Tuesday, November 5, 2024
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In Memory:
Peter and my brother Dan Riley were an inseparable dynamic team (= Uh Oh here they come!).
Of all the kids in our neighborhood Peter was always my hands-down no-contest favorite.
I write of some of the Peter stories I have told over the last FIVE DECADES to my kids and grandkids.
Of course, as Dan’s older sister, I was not privy to their more exciting adventures.
The “Big Lot” -always called “The Big Lot” - was the empty lot between the Riley house on 88 Lindsley Ave and Longview, scene for many athletic activities -softball, kickball, tag, hide and seek, Olympic broad jump, high jump, just tearing around rumpus. Name it.
Peter Rules: (“Rules”works both as a noun or verb here) for Softball - or whatever ball we could scrounge - games in the Big Lot: “Peter, you gotta pitch and hit left handed. Anything over fence is an automatic out. Don’t hit to second because there’s an imaginary man there.“ There were usually just the three of us-four if MaryAnn D’Arcy joined - so “imaginary man on base” was standard.
And the adventures exploring Scarits’(sp?) abandoned estate in back of Riley’s. Over the first cyclone fence, through the poison ivy, under the next fence, slide down to the low wall, check for security, over the wall, slide some more, check out the massive garden and swimming pool-(stay out of the pool - there’s just scum water and the ladder doesn’t reach to the bottom so you can’t get out) and pigeons in their dovecote, hide whenever cops made their rounds and back home, breathless from our adventure. We only got caught once.
I didn’t know anything of Peter’s life after I left home (1963), but reading the obituary confirms what I have always known: Peter was an extraordinary athlete, multitalented, creative and productive in his many interests. He was always a standup guy. We knew he had our backs, and we had his. No matter what.
Fond memories live for generations.
Tears and hugs
Maryellen Riley Read
Sent from my iPhone
