Goodbye Uncle Peter

Peter Jennings died today of lung cancer. He was 67.

In reading the obit posted on Yahoo! news, I found out some cool stuff about Peter, like that he never graduated from high school or attended college, and that he had dual citizenship in Canada, where his family was from, and the United States. Also that he had his first Saturday morning radio show when he was nine.

My most memorable moment with Peter was during one of the more significant days I have ever experienced. On September 11th, 2001, I found myself in the late morning crammed into the upper floor of the HUB at Huntington College, with about 700 other students, glued to the huge projection screen. We were eager for anything that fell from anybody's lips about the greatest attack on U.S. civilians on our soil that we had ever experienced as a nation. Peter sat there, good old Peter, somebody we could trust. His shirt sleeves were unbuttoned and rolled up and his tie and collar were undone and pulled away from his throat. He was sitting there, staring at us just like we were staring at him. And then Peter said it all for us.

"We're just trying to figure out what the hell is going on."



Rest well, you who have kept us in the know so many years. May you find answers we did not.