When I first came to Alcoholics Anonymous, all faces were new and I had trouble remembering most of the names. One face I did remember right away was that of a black man. Peter was tall with a big barrel chest, rather dark skin, loud, enthusiastic; everything about him was large. He spoke with an urban dialect I found difficult to understand in the beginning. And, at first, I was terrified of him. By the grace of the old HP, I came to love him. Peter died about 18 months ago and I still miss him.
There wasn't a lot of flash and dash about Peter, just a simple honesty and directness wrapped up with an amazing ability to laugh at himself. He had the gift of carrying the message with as few words as possible; words that also clarified whatever point he was trying to make. Peter did not leave much wiggle room to claim you didn't grasp what he was telling you. One of his sayings is, "You can be right or you can do right". This is how he explained it:
Say you are driving a car that is stopped for a red light. The light turns green and now it's your turn to go. But coming down the other street is a big semi that you can tell isn't going to stop, even though he's got the red light now. What you going to do? If you wait until the truck goes through the intersection, then you do right. If you go on ahead you will be right. You'll be so right you'll be dead right.
Peter sure had a way of putting things. I never went home wondering what he was telling me.
After Peter got sick and knew he wasn't going to live much longer, he talked about what he thought was going to happen in the after life. "I'm gonna to get to the pearly gates and they gonna tell me to wait here. They are gonna tell St. Peter, "Peter B. is here.", and St Peter's gonna say, "Hmmm....... Let me think for a minute............ Well, okay. I guess we can let him in."
What a great attitude Peter had!! No wonder the old HP took him home. I'm just grateful I got to walk with him in sobriety before Peter went to the big AA meeting in the sky.
Have a good and sober day.
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