Like all great traditions, it just happened.
Beer. Work bench. Black and white TV. Propane heater. Riding mower parked next to the pickup.
Pete’s Garage.
Pretty ideal setup for a couple of sixteen-year-olds slogging through a Michigan winter.
It was Mike Petersen’s dad’s house. We called Mike “Pete.”
Except Kemp and Arntz. They called him Peter North, a tribute to the porn legend. Kemp and Arntz were authorities on the genre.
Pete’s dad was pretty casual about beer, as long as we weren’t drinking it right in front of him.
What’s the harm, he figured? Pete had drunk his body weight in beer during that summer trip to Germany. Didn’t seem to slow him down one bit scrubbing the floors or painting the curbs at Petersen Oil when he got home.
All Pete ever wanted was to work in the family business. He never talked about anything else. His grandfather had started it. His dad and uncle had taken it over. Eventually, Pete would take it over from them. Simple.
Me? I was going to be a lawyer. Figured I’d do that for a while before being elected governor of Michigan.
We’d talk it over while drinking our Winter Lagers.
Pete would get the Samuel Adams holiday sampler pack for Christmas. (Yes, he got beer for Christmas.) Then, he’d call me up, and I’d come over, and we’d sit in his garage and drink it.
We knew we had it pretty good, so we kept our mouths shut. If we called up Sloke or Weadley or Truesdell and had them come over, pretty soon, it’d be a party. And then someone would go blabbing about it. Probably Truesdell. And then Pete’s dad would shut it down, and maybe Pete wouldn’t get beer for Christmas anymore.
Yup, we had it good. So we kept it quiet.
And that’s what kept it going.
Pete went to college after graduation. For one semester.
An economics professor told him there wasn’t anything he’d learn in college that he couldn’t learn at Petersen Oil. That was all Pete needed to hear.
I joined the Navy.
My parents had told my siblings and me repeatedly that there were too many of us kids, and they weren’t paying for college. We were on our own.
I didn’t realize they were serious until six weeks before graduation.
So, I went to see the recruiter.
I made it home only a handful of times after that.
And the Pete’s Garage tradition faded.
Until recently.
Thirty years later, Pete and I are having dinner at the Clifford Lake Inn. I hadn’t been there since the 1990 Petersen Oil Christmas party.
Pete asks me if I remember.
Of course I remember.
I was the naive idealist. Pete was the practical realist.
The last time I’d looked out on that lake, I was certain I was on my way to Michigan State to be a Sigma Chi. Then a lawyer. Then governor.
Mike was certain he’d take over the family business.
Which he did.
And then grew it.
And grew it.
And then sold it.
And semi-retired. In his forties.
And the only reason he didn’t completely retire was that he decided to buy the old Clackle apple orchard and totally reinvent it.
But that’s a whole other story.
Me? I didn’t do any of the things I intended.
But I’ve had a rich life.
Not even close to what I’d imagined, but rich.
So, there we were, looking out on Clifford Lake.
And I was reminded of Pete’s Garage. And I wondered what the grown-up version of me would say to the sixteen-year-old sitting on the stool at the workbench.
Hope you enjoy getting kicked in the nuts, kid.
And Pete?
I don’t know. He’d probably just tell himself to stay the course.
Stay the course.
It was good to see my old friend.
And to consider where we’d been. And how far we’d come.
I think of Pete’s Garage as any place good friends meet to reconnect and contemplate life. Or business. Or beer.
It’s a metaphor. Or a simile. Whatever.
That’s some pretty deep shit, I know.
I look over at Pete, and I wonder if the profundity of the moment – of all that’s come and gone in the three decades since we last sat in that spot – is as striking to him as it is to me.
He stands up and nods in the direction of the waitress.
“Tell her I need another IPA,” he says. “I’m taking a piss.”
Yup.
He gets it.
That’s some pretty deep shit.