I’ve been trying to find out what’s going on with some old friends I’d lost touch with over the years. Lots of different reasons, but – our paths diverged.
So – I’d google their name and see what came up. Usually nothing – most of them had no real web presence.

But today I got info I had been dreading … I’d lost an old friend …
Peter Lackler – Deceased.

I’d met a whole new group of friends when my high school friend, Joe Perrone,
moved to the Wheaton area and started attending Northwood High School.
I became friends with Tony Lackler around 1971. Tony and I were the same age, but I also knew his younger brother, Pete.

After Tony graduated college he moved to Louisville for his first post-college job.
The following summer we all 3 got together for 2 weeks camping and dirt bike riding in WestVa. (This was back when I had a Triumph 750 twin).

After the trip Pete and I spent a lot of time together, just riding around the area and hanging out. I had the Triumph, and Pete had a friend’s Yamaha 650. We were pretty young, and we rode like we were immortals. Big fun summer.

Shortly after that we got word that Tony had died in a gun accident alone on the target range in Kentucky. Pete and I became closer friends for a while, he even got me into Alfa Romeos about that time. But he got serious about finishing his college , and I was having some bad spells of depression and denial. When I finally figured out that I had to turn myself around or life would be toxic, I went through a number of changes,
dried myself out ( just before I hit 38), came out, and took a turn that left most of my old friends behind. Pete was just one of many friends I didn’t see much after that.

Since then, life has gotten pretty nice. I met Emma, we bought a house together, and we’ve been a couple for since 1997 … but, I still wondered about my old friends.

I ran across an ebay ad last year that mentioned one old friend, Art Amsie. He was an engineer that had a hobby of pin-up art – years ago he had a shop called The Girl-Whirl. He showed me original oil painting from Gil Elvgren. I later found out he was involved in one of the early Betty Page photo shoots, years ago.

Also turns out that he died a few years back. I probably should’ve stayed in touch, but he got a bit private, so did I, life took some turns and … we just lost touch.

So – I’d been looking up some other old friends and a few days ago I saw the names Peter Lackler and Marian Lacker (his mom) listed on an 2006 Easter Service in Ellicott City, MD – but when I had time to go back and read the bulletin for the service – they were listed in the “Memorial” section. I googled and googled and finally found Pete’s name on a School reunion page – listed as “Deceased”. No other information.

Don’t know if it was a car crash, illness, home fire … no idea.

Life is too darned short to loose friends like this