I’ve known Peter a long time – our whole lives really. Our parents were friends, our Dads worked together, first at Yale, then decades later at West Virginia University in Morgantown. Something was always up in those Morgantown summers - swimming, rafting, guitar playing, poetry reading, drinking up the three-two beer and the humid super-pollinated air. Then Peter and I moved on, building our lives in different cities. We kept in touch through the occasional letter or phone call. But there was one night around 2006 – we were both in Morgantown visiting our respective aging parents. Peter and I stayed up late with a bottle of fairly bad Tequila and made up for lost time. We could easily have stayed up all night - he was the youngest fifty-something I ever knew. It was exactly as they say, as if no time had elapsed at all. He was that kind of friend – a lifelong friend. (Come to think of it, he coached me through my first-ever Tequila way back when, salt, lemon, shot, repeat.)

I wrote to him and his sisters Susan and Marty when their parents died. He called me when my mom died in 2012. After that it seemed we were finally going to re-connect - something about the departure of the old folks made me think even harder about passing time. He had moved to upstate New York with Maureen. We must get together. We wanted to. Time passed – that’s what it does. This summer would be the summer. All I had to do was send a note, make a call, take the 2 hour drive. This summer, this July. September at the latest, for sure.

I’ve been taking comfort from the memories and comments on this site. Peter was so loved by students and colleagues and friends and of course family. Everyone’s trying to make sense, to come to grips, to deal with the grief. Remembering and sharing helps. As Peter said to one student, don’t worry about getting it all in, telling the whole story – it’s ok to tell a little part of it. So, in that spirit, I offer these few memories.

The summer of 1972 was a rainy and very cool summer in Morgantown, West Virginia, a fine summer nonetheless. We ran together, a core posse of Peter and I and a tall, lanky red-haired guy who led us on our escapades of danger and great fun. We were University brats, shaggy, full of poetry and songs in that summer of George McGovern. We did things that were breathtakingly foolhardy, things involving rivers and lakes and fast water. Once on a rope swing deep in the woods, Peter swung way out over a swimming hole. He forgot to let go and swung back. His trunks got caught in some bushes – nothing serious, but he shouted to us grandly, “I’m being torn asunder!” To which our red-haired friend responded, “The college boy is being torn asunder!”

He turned me on to Charles Olson and Robert Creely. I turned him on to James Tate and Charles Simic. He advised me as to the best version of Paradise Lost or the best translation of the Inferno. He loved to expound, but the exaggerated tone in his voice telegraphed that maybe he was putting himself and all of us on, just a little bit. I never saw him bummed out. He was a good guitar player. He played “Willin’” by Little Feat, to this day, as far as I’m concerned, it’s his song:

I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari Tehachapi to Tonapah Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made Now I've driven the back roads So I wouldn't get weighed And if you give me weed, whites, and wine Then you show me a sign I'll be willin' to be movin'

Years later when I first heard Pink Moon by Nick Drake on that VW ad, I thought, well that’s Peter Hales! (I heard Pink Moon on the radio this morning as I was writing this.) Even back then Peter was a good songwriter. We made the rounds that summer, and one night at Judy Linsky’s house he played two originals for some guys from the local hippy-psychedelic-country band. The first song was called “There’s Still Some Broken Heart Way Down Inside.” The guys loved it – LOVED it. Peter whispered to me that they loved it so much that he was afraid they were going to rip him off. The second song was called “From Here to California.” I heard it a few times that summer – maybe more than a few, he wasn’t shy. But I know I haven’t heard it since then. The chorus really stayed with me, all these years. I eventually became a songwriter myself, and since I could only remember the chorus, I had it in mind to learn the whole thing from Peter and play it on a gig sometime, maybe even record it. Just one of the things I was looking forward to this July, September at the latest. I’m hoping the entire song may find its way to me somehow, but for now, here's what I remember:

It’s a long way from here to California to the snows of the Sierra and the sad sea crying To the hills of Santa Cruz where the bells rang To the diamonds in your bay eyes when I sang to you To the diamonds in your bay eyes when I sang

Peter, thanks for the song and for everything else, friend. I will always miss you.

Jon Albrink