I suppose the role of the guy who stands up here on a day like today is to comfort the audience. I do want to comfort you, but I have to start by telling you good people that comfort and strength are almost impossible to muster right now, so I mean no disrespect to anyone if I fail at that this evening. Also, after several rewrites and different versions I find I can’t hide my anger or my pain either. One technique that has helped me through this ceremony was to praise Chuck a little, then make fun of him a little. Both are very easy. There are so many positive things to say about Chuck Peters, but then I couldn’t help notice all the notes I’d scratched into the margins right along some happy memory like “stubborn”, or “vain frosted hair phase”. So instead of just telling you how great he is, I’ve sprinkled in some of those negative things as well.
Chuck Peters viewed the world in many ways with the same wonderment of a teenager. We should all be so lucky to find the childlike amazement that Chuck had for life. He loved video games and fast cars. In fact if you asked him “how have computers most benefited mankind?” He would have said “driving games”. His favorite movies are all full of explosions and car chases. He was materialistic like a kid too. If you asked him what he would buy if he had an extra thousand bucks, he had a list already committed to memory. We saw this childlike attitude with whatever toy he was into at the time, in the form of a remote control car, a 4-wheeler, or his actual car. And if you asked him what kind of car he was getting next time, he would tell you his next three cars.
He craved excitement and it forced the rest of the world to be exciting at the same time. It wasn’t enough for him to merely climb Mt. Everest, he wanted to build a ramp next to it and jump it with a motorcycle. Chuck Peters was a legendary character that left wild stories in his path. He was a Tour de Force of which there was no equal. Every moment with him was an adventure. He envisioned himself in a youthful and maybe even immature way as a rock star. Those of us who had the honor of his company know that he was indeed a rock star in many ways—just not the kind where he was famous or in a musical group. And it was comical when his rock star status wouldn’t work because he was just too sweet, too kind. He might act tough sometimes, but his true gentle giant nature would take over and the rock start persona would crumble. His poker tells fit right into this—if he was acting tough, he had nothing; if he was giddy, look out. One aspect where he was inflexible was eating vegetables. Chuck was most childish about eating–he was pickier than a 5 year old. He acted like vegetables were kryptonite to him. I told him to eat them, everyone told him to eat them, but again, like a child he was stubborn and ornery. His diet consisted of about 12 total things all mostly different meats and candies.
Chuck was my first friend in Georgia when I moved here in 1993. We worked together—and we worked hard at labor-intensive tasks–but we made each other laugh all day, and that is all I remember ever doing. He lived in my building too. We were 23 years old and we acted like it. Many of my deepest secrets are in that box now. The most reckless and crazy things I ever did, I did with Chuck Peters. Those are the days of my most treasured memories and I wouldn’t trade them for diamonds. Just spending time with Chuck meant laughing all day. Even when he was mad he would resort to snotty little kid tactics, like saying, “I’m not talking to you anymore,” or “I heard what you said about me.” This attention-seeking behavior made us laugh too because it forced you to play along. Seventeen years of my life overlap Charles Alton Peters and I’m grateful for the gift of that. Again and again Chuck taught me how to love life, and I thank him for it.
I cannot overstate with too superlative a compliment how kind was Chuck Peters, how funny was Chuck Peters, how physically strong, how noble his work ethic, how joyful. Children and animals adored him. This list goes on, but maybe the best examples of his character were his love for his family. Charlotte, he talked about you all the time and told me every time I saw him how you were doing. A 40 year-old man that loves his mama is a sign of many wonderful and healthy virtues. You and Charles produced a real gentleman, and I know you all were proud of him.
And Lisa, without exaggeration the happiest, most contented years he spent on earth were because of you. He was devoted to you since he met you and you completed him in every way. When he sprayed “I love Lisa” into the driveway with the pressure washer, it was him bragging to the world about you. Your wedding was the greatest day of his life. Thank you for sharing it with me. It was the happiest I’d ever seen Chuck.
But none of that makes it okay to wear as much cologne as he did sometimes. My wife would come home from work and pick up our first baby and immediately say, “Oh, how long was Chuck here?” He was also the most gullible person I’ve ever known. Every time he watched a documentary about vampires or how we didn’t really land on the moon, he would argue the merits of the show’s claims and not listen to reason. The more X-File ridiculous, the more he believed it.
So in this fashion, I’m going to start a rumor about him, a conspiracy theory. You see, NASA needs all kinds of landing strips and parking lots built on Mars for future space travel plans. They had to fake Chuck’s death so they could send him there in the only flying concrete pump ever made. They gave him the biggest contract ever and he will be the wealthiest man in history after he stacks up all those hours on his pump. He’ll be there waiting when the technology they pretend to have “just developed” starts taking people to “explore” Mars.
What I like most about this rumor is that it suggests that he was needed somewhere else. As a concept of the afterlife, I like to believe the otherworld needs him. An old aphorism of the ancient Greeks says “whom the gods love die young.” At least that explains it a little. I imagine sharing Chuck with Heaven. After all, he gave me so much joy, it is the least I can do. And it is okay that it still hurts because we didn’t give him up voluntarily.
One final characteristic of his rock star persona was that he talked about this day often. He imagined his funeral as his big rock show. If we were to play all the songs he said we should play at his funeral, we would be here until Easter listening to them all. Music was his constant companion, and I can’t stress enough how important it was to him. The way these songs made him feel is what he wanted us to feel. The way they touched his heart, he wanted to touch ours today. I interpret this gesture as a desire for us all to think of Chuck from here on out with the same love you have for your favorite songs—that same familiarity, that same consistency. An old song is an old friend, rock star Chuck might have said. These songs are a collection of his best, most comforting, feelings. There were many. Maybe he thought these songs would rain down onto our sadness and cover us with his greatest musical experiences to ease our pain. Thanks Chuck.
Goodbye my friend. Goodbye brother, son, uncle, husband. You were awesome. We love you.
Now I’ll open up the mic to everyone else. Please share something, no matter how trivial or incidental you may think it is.
