When I was planning Pete's funeral, there seemed to me to be no apparent reason as to why I wouldn't speak about him.
I absolutely completely underestimated the emotion involved with that, but never did I think anyone else would do it.
There were a number of reasons why, but mostly I'm quite confident he would know that I could or would intend to do it, no matter how hard that would be for me, because it was for him.
And I was determined to do it irrespective (or in spite) of the aghast looks and comments I got when I told people this, before and since the event.
But when I sat down to write, it all sounded like such a complete farce. I sat down specifically to write the eulogy so many times in the week after Pete died, and the words just wouldn't string together.
I write for a living, but I couldn't make the words sound right, to make them flow, to make them sound like Pete.
Also, the best memories and stories or phrases seemed to not appear conveniently in daylight hours, but instead, in the hours between 1am and 5am which is when I found myself awake for most of the first week after his death.
So I used the note taking feature on my phone and jotted them down over a number of days and then -- like any important task -- I left it until the afternoon of the day before his funeral to write it all out into some sort of format.
All could think of when I walked to take the lectern was "don't trip up the steps"
When I took a breath before I began I had to tell myself not to cry when I realised the size of the of the crowd I was talking to.
When I delivered it, my hands shook. They had only shaken like that before when the Dr told me Pete had died. All I could think of was how I could stop it so that pages didn't shake, and didn't fall off.
So I held on to my hands so tightly they hurt. Took a deep breath, swallowed hard and spoke.
And I cannot remember one single word I spoke that day.
But here it what I had written on the pages:
How annoyed is he going to be – he always said that Summer in Hamilton was a day of the week and not a season, and he missed it when it finally turned up on Thursday.
I have found it so very hard to try and fit the person that Pete was into this short time frame. I’ve been questioned many times about how I can be doing his eulogy and I can only say, that as my greatest supporter, Pete would not expect me to do this, and he would absolutely expect me to do this. Also, he’s so terrible at keeping in contact with people that I think I might be the only person who has had regular contact with him for 19 years!
Pete found a love of agriculture, and livestock in particular, early and his passion for that never waned. From Jackaroo, to rural merchandise sales, to bartending in regional towns, to stock agent, to property managing and mustering, his love of the land was evident in every job he ever had.
He always fully committed to a job once he took it on, took pride in it, and was never one to just be average at it. He made sure he was the best and funniest bartender that everyone remembered. He was the bloke who could butcher a sheep in the fastest time on the property. He was a sales rep who set new benchmarks and company records for product sales and annual growth. He was always the guy who would clean muster a 5000 acre paddock with the most immaculately trained work dogs.
One of his greatest qualities was his amazing personality and that influenced every job, every trip, every tale and every friendship he had in his life. He made friends so easily wherever he went, and he never forgot people. He had the most uncanny ability to move places and make new friends but to always remember the friends he left behind and, while never seemingly able to use a phone to maintain contact, could meet up again, and pick up right where he left of with them despite years of time passing in between.
He was an incredibly social being and he loved nothing better than holding court at a pub telling tales of his adventures, delivering a witty one-liner, or trotting out a joke. His dad jokes were legendary – Zoetis had an entire internal messaging thread dedicated to them and he delighted in adding to it regularly.
When news of his death began to spread, the messages I received were truly humbling. And only sought to back up the type of person I knew he was. But it also served to back up some of the stories he had told me over the last nearly 19 years, which I for one, was sure had to have been embellished.
Some of those related to when he tore up the B&S and social circuit in the 90s. Not one to have an idle social calendar, he often regaled people with the stories of when B&S’s were two day affairs attached to race meetings, that you could leave Conargo Pub when it closed at midnight and make it to Joeys and PA’s before lock out, and that on more than on big weekend in Melbourne he had rolled out a swag in the front bar of the Town Hall Hotel in South Melbourne.
Conargo pub played such a huge role in so many of the stories, including our own. If it hadn’t burned down we’d all be there because that’s where he held his own. Its where we met when I sold him a ticket in the Friday night meat raffle in the year 2000 and he made some witty comment to me that made those blue eyes sparkle and that grin rise on his face.
The irony of Pete’s last meal being at Hungry Jacks last weekend is that he loved good food. It is fair to say however, that he was an aficionado of take away food - Hungry Jacks was his favourite take away, but he could tell you where the best sausage roll, the best coffee, the best pies and best meals were all across Victoria and southern NSW.
With good food, good wine and good company he was in his element. He loved hosting a dinner and showing his prowess in the kitchen – He was always very quick to remind people he was ‘drought and famine resistant’ through his cooking, that a man can survive on chops alone for a week, and you should never trust a skinny cook. While initially I tried to help when he was creating a meal, I soon learned that while he was cooking, when the tea towel went into the back pocket, it was time for me to get out of the kitchen … things were getting serious.
He was famous for his Pork belly and despite the fact he refused to ever write the recipe down for me, I’ve tracked it down and today, it will be served after we’ve given him a good and proper send off.
Pete was a man of musical contradictions – choosing songs for his service meant I needed to consult the songs on his iTunes account. I was faced with choices between Feetwood Mac and Alison Krauss, Garth Brooks and Prince, Skitz Mix and 5 Seconds of Summer. I had no idea what I’d got myself into when on our first night driving to the Conargo Pub we had left the house listening to Prince, moved on to a Schumacher doof doof song, and then Neil Diamond serenaded us into the village.
Right from an early age Pete had a talent for golf. He loved it. At his best, he got down to 4, but regularly hit off 7 and he took out monthly medals and annual tournaments in Swan Hill, Hay, Goolgowi and Deniliquin until we moved to Hamilton, which is where he thoroughly enjoyed the rural days and proving that despite his physique suggesting otherwise, he could handle a golf club.
There was nothing he loved more than to show his prowess with a golf club. Showing others how he could make balls swing round trees, and fade to whichever side he declared and driving further than anyone else in the group were some of his favourite things to do. So was wandering into random golf shops asking to try their drivers and having the fit looking young pro scoff and offer soft shafted clubs to him while looking at his belly asking if he could hit a ball? He always delighted in their facial expressions when he’d rip through a drive and smoke a ball in the nets.
There is a famed trick club at the Kunnunurra Golf Club with two hinges down its shaft. It has netted hundreds of dollars club as players have tried and failed to hit a ball at all with it. It took him 1 swing to master it and he wasn’t invited back.
Pete was a frustrated Rally driver and motorbike racer. He always insisted he was the best driver going round and that he was invincible on a motorbike – although a few stints in hospital did dent the speed and ego marginally. He always boasted about being able to complete a signature ‘forwards backwards forwards’ manoeuvre on a dirt road and being part of setting the record from Willurah to the Conargo Pub – a 46km trip along dirt roads with 2 gates and 6 grids in under 20 minutes.
He was an avid motorsport fan – not in the sit on the hill, buy a Holden t-shirt type fan, but he would religiously sit for the entire weekend watching Bathurst critiquing drivers, and staying up to watch Valentino Rossi or Casey Stoner win motorbike titles. Dakar was like a religion and despite being unable to be home regularly at 6pm at any other time of the year, for 2 weeks in January it was made possible.
Pete loved blade shearing as an art form and a skill set – he was most proud of that one time he won the blade shearing title at the Hay Sheep Show, and being part of the North Tuppal re-enactment of 100 blade shearers in 2010.
He loved supporting others when they were doing something he loved or when someone he loved was doing something they enjoyed, including many young jackaroos and livestock industry juniors who he always gave time to help develop their skills and knowledge.
In out of work hours, he took it even further.
He knew nothing of ballet but his children love it, and so he became an expert on that and would sit through hours of eisteddfods and concerts as proud as punch with their performances. But not content to sit back and critique the performances and whether the adjudicator had got it right, they needed to look the part. Any tutu we bought went through a lengthy process of him assessing its qualities of stage sparkle and if the colour suited the child. Last year he reached peak ballet dad status when I went away and a new tutu arrived and needed decorating – not only did he take over the overseeing of the decorating of the tutu, he went into the ballet shop and repositioned and pinned flowers to make sure the design was balanced and flattering, and then went on to do a full set of hair and make up on three kids – complete with buns and hairnets, eyeliner ticks and false eyelashes – just to prove he could.
Before last year, he’d never played a game of hockey but that didn’t stop him from vocally supporting on the sideline. I’m not entirely sure how any of the Demons hockey club players are going to know when they need to keep running or put their stick down without the constant loud verbal reminders. He became a goalie last year because, as he noted – fat kids make the best goalies because they take up more space, and loved helping the junior players play the game. He took on the presidency of the hockey club before playing a game and then set about learning all of the administration rules and taking on a role as the vice president of the association and was thoroughly enjoying the challenge of ensure the current redevelopment of Pedrina Park would benefit hockey players and supporters.
I’m not entirely sure how I’m meant to get dressed for the next country race meeting I attend, as – despite the fact it was me who had the millinery skills – he would critique any headwear I created, adjusted trimmings to ensure balance for me, gave suggestions as to how to make outfits come together and one time, came home from an overseas trip with two clutch bags he’d purchased unprompted having known what the dresses and headpieces I’d been planning to put together. Once my outfit was complete, he would go out and purchase a suitably matching tie or make a hat feather. He was so very proud when we attended the Deni races last year to find there was no ‘best dressed couple’ section so he could espouse he was the reigning champion.
There was never any doubt that Pete would make a great Dad. I also never doubted that he was going to make those occasions memorable for more than just me – when we had Isobel he read the most humourous parts of the So You’re Going to Be A Dad book out to the nurses to entertain them, and at each shift change widely grinned at me as they all gushed at me about what a funny bloke he was; he arrived covered in cattle yard dust and manure about ½ an hour before Molly was born and things were getting serious, and asked if I might just wait while he quickly had a shower; he’d spent the entire weekend in the Bundy Bar at the Deni Ute Muster when we had Sam and the nurses simply took one look at his eyes and put him to bed before tending to me, but by the time we’d got to Pip, he’d learned that being there and just reading the paper and offering noteworthy comments on articles was probably the right thing to do.
He always vowed and declared that none of the children looked like him. When I reminded him that he didn’t marry a submissive wife and so I wasn’t sure why I’d have submissive genes, he’d pipe back with the fact that they would then definitely have his winning personality.
That, they have in spades. And he has spent a lot of their childhoods fostering that to make sure of it. He supported our children fiercely in whatever activities they did – on the sports fields, on stage, academically, or just life skills in general. He was so incredibly proud of the people they were growing into.
The idea that none of us will again have that person in our lives is something I still can’t get my head around, but when I see what the support that is here today, and wonderful children he helped create, I know the awful dad jokes, the rum drinking, the strong headedness, the determination, the passion and the fun that made up Pete’s personality will be right in front of us all in our four children.
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