Peter Miller died in a fire at his home today. He was 80. Peter was a fixture down at the waterfront for as long as I can remember. We all called him Peter Puck. I don't know how he got that nickname. Most every day you could find Peter sitting on a bench behind my scallop boat on Straight Wharf. It could be 10 degrees and he'd be sitting there all day. When I came in from scalloping, Peter would be there on the bench. We would talk about scalloping and how good it was years ago. Many people don't know that Peter was a banker once a long time ago in New York City. For some reason his life took a downward turn and he discovered the bottle. The last time I saw Peter it was late one very cold day this past January. He had fallen on the dock and was unable to get himself back up. I just happened to be there and discovered him. I helped him up, dusted him off and offered him a ride home. He said no and that he had to go to the A&P to go shopping. Your battle is over, Peter. May you rest in peace.
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For some reason, people are not able to post comments here. Hopefully this will be cleared up soon. George e-mailed me a comment he would like to be posted here. Here it is. Nice post, George. thanks for sharing your memories of Peter here.
A couple years ago, I gave Peter a ride from Orange Street in town, where he was hitching, to the airport, because I was going that way. In that 10 minute ride he managed to tell me just about everything about his banking career in NY and Nantucket, and just about every other aspect of his life. Somehow, in the course of that short ride, he also managed also to ask me about what I did, and showed genuine interest in what I had to say about flying and my other careers. He talked a mile a minute. This was 2 years ago and I didn't see him again until sometime in the past year, where he was hitching from Orange Street again. I might have picked up maybe, less than a half a dozen hitchers in the past, and I'm glad I had an opportunity to give Pete a ride. I'll bet rides are easy to come by where Pete is now....
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