I’ve known Pete Worthman for almost 70 years, ever since his family moved him to our small suburban NYC high school (to protect him from the school where he wanted to play ball in the Bronx).  His arrival was explosive.  Within hours we knew more about Pete than we did about most of our other classmates, and there weren’t that many of us. We knew that he was Pete and not Paul, that he loved NY jazz and the Dodgers, played ball and ran track, and was a master of the shaggy dog story.  

Pete and I were off and on friends, off and on more, and it took the two of us 10 years to figure out that we wanted to spend the next almost 60 years together.

Thank goodness we did.  I’ve said it before, but in marrying Pete,  I Married Adventure, the title of my favorite book in grammar school.  The book had me believe my adventure would be in Kenya, seeing wildlife.  But Pete was smarter than me, so when I told him I thought I’d join the Peace Corps to get to Kenya, he proposed.  I instantly became smarter and accepted.

Before he explicitly joined labor activism, Pete trained for it.  Gigs included treasurer, concert promoter, athlete, dishwasher, auto worker, postal worker (to the detriment of two trucks), jackhammer operator, hod carrier, taxi driver, grad student, father, professor – to name a few.  He also trained to bargain contracts, by listening to his father-in-law’s interminable stories about negotiating for Time Inc.  “He said, then I said…”  For his first contract, his formidable research skills extended to bargaining with a reference open on his lap.

He loved research, data! data!  The summer after our marriage, we were in Alabama collecting data for his work documenting black workers and labor unions in Birmingham at the end of the 19^th century.  Our noses were in the newspapers and city directories … and the data.  Who was a miner? A puddler?  Who were the black AFL Local members? (I will happily send the table of Occupations by Race in Birmingham 1900, carefully tabulated from City Directory 1901, should anyone ask.)   Over and over his research skills made the difference in his approach to his work.  And even much later as the technology improved so that he was offered the option over and over to switch from finger sticks to follow his diabetes, it wasn’t until he realized a continuous glucose monitor gave him !data! that he lighted up.

But his métier was as a labor agitator.  His friends, the employers, maybe said it best with this award.

Agitate:  Take Power:  Bring the negotiating team in early to occupy the seats at the table that were traditionally management’s.  Know more about the budget than management did.  Stay and stay and stay to get the language in the contract exactly right.  Wear your Looney Tunes tie.  Teach.

Pete’s approach to holidays was – predictably — somewhat unique.  No to his birthday, “I celebrate every day that is not my birthday!”.   He liked mine because he could tease about how old I was for two months until his.  As we grew older, New Years Eve was celebrated on East Coast time.  Wedding anniversaries were celebrated thoroughly except the year in England when other adventures meant we forgot until a month later.  Our celebrations of standard religious holidays meant bringing two cultures together for Easter, Passover, Christmas, Hannukah.  Sweet.  We all loved Pete’s playful approach to Christmas gifting and the family tradition of seasonal shopping at our local Pik N Save.

This year at our Christmas celebration we brought out a P&S treasure from long ago, and enjoyed the presence of our own Santa Bear.

Our own adventures I won’t try to summarize except for one or two things.  Pete was an activist father.  Our girls grew up strong, proud, infinitely capable because of his attention, his teaching.  We knew all along they were our best and brightest adventure.  And, along the way we gathered so very many good people as our friends.  We are fortunate and we (yes, we) thank you.

As we grew older, we told more and more of our own interminable stories, frequently “correcting” the other’s version of history.  Sadly, we will now never resolve whether it was the last spear of broccoli or asparagus I loudly coveted on Frank Gattel’s plate.  But, it’s important to point out that the story of two ties already told, was not Pete’s original invention.  Pete was following the lead of a classmate of ours, John Kifner of the New York Times, the one who outed the Chicago Police for killing Fred Hampton.  Kiff had been told by management that they valued his work but weren’t quite sure if he fit in …  Soon Kiff’s wardrobe evolved from the khaki stage to three piece suits.  He carried an umbrella rain or shine.  And when he was promoted from cub, he celebrated by wearing two ties.  Pete was always careful about attributing his sources.

In the olden days, I normally would have passed my draft over to Pete for review.  It would return tighter in many instances, and also bearing at least five new subordinate clauses.  I miss them.

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