and apologies for being a day late! Every August 7, we all gathered to celebrate (more recently in Wilbraham) -- to celebrate the birthday of the man who was born in Marash in 1912, ran barefoot through the streets, fought with his Armenian friends and Kurdish non-friends in the mountains with Old-Testament style sling-shots, fearlessly survived a genocide, arrived in Newton when he was 8 years old, ran shod (no longer barefoot) with the Irish boys through the streets of Brighton, later to graduate from Watertown High School with a scholarship to MIT which he could never take advantage of as his ede (older brother) told him he had to help support his family. (Peter often joked about the fact that yes, he went to MIT and walked right past it!) Started a successful business with his brother (Newtonville Electrical Company) in Newtonville, Massachusetts, first in his Uncle Vartan's building on Bowers Street, and then on Newtonville Avenue in a building he and his brother had built, married the beautiful Jennie (Lucille Mae Vartanian), had three beautiful children, and lived to be 97 and a half years old, contributing to the world around him through his work and his thought: Peter lived his faith and died singing praises to the Lord.
Slings, not sling shots. I dare say sling shots were unknown to the cilicians. Slings are mighty and lethal, and were an essential part of the armies of classical antiquity. Check out Alexander' battle at Issus, and how he used his slingers who ran alongside and hidden behind his cavalry.
ReplyDeleteHe contributed through his wisdom, his love, his hard work, his fearlessness, his sense of humor, his natural genius for all things mechanical, and, he married the right woman! Absent the latter, I am not sure how things would have worked out for him or us, ...I guess, we wouldn't have been us!
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