This is a bit rambling but may meet your request for a bio. You have put in a lot of work and I am sorry not to be joining you for the reunion. I've included a picture of my family from this summer. Be well, all the best!     Peter

I have always been somewhat of introvert. I think part of that was being the youngest of six kids. There was always someone who had done it before you or better. I want to be clear; I grew up in an incredible family that shaped me in ways great and small. Family was ingrained in me, although I didn't fully realize what that meant, or the power of it, until later. After graduation I knew I had to go to college. It was what was expected of me and, in the main, I did what was expected. After finishing high school I hitch-hiked to visit a cousin in Colorado. This started a pattern of wandering and exploring.

The next year I started college at Ohio University. One thing I remember after the first quarter was thinking that college classes were not up to the level of work I'd done in at Mt. Lebanon High. I'll be blunt and state I was never the most diligent student but I've come to believe that even being average at Lebo left me better prepared "educationally" than my freshman peers at OU. Mr. Meyers was inspiring as a theater teacher in high school and that led me to study theater and English at OU. I did well enough that I was invited to the summer stock Cape Cod Theater associated with OU, The Monomoy Theater. We built, rehearsed, and performed eight shows in ten weeks. I worked building sets and running the shows, lighting and scene changes and all that goes with that. This experience was great but also helped me realize that I could never be an actor. I was having enough difficulty just figuring out who I was without trying to act like someone else.

The next year at school I started taking classes in photography and working on the production of the school paper. I was passionate about photography and made some great friends working odd hours in the school darkrooms. Working most of the night at the paper took some getting used to, any class that started before 11:00 AM was out! My sophomore year was the first time I ever jumped a freight train. That summer was significant in that I took a job working in Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana. It was a long trip by train to the park but I will never forget stepping off the bus at Many Glacier Hotel at the end of the day early that June. I looked at the mountains surrounding me and the Continental Divide in awe. From my early days in Boy Scouts I'd always enjoyed hiking and camping and all that seemed like preparation for arriving in Glacier. Many Glacier Hotel is an amazing old hotel built by the Great Northern Railway that opened in 1915. Every summer the staff put on a musical theater production; my work in theater was why I placed at Many.

We worked six days a week with five meals in a row off starting with breakfast the first day and then returning to work at dinner the next. I made about $0.90 cents an hour that first summer. We did get fed (PB&J is food, right?) and lived in a dorm room; the room held four of us and there was just enough room for two bunk beds and four, stacked, dressers. We didn't care that living was tight because every spare moment was spent hiking or climbing in this beautiful place. I slept outside under the stars more often than in that little room that summer. I frequently returned to work at dinner after hiking or camping with freshly popped blisters. All that hard work made for good friendships. I returned the next two summers and after graduating from OU moved to Montana.

This is sort of where I'd say life began. Out there supporting myself and making mistakes without a net. Clearly life had been going on all along but it was the beginning of when I had to live with the consequences of my actions. This was my "bum" period. I'd work summer (a few summers planting trees and as a tree farmer in Ohio) and winter (doing whatever was available that would allow me to ski as much as possible) when the work was plentiful in the mountains and in the spring and fall I'd wander the country, jumping freights and hitch-hiking, visiting friends and family. Someone must have been watching over me because I survived with all my limbs and digits intact. In many ways it was incredible living out of a back pack. I made very little but didn't seem to need much money either. I could always count on a friend's sofa. I saw a lot of the country and there was a feeling of freedom that came with working only when necessary. I will admit I am still reluctant to tell my kids some stories about this time of my life.

I spent another few years living in Montana this way and then was offered a job at the Alta Lodge in Alta, Utah. Wow doesn't begin to describe my time in Alta, the incredible people, and skiing there. I also joined the local fire department as a volunteer. A fire fighter is a big deal in a town where almost every building is made of wood. There are still occasional moments when I wonder why I ever left. A bad winter in Alta is one where only 30 feet of snow falls. It was during one of our spectacular snow storms when an avalanche closed the only road out of town for three days, stranding many folks up the canyon with no place to stay. One of these folks was a woman from California. It was a year later that I followed her to the west coast.

Having your heart broken may be a requirement to understanding love. Don't quote me; perhaps it was only a requirement for me to begin to understand it. I can also say California was a shock to me. Perhaps it was because I'd been living in small towns for a while and southern California felt like one big city. My relationship ended at this point and after trying out Huntington Beach for a short while and getting a job in a bank I connected with folks I knew from Alta living in Santa Barbara and moved there. I never expected to stay in Santa Barbara but through a combination of friendship, luck, and perseverance things just kept working out. At first, just to afford being there, I worked 7 days a week on three different jobs. But then a funny thing happened, I entered a lottery and was able to buy a low-income condo, and, started an entry position supporting the mainframe computer working for Santa Barbara County that paid as much as my combined three jobs. This was the moment just before PC's were preparing to take over in the work place. I found I was good at teaching folks to use PC's, the more I taught the more I wanted to learn. It slowly led me to what I do now as network administrator.

I also continued to backpack and camp with a solid group of friends. One night camping in the Sierra we were talking about great places to hike and agreed that Nepal would be one of the ultimate mountain destinations. Our planning started then and the next spring a group of us left for a bit over 4 weeks wandering and hiking in Nepal. I've been to Europe a few times and traveled and I love it but Asia was exotically different. It was initially garish to my western eyes but, as I began to understand it, quite beautiful. It was an incredible journey and I was quite sick during part of it; I think my weight was 150 coming home - not much for someone 6'7". Among many great moments was seeing rhinoceros cooling in a mud bog from the back of an elephant and sitting on a "small" peak at about 18,400' and looking up at Mt. Everest which rose 2 miles above us.

I stayed at SB County for 10 years and then jumped to a financial management firm and then, a few years later, to an optical laser startup. The startup was exhilarating at first but after 18 months started a slow implosion. I stayed with it through a number of rounds of layoffs but after the birth of our daughter I contacted friends at the County to see if there was a place for me and returned to work there for the Department of Social Services. I need to backup. In 1995 I volunteered as a board member for a non-profit local artistic adventure called Summer Solstice Celebration. It starts as a whacky, beautiful workshop to make costumes and build floats and culminates in a parade up the main street of Santa Barbara on the Saturday closest to the Summer Solstice. That year I connected with a local artist and the resident mask maker. It was a slowly building relationship. My then girlfriend, Laura, got a grant to study mask making in Indonesia and wrote me in as the photographer. We spent 5 weeks learning and traveling on Bali. Carving masks every morning and wandering villages and sacred sites every afternoon. I got my first, but not last, taste of snorkeling in the Sea of Java. I proposed in 1997 and we married in 1998. Our son, Sean, was born in 2000 and our daughter, Elena, was born in 2003. If you are doing the math that makes me (maybe) the oldest dad from our 1972 graduating class. However I got here I feel very lucky to be part of this family.

We try to carry on things learned from our own families: Leave things better than you find them. Actions speak louder than words. Many hands make light work. If you are going to give, give with both hands. A farting horse never tires.

I won't see you at the reunion but wish everyone well. As they say in Nepal: Namaste!