I spoke at the funeral of a long-time friend last week. Pete and I worked for the same organization in Seattle in the early 1970s. We traveled together for work, and socialized as families – he with his wife and daughter, and me with my wife Anne and three children.
I left that job in 1979 to purchase The Reflector, and Pete left in the mid 1980s to work for the Bonneville Power Administration in Portland. He lived in Lake Oswego, OR for the last 30 years. We ended up living about an hour apart, but we kept in touch daily through email and on the phone a couple times a week. We continued to get together occasionally, he and his second wife and then his long-time girlfriend, and Anne and me.
Other than my wife and my mother, I have communicated with Pete more frequently over the last 20-30 years than any other person.
Pete attended our annual Reflector Christmas parties. As couples, we attended plays and other events.
Pete worked out at a gym daily. In September, he took his three Golden Retrievers to Canada for annual training, and in late October he went on an annual hunting trip with friends. He seemed very robust and healthy, but died suddenly Nov. 1 of an apparent heart attack.
For many years at The Reflector, we invited readers to take part in a voluntary subscription program, always promising continued regular delivery of the newspaper whether or not people subscribed. And thousands of people subscribed, sending $15 a year which later became $20 a year. Some people sent in considerably more. Some people would send $50. And once in awhile came an envelope with a crisp $100 bill. Some subscription donations were anonymous.
It was always very gratifying to know that so many people would support the newspaper when they didn’t have to. Public radio relies on donations from listeners to keep their programs on the air. That’s not quite a parallel example because The Reflector is a for-profit business. How many for-profit businesses or corporations ask people to send money for goods or services that they will receive anyway?
The Reflector plays a highly important role in the community. Weekly newspapers play a vital role in the development of communities and in binding people and institutions together. Would mid and north Clark County, especially Battle Ground, have grown and prospered as it has over the last 30 years if there were no newspaper? It’s hard to say, but I think it’s clear that life would have been much different over the years without a newspaper providing cohesion.
At the funeral last week, Frank Rausch, a resident of Hockinson and a friend of Pete’s, introduced himself to me. He, too, had gotten to know Pete through work.
Frank said he had something to tell me. It seems that on several occasions, Pete had given Frank a $100 bill and had Frank deliver it to The Reflector during the voluntary subscription drive – anonymously. I had no idea. So with never divulging it to me, Pete, who received the newspaper in the mail, had supported the voluntary subscription program not with $15 or $20, but with $100, and never told me. And had I not met Frank Rausch at the funeral, I would never have known.
There’s a lesson here. Do we really know the good deeds of people behind the scenes? How many people help others through either compassion or friendship and do so without recognition? How many people contribute money and food to the food bank and are never recognized for it? Who else is helping me that I don’t know about? Who is helping you? More importantly, who can we help anonymously, giving a helping hand not for recognition but as its own reward?
Goodbye Pete, and thanks.
