw her again for four hours.

The holidays passed and Della apparently felt things weren’t moving fast enough, so she invited me down for supper with two of Pete’s sisters and a brother-in-law. The occasion was Lynn leaving for the Peace Corps in Guatemala.

I came down at the appointed time to find Pete, but no siblings … yet. Della told them to come an hour later so Pete and I could get better acquainted.

Well, it worked, and we started dating. More than five years passed and then we had a six-month breakup of sorts. We did get back together, obviously, and when I told Della, she exclaimed with glee, “I knew it! I’ve never lost one yet.”

We were married about a year later, on June 4, 1988.

This year would have marked our 34^th anniversary. Unfortunately, it was not to be, as Pete passed away March 22 at age 66.

Despite our first impressions, Pete and I actually had a lot in common. We both liked to camp, go to plays and travel. We had similar tastes in furniture, TV shows and cars … with the exception of my AMC Pacer. We loved southwestern and South American art and photography; were interested in anthropology, archaeology, astronomy and history; and were aligned politically.

And some of our individual interests rubbed off on each other. I taught him that stores actually do sell shoes other than motorcycle boots; and that “Jesus Christ Superstar” is a better rock opera than even “Tommy.”

Pete taught me to hunt and fish, play euchre and Hand-and-Foot, enjoy old tractor and engine shows, and even see the beauty in some rusty unidentifiable metal object that had been sitting out in the elements for decades. 

What didn’t rub off on me was Pete’s love of chicken art (he had raised and shown chickens when young); his taste for bleu cheese, herring and Maple Nut Goodies; and rewatching Clint Eastwood in the “Unforgiven” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” over and over and over. And over again.

People might not have seen it, but Pete had a lot of little boy in him. He often reminisced about his Woozie the Weasel baby blanket, was crazy about Wiley Coyote and had heartwarming memories of growing up in a family of nine children. He always preferred a salad fork over a dinner fork (but he didn’t appreciate me calling it a baby fork). He loved hearts, dragonflies, turtles and flying pigs. And we have folk art in all those genres to prove it … along with the chicken art.

Pete was a maker at heart. He was always thinking and creating something in his head. He designed and did the interior work on our cabin in Tomahawk, as well as the second floor of our house. He also enjoyed landscaping, moving big rocks in his baby Bobcat.

He enjoyed teaching tech-ed and working with young people — in fact, he left his plumb job at Waukesha County Technical College because he found adult students too boring. He devoted his retirement years to Wisconsin Makers, the makerspace or community workshop in Whitewater. 

Pete always was coming up with ideas for homeschoolers and workshops, especially now that we were emerging from COVID-19. On his cellphone, I found a lengthy list titled “projects” for young and old that included “caveman fire starters,” “birdhouse origami,” “melt a penny,” “message in a bottle,” and, of course, “junk art: barbed wire and wood.”

Naturally, being an idea man could be problematic, at times, because Pete had a tendency to start on a new project before the previous one was entirely finished. At least that was the case for home chores that I wanted done  … like the downstairs bathroom remodel.

It wasn’t always that way. But in the past 10-15 years, Pete really started slowing down physically. His level of fatigue grew each year and he was diagnosed with a leaky heart valve. It frustrated him that he could not do even a small portion of what he used to be able to do, and he could quickly become testy and even more stubborn than usual. Looking back, I have no doubt he was somewhat depressed.

And I also have no doubt that he knew what was coming. In the past couple of months, Pete frequently would ask me if I had thought about what I wanted to do in my retirement. Just two days before he died, he asked me to come into the office to look at the photos of our trip to Chile a decade ago. It was at the top of his bucket list, and he was so happy reminiscing about it. 

And the night before he died, he resisted going to the hospital, saying that we would do it in the morning. But morning was too late. I think he simply was tired and wanted to pass peacefully … and he did.

My mother-in-law, Diane, always said she thought that Pete and I were good together, and I think, overall, she was right.

Just goes to show, you can’t always trust your first impressions.