Wow. Really sad news. I was stunned.
Pete and I go back the the early '80's. One event I especially remember. It was '85. I was headed to the Team Trials in Detroit. He decided he wanted to go as well, so we drove together in my car. As a side note, we drove the entire 48 hours worth without stopping overnight anywhere!
On the first night, I had the late night/early morning shift. It was in mid to eastern Montana. I had the cruise control set at 100 for many hours. I finally tired, and stopped to switch drivers. Pete picked it up, and shortly crossed into North Dakota. He asked what the speed limit was, and I told him 55. It was quite the drop from 100! He set the cruise at 67 and within minutes, he came upon a patrolman standing in the road pointing for him to pull over. He did. The officer said he was doing 67, and he confirmed it was 67 he was doing. He said wait while he prepared the ticket! While the patrolman was gone, he started shaking and broke out in a sweat. I asked him if he was OK, and he simply said...he was AWOL. He was an Army helicopter pilot at the time, and he said he left one day before his leave. He was afraid the patrolman was going to inform the Army. He simply got a 5 dollar ticket that was taken care of immediately. He was in a cold sweat for hours after that stop. Bottom line was the Army never found out!
The real reason he went with me was to see a young miss Marie of the Adamisin clan. They ended up married some time later.
So, it was a successful trip....I made the team, and he got married!
To close out this story, move forward to 2016. Pete had run the RC Pylon event for many years, and was running it in 2016
I was there at the pylon site to visit with a friend from Spokane flying pylon. I asked him if he knew Pete, and indicated he was a good friend of Pete. Soooooo, I told my friend when he went out to fly, mention to Pete that there were Military people there wanting to see him about an AWOL event in 1985. He did, and Pete fell for it hook, line, and sinker! They had a break a few minutes later and Pete wandered in to get out of the sun and saw me there. He knew he had been had. Instead of getting upset, we simply had a great hug. Later that evening we had a Salmon dinner in our RV, and we talked for hours. Great times.
This news was a real shock. I had talked with him on FB just a week ago. He seemed fine. However, he lost one of his restaurants due to Covid, and his second was just hanging on, but he was hopeful. This might have weighed more on him than he let on.
RIP my friend. Will miss you.