I really don't know why I began doing Google searches for people I haven't seen for more than 35 years, but I did and found this site. How so very sad to learn of Peter's passing last year.  He was a very special person and was loved by everyone who knew him back when I did.

I knew Peter during the Jozef days. I was young and worked in rival restaurants/nightclubs. I actually met Peter through Josef Juck, and in those days I was barely making ends meet. Jozef and Peter fed me at their restaurant many times for which I will always be appreciative. 

Peter was one of the kindest, most gentle and sweet men I have ever known. He was so full of laughter and funny stories. Every time he saw me he would exclaim "Rebecca! Rebecca! Alive or dead?" It was our running joke.

I am so very sorry that I was a year late in trying to look him up. After I moved to Houston in 1980, I have thought about him many times over the years and would have liked to let him know that I became a lawyer and have done very well. I think he would have gotten a kick out of that.

Rest in peace, Peter. You were one of a kind. 

Thank you Katka.  Adding the picture of the beautiful renovated tombstone your parents had done in my dear  Peter's memory, brings me tears of happiness knowing he is truly home.  

Tak takto mi Peter ostane navzdy v pamati - velky fesak z nasej 3.c na Vazovovej.

Peter gave me these photos of himself.  Said he wanted me to see how handsome he was when he was younger and the reason why he looked so great now.    

That was my Peter!  

Still had the same beautiful smile. 

In 1973 I joined a backpacking group.  We used to hike into the California wilderness, which affords good weather conditions almost year round.  We would start with a trip over Presidents' Day weekend in February, then every month there was some exciting destination, we took advantage of all the holidays and long weekends until October, when we typically took a break until next February.  It was to the desert in the winter, to the Sierra in the summer,  and many different destinations inbetween.

I loved backpacking and the social interaction that went with it.  I loved the evenings under the stars, sitting by a campfire, sharing stories, joking around, singing songs with a guitar playing.  Backpacking was definitely my thing, not Peter's, and it took me much effort to persuade him to give it a try. 

He was definitely more interested in vigorous sports activity that would require a great burst of energy over a relatively short time span, like tennis.  The idea of hiking for hours at a moderate pace just didn't appeal to him.  

When he finally agreed to come along in April 1975, it turned into baptism by fire. The trip planner made a mistake in calculation and we were in for many more miles than we expected. 

First day it was 16 miles hiking on the crest of a mountain where there was no water. The one water bottle each of us carried had to last the whole day.  Peter considered himself to be in great physical shape, he thought he would be bored with the mild exercise that he thought hiking to be.  So he was really shocked when he barely made it to the first night's camp.  He was absolutely exhausted, as were many of the others. 

Since we thought the whole 4-day trip would total 30 miles, and we already hiked 16, we decided to take it easy on the second day and hiked only 6 miles.  It was that evening that our leader recalculated the distances and announced to us that each of the 2 remaining days, we would have to hike 12 miles.  We were on a circular trail in the Los Padres National Forest and there were no other options – it was 24 miles going forward or 22 miles going back. 

On the third day of hiking Peter discovered that his knees hurt when going downhill, and his whole body ached all over. The freeze-dried fare we had for dinners was not his idea of a good meal either  To his great surprise, he discovered that hiking up and down with a 30 lbs. backpack was not as easy as he previously thought.  That trip brought him down a peg I think.

But as exhausting and difficult as that particular trip - his first - was, a new world opened up to him.  He discovered that  there was a beautiful world out there that was within reach.  Always before he assumed that anything worth visiting had to be thousands of miles away.  Now he discovered the wide open spaces of the California wilderness, the wildflowers, the high peaks, the clear waters.  In the 1970s we still could drink water straight from the creeks and lakes, unfiltered and unpurified, and we hardly ever met anyone on the trails – this was way before backpacking became the sport of choice of all the California yuppies. 

For me at least, these backpacking trips were the most beautiful trips of my life, hands down.  Although Peter did not come on every trip as I usually did, he did become more enthusiastic and joined the group on maybe every other trip. 

When we visited Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks in June 1977, I planned a backpacking trip in the Grand Tetons, but at the last minute we were told that the trail I chose had been closed because of the presence of a bear who apparently was not very friendly to backpackers.  I had allocated 2 days for a backpacking trip and we were all set to go, so I hastily picked another trail that fit the distance I had in mind and we started our hike from the Phelps Lake 
trailhead.  
 
We had beautiful weather and the scenery could not have been more spectacular.  We hiked 11 miles and overnighted by a lake that looked like a mirror in the morning.  This was Marion Lake, elevation 9,200ft.  I remember crawling out of the small backpacking tent we had and seeing Peter sitting there on a rock, looking at the lake gleaming in the morning sun.  "Isn't this beautiful?" he said.  And we sat there just silently admiring the view, the crystal clear lake reflecting the peaks surrounding it.  I think there was another backpacking party somewhere on the other side of the lake, but it felt like complete solitude just then.  It was one of those moments when you feel your soul is touching heaven. 

Many years later Peter called me one day out of the blue.  I think it was maybe in the 1990s.  He wanted to know where this place was.  He said it was the most beautiful place he ever visited.  I found the old tourbook I had, made copies, sent it off to him.  I don't know if he ever returned there.  Probably not.  He most likely just dreamed about doing it. 

During our time together we definitely experienced the American West wilderness in all of its glory - pristine, untouched and unspoiled as it was 40 years ago.  And Peter learned to appreciate it and was glad that I pushed him to visit all those places.  Years later he told me so.

Peter was very athletic.  In the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s he was a member of the Sokol Los Angeles volleyball team, which competed in various tournaments. Volleyball and the camaraderie that went with being on the team and playing competitively were an important part of his life at the time. 

He also loved tennis, although this was a different type of sport, something he played as an individual.  He always found tennis partners and if no one was available, he would go and hit balls against a wall, usually in some school.  He tried to teach me how to play, but I was a hopeless case.  However, the lessons were good for something - that's how I discovered that I was nearsighted and needed glasses.  Peter could not understand why I just stood there until the ball flew past me and then tried to  hit it, always missing.  After several frustrating afternoons, he gave up on me, but I realized that my big problem was that I could not see the ball coming and had my eyesight checked and learned I was nearsighted.  However, I had no desire to resume our lessons, even with corrected vision.  Peter also loved to watch tennis on TV.  He could spend a whole afternoon watching a Wimbledon tournament and cheering and yelling out advice to the players, completely immersing himself in the match. 

He also loved alpine skiing, to my great chagrin, because this was not something I could simply watch from the sidelines like tennis or volleyball, he expected me to participate. And unlike most Czechs, I really did not like skiing.  But like every Czech, I knew at least the basics, so grudgingly I tried to do my best.  But Peter was really in his element when flying down a mountain.  He loved it.  As soon as he learned that snow conditions were favorable, he had to go skiing.  He had plenty of opportunity to ski while he lived in the Los Angeles area, since snow and mountains were only 2 hours away, and Mammoth Mountain, offering skiing up to 9 months of the year, was 300 miles.  Back then skiing was quite affordable financially.  We often joined a group of Czech skiing enthusiasts, rented a condo together, and a day spent on the slopes was followed by a night of partying.  These were fun times spent with great friends. 

In the early 1970s Peter also took up scuba diving.  He was already a good swimmer - I think he used to compete in swimming in Czechoslovakia - and also loved the ocean, so he was a natural for scuba diving..  Around the same time that he started scuba diving lessons he also became a Certified Lifeguard, when the recreational complex where the Czech community gathered every Sunday made the presence of a lifeguard a requirement for using the pools. 

Sports were a great passion of Peter's, though I would say that tennis was by far his most favorite. 

Our ordeal and my greatest sadness started a week ago today.  Hard to believe that he is no longer with me, that I can no longer see his smile, feel his touch,, and hear his voice.  I wake up every morning thinking I will be better but everyday I miss him even more.  I so much appreciate his beloved Katarina for setting this tribute for him, I find myself checking it and reading all the wonderful things his family, all his friends and co-workers had to say about him, such a comfort for my aching heart.  He is with our Lord and I know he will be waiting for me to join him, until then, I will long for his presence.  

These are the two stories that I heard over at over in different versions from my grandmother, my father, and Peter himself.

When Peter was about five, my great uncle Bretislav, another childless and doting uncle, decided to take both Milan and him for an outing to Bouzov, a castle near Olomouc. The problem was that he could fit only one child on the motorcycle, so he took the ten-year-old Milan to Bouzov and asked him to wait there while he returned to get Peter. He said he would be gone for about twenty minutes, but an hour passed by, and Milan got nervous. It turned out that Breta put Peter behind his back and asked him to hold on to the handle, but when he got halfway to the castle, he realized that there was noone behind him. In terror, he retraced his way and eventually found Peter, unperturbed, playing happily in a ditch by the roadside. I don't think my great uncle ever quite recovered from the shock, and henceforward fastened Peter to the motorcycle handle with leather straps. 

 My grandmother always sent the boys to Moravia for summer vacations. One summer, when Peter was about twelve, my grandmother returned to pick him up and as she was walking up the street from the station, she saw Peter approaching, leading a pair of horses that pulled a farmer's cart loaded with crops. Excited, she waved at him, but Peter did not react. He passed by her without acknowledgement and only when she said "Peter," he turned around a very seriously admonished her: "Mother, can't you see that I have an important job here?"

Peter first saw me when I was not quite two years old and always remembered how I was hiding behind my mother's skirt and howling with terror at the sight of this stranger who suddenly appeared out of nowhere. I have a very vague memory of this first encounter, a fuzzy snapshot of sorts, which may be just a reflection of what the adults told me about it later.

He returned to Bratislava around the time of my eighth birthday in November 1980. He always had the knack for buying the perfect presents, since gift giving was his love language. He brought a Lego for Petra, the future designer, and a Barbie for me. Petra immediately took to the Lego, which gave her the chance to apply her creativity and spatial imagination. My Barbie, along with the Ken and the child Barbie he shipped later, were cast in many imaginative scenes of family life. For my birthday, Peter gave me an abridged version of Stowe's _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ in Slovak translation, which I read over and over and cherish to this day.

I don't remember much else about this visit, except for how fiercely I got attached to Peter and his departure. The night before my parents told me to say goodbye because he was scheduled to leave very early in the morning. I cried and cried and could not fall asleep. My parents later said that they considered giving me a sleeping pill because I kept running out of my bedroom and throwing myself around Peter's neck. The next morning was sunny and brilliant with the first snowfall of the year. I remember the feelings of great emptiness and sadness when under other circumstances I would have been happy to get to stay home from school and go sledding.

That first separation was a foreshadowing of how difficult this final letting go of Peter would be and of my longing for just one last hug. This November, 35 years later, I will take Peter back home to Bratislava, where he will rest next to his parents in a beautiful old cemetery above the Danube river.

Katarina, you are exactly what he thought of you! A fabulous little girl that grew up to be his biggest pride and joy.  MARCELLA close to it, boy he loved his goddaughter, I met her when she was very young so, she may not remember me but she was an angel.  

Yvonne, the only one he considered his ex-wife, he told me you still communicated, I didn't mind because I knew he had great memories of your life together.  The story you wrote, I heard from him many times.  So glad my Peter had those great memories, you taught him to love nature, I am so grateful to you for that.  

Now, all I  can say is that I hurt for him, my pain, my constant ache for his words, him holding me the way he did..  I hurt so much for him!  I believe that he hated to be open and express himself but like Katarina told me, he is probably smiling at how much love he is receiving.  

Please pray that he is in a better place, I know he is but I ache for my love

Peter's co-worker, Alberto Gutierrez, emailed me this touching story, which is so characteristic of Peter, so I asked for his permission to post it. In the last few years, Peter told me less and less about his life in Dallas over the phone, and I was worried that he was sad and lonely. His co-workers' testimonials and this story show me that it was far from the case.

I'm so sorry for the loss of such a wonderful man. My Name is Alberto (33 years old), one of his co-workers. I had the privilege of knowing him for 2 years and seeing him every day. We worked directly together arm with arm on different projects. During lunch time we would go out (the 2 of us) and talk about stories. He mentioned your name several times. 
Last Thursday was the last time we had lunch together. We had a meeting in the morning, we solved a couple of things and then we said "Let's grab lunch to celebrate". Then He said: "Let's have the Best Risotto in town, I pay, you Drive" And so we did... this time was so different. We had lunch and we stayed for 1 and 1/2 hr. He told me the story about how he escaped from Slovakia... amazing how that guy made it! We came back to the office; thanked each other for lunch ... and that was it! 
Friday I looked for him to wish for a good weekend and he wasn’t there.
Monday we got the news and I couldn’t stay at work, I literately left and went home because I needed my wife to support me. I couldn’t believe it because we had plans this week that we setup last Thursday. He wanted to have lunch and meet my wife and newborn. I used to tell my wife a lot about him and I was so sad because I didn’t have pictures of him so I can show her what that great man looks like. I said: “God I wish I had a picture of him”. Next day I get this wonderful site you put together and made my Day! 
He was like an uncle to me! 
It’s going to be very hard to heal the wound and people keep telling me that HE is in a better place! All I know is that I learned a lot from him, I learned the way He lived life and that’s the way I’m going to live my life from now on. In moments of stress He used to say “let’s run away to BORA BORA”. I know he is now in BORA BORA, enjoying his eternal life.

I don't know if anyone realizes that Peter had a very close call in 1973 when he was 26 years old – he almost died.  I don't think he ever shared this with his family because he did not want to cause them concern. 

In July 1973 Peter and a friend, both scuba diving enthusiasts, decided they wanted to drive down to Ensenada in Mexico to dive.  I just tagged along to keep them company.  I waited on shore while they disappeared in the waves.  Unfortunately, I was never the athletic partner that Peter probably needed.  I had no desire whatsover to take up scuba diving.  When they came up about 20 minutes later, we drove to the nearest village where we spent the night, eating both dinner and breakfast in the local eatery.  We got home Sunday night.

That week Peter had a dentist appointment, I think it was on Tuesday or maybe Wednesday. This was before we were married and we had a date - he was supposed to pick me up Wednesday evening and take me out to dinner.   He came as agreed, and since I was still finishing my hair and makeup, he said he would lie down in the bedroom.  When I was done I called out and was surprised to find him still in bed.  He said he was not feeling well and did not want to go anywhere.  He thought it was from the effects of the procedure he had done – he had a tooth pulled and received some pain killers for that, which I think he didn't take as prescribed, because he had an abhorrence of all pills.  So he stayed the night, he was too sick to go anywhere.  In the morning I touched him and realized he was burning up.  I called my doctor and he came within the hour – yes, back then doctors still made house calls.  Peter had 106F fever and the doctor called an ambulance and had him hospitalized immediately.  He was taken to St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica and I went with him. 

They ran a bunch of tests and nobody knew what was wrong with him.  They had no clue.  He kept burning up, his temperature around 106F for 3 full days. The hospital put him in ice, he had literally bags of ice all around him and on top of him, and they were constantly changing them, as they kept melting.  That was how they were trying to control his fever.  So a man who was healthy enough on Wednesday to come for a date was by Friday afternoon near death.  I have never seen anything like it, and apparently neither did anyone in the hospital. Ever. 

I was grilled about what Peter did, where he lived, what he did for living, his hobbies, food preferences, etc. And then I said the magic word:  "Mexico". When the doctors learned that Peter recently visited Mexico, they started running different tests.  And Saturday, on the fourth day of his illness, they had their answer:  Peter contracted salmonella, most likely by eating contaminated eggs for breakfast.  He liked his eggs over easy, so the yoke was not completely cooked.  However, our friend Jano and I ate the same eggs, but we were not sick.  How could that be? 

Jano and I were both sent for testing to make sure we were not carriers without having any symptoms ourselves.  I got a completely clean bill of health but Jano had to start taking some medication, although he felt fine.  The doctors speculated that what happened in Peter's case was that the salmonella bacteria, normally causing just diarrhea and similar symptoms, had a chance to enter directly into Peter's blood stream when Peter had his tooth pulled and this is what caused his complete physical meltdown.  It was typhoid fever,  the modern term used for what was known in Medieval times as the plague,

Once the diagnosis was made, medicine was administered and Peter started the long and slow road to recovery from being near-death.  They kept him in the hospital for a full month.  I worked in Santa Monica, about a 10 minute drive from the hospital.  As Peter regained consciousness (he was completely out the first 4 days), and started communicating, it was discovered that he could not speak or understand English. He normally spoke English, Czech, and Slovak fluently, but for about a week after he came out of being completely unconscious he was able to communicate only in Slovak, it was the only language he spoke.  So the hospital kept calling me to assist, since he did respond to Czech, which I spoke. 

It may sound unbelievable, but it was during this hospitalization, when he was in and out of consciousness, doped up with God knows what drugs, that he was absolutely the funniest I have ever known him to be.  The nurses probably thought I was crazy, as I kept laughing at just about everything Peter said.  I still recall a couple of those episodes today, more than 42 years later: 

The hospital called that Peter must consume some liquids and is throwing the water into the nurses faces while screaming they did not know what, but they thought by the tone of his voice that he was cursing. So I drove over there.  "Why won't you drink?"  (in Czech) He said (in Slovak) that he did not want the filthy water that they were giving him, he wanted pure, clean water from a lake. So I set out to improvise a lake in a hospital.  I asked the nurses to bring him a bowl of water, the kind they used to wash patients, the biggest one they had.  They thought I was completely crazy, but they complied.  I held the bowl of water in front of him and told him that it was a beautiful lake with very pure, very clean water.  And he apparently saw what I described, and started happily lapping up the water from the bowl, like a dog.  For the next few days that's how the hospital got liquids into him until he became himself again.

Another day they called, "please come, he is very agitated".  So I rushed to the hospital.  Peter was in a straightjacket, tied to the bed railings.  Of course I became angry, why was this necessary?  It was explained to me that Peter pulled out all of his IV tubes, got on the elevator, and came down into the lobby – in his hospital night gown, his naked butt on display in the back, dragging all the IV tubes behind him.  I asked him (in Czech) why he did that and he told me (in Slovak) that he was asking for the cashier, that he wanted to pay his bill and go home.  But of course, nobody understood him.  So they tied him to the bed, they were afraid he would pull out the IV tubes again.  He gave me such an unhappy look, resigned to his fate.  He said (in Slovak): "Look at this, they tied me up.  These witches.  They want my body, I know it.  They are after me and they know I think they are ugly, so they tied me up to have their way with me."  I couldn't help it, I practically died laughing.   

It was after this  close call with death that Peter became a health food fanatic.  He lost a lot of his hair as a result of the high fevers and  the quest for healthy hair led him to the study of proper nutrition.  All of his nice curly hair eventually grew back, but his obsession with health and nutrition was there to stay. 

Peter was a competent guitar player and had a very good singing voice.  For most of us who came from the former Czechoslovakia, singing was an integral and important part of life. This applied to Peter as well. During the time we were together, I had the opportunity to hear him sing and play many times.  His favorite song, by far, was "Green green grass of home".  I am including below a link to the Elvis Presley version, which I like best.  I am by no means trying to compare Peter to Elvis, but for a lay singer Peter sang this song well, with a lot of feeling.  This was the song that he was most likely to choose when asked to sing for us. 

Until I re-visited this song this week, I did not realize how much the song captures Peter's personality.  I don't think it was a coincidence that he liked it so much. I also don't believe that for him it was a song about the immigrant experience and homesickness.  I believe that for him the song personified the conflict he always felt to some degree:  on the one hand reality, which he almost always found gray and dull but felt caught in, and on the other fantasy, where he found true happiness but which he could visit only briefly.  His principal escape into fantasy were movies and books, and to a lesser extent, music. I would say he was happiest when somehow disengaged from everyday reality and instead exploring the rich world of fantasy. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY32ONmcHTk

I remember how Peter loved Tennis. You bring up any other sport, baseball, football, basketball and he would just look at you with a blank stare. But you bring up Tennis and his eyes would come wide open and start talking a mile a minute. I would even catch myself watching more tennis so that I could talk to him about it.

Hearing Peter talk about his life and what it took for him to come over to America always intrigued me. I loved how he would tell us stories with such emphasis and humor. I remember at times when he would be telling us a humorous story about something in his life and he would be laughing so hard trying to get it out, that I wouldn’t understand what he was saying, but I was laughing because he was laughing.

It was never beyond Peter to pick up the tab at lunch. And when it came time for me to return the favor on another occasion, I would scramble to get the check but he would grab it faster and I would try and try to have him let me pay for his lunch but he would always say next time. I guess that next time will have to wait, but I’m sure that it will come someday.

Peter,  just like my father Milan, loved Olympic and Petr Janda and attended their concert in Dallas last fall. He probably heard this song titled Questions (one of which is "How many days do I have left until the last one comes?"). The song is about mortality but also about the meaning of life, and I find it uplifting and and full of hope. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzKkNgtghO0

Cariño and I spent most of our time talking or as he would say "telling stories" However,  we enjoyed special times together such as watching certain movies that he loved, we watched them over and over.   "Chicago" , he absolutely loved it, mainly for the song Mr. Cellophane.   He would giggle and dance to it in that certain way he had of bending over and pulling his knees up as to be marching with rhythm and singing along.   We also watched "Count of Monte Cristo" often, one of his old time favorites.   

We started fixing his home so we would be working together while we would listen to Jane Olivor, Romantic Mexican music, or Frank Sinatra.   He enjoyed watching TV in Spanish because he had learned the language quite nicely. He studied it and practiced with the waiters at his favorite Mexican Restaurant Luna de Noche.   The manager at Luna de Noche emailed me to let me know that a picture of Peter had been framed and hung up.   He ate there almost every day for the last 13 years.   He and I ate dinner there 5 to 6 times a week this last year.  They had a special menu for him.  He even had a Peter's Top Shelf Margarita.  My sweetie pie was such a creature of habit.   

I miss him so very much that it hurts!   But, I thank my Lord that we enjoyed "us" twice in our lifetime and that I was with him all the way to the very end.  He was talkative and making jokes while in ICU, he didn't believe it was "that" critical so when I told him "you better not leave me alone"  his answer was "you think I am going to die?  You can't get rid of me that easy!  
Until we meet again my Love.     

 

According to Jirka Vales, another one of Peter's favorite songs titled "At Heaven's Gate:"
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm79rIiAzUs
 

Yvonne told me that this song, "Green Green Grass of Home" by Tom Jones, was one of Peter's favorites, and he was once proud to master it on the guitar. It says so much about the immigrant experience that we shared.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN3ME-rgpws

Marcella loved Peter and so did I :)

 

Marcella was such an adorable baby. Peter talked about her all the time and really loved her. Thanks for these pictures.