Let me tell you about Pete Vizza, who died Thursday.
Pete was many things to me, but most of all, a long-time friend.
We shared a philosophy, that people such as us, with jobs that caused us to deal with the public, have many acquaintances, but just a few friends in the way we defined it – that being friends are someone who would do just about anything for you, at any time, no questions asked.
Pete was that kind of person. I’d known him slightly since when I lived briefly in Hornerstown and attended the old Meadowvale School as a 6th grader. Pete was in fifth grade at the time.
We became friends later in life, when I worked as a reporter and sportswriter at The Tribune-Democrat and he was a photographer.
In the late 1970s, Pete and I got our first new vehicles within a short time period. He bought a Plymouth Trail Duster SUV and I got a 1979 Jeep CJ-7. From then on, I’d call him Pete “Trail Duster” Vizza and he’d call me Sam “CJ” Ross.
Even after we’d both left the local newspaper, we remained in contact. I’d see him at summer union picnics or winter Christmas parties, until the membership banned retirees. Often, we’d go to AAABA games together, or he’d stop by my house for a visit.
Pete was a fixture at the Super Bowl parties I used to give, always arriving with a greeting card and gift certificate for some area eatery, despite my wife and I telling him constantly it was not necessary.
That was Pete, always looking to do something nice for others. And, when you did something for him, things as simple as my wife making sure he had a plate of homemade Christmas cookies every year, or the night I swung by his downtown apartment and took him for a long ride in my newly acquired Mustang convertible, Pete made sure you realized he was grateful.
I have so many fond recollections of Pete.
There was the time I was covering a state playoff high school football game in Altoona and Pete was the scheduled photographer. We went in separate vehicles because he would need to leave early. I arrived first, then got a message that Pete was stranded atop Cresson Mountain, having taken out five deer with his company car.
There were so many emergency vehicles with flashing lights when I got there to pick him up, it looked like a plane crash scene. But Pete calmly rode to the game with me, shot his pictures and I covered the game and wrote my story. It did provide a lot of laughs, though, in subsequent years.
Although slight of stature, Pete went through a period when he did a lot of weightlifting. They called him “Mighty Mouse” at the Johnstown YMCA.
At night, Pete would turn off the water faucets in the photo department darkroom with such force that on more than one occasion, the people trying to turn them on in the morning needed to get a maintenance man and a wrench.
Pete was an officer in our union at the newspaper and there was a story about Pete mentioning to the publisher – perhaps during contract negotiations – that he wanted to buy a Mercedes-Benz and the publisher laughing about it being some sort of unobtainable dream.
Not long after that, Pete stopped in at the office and offered the publisher a ride – in his new Mercedes. I’m not sure whether or not the publisher went for the ride.
I do know that Pete stopped by my house with the Mercedes one afternoon and took my wife and my then young son Tony out to Shaffer’s for ice cream. He was not afraid my son would get ice cream on the interior. Vintage Pete.
Pete took some memorable photos of my son as a younger child. One, Pete snapped while on our street during winter and it ran in our in-house publication, Office Chatter, with a caption of Tony telling Pete he was making snowballs to throw at old people.
On another occasion, my wife Ruby brought toddler Tony into the office at night to see me and Pete snapped a photo of Tony, in a Pirates ballcap, holding a phone while sitting on my desk. This black and white image remains one of my favorites, displayed on a wall by the staircase of my home.
Years later, when Tony had a daughter of his own, my son and I recreated the scene, with the original picture included in the new image.
Pete was a Democrat, but not in the modern, far-left way. He was a man of traditional values and eventually got out of local politics because he found himself out of step philosophically with his party.
Health reasons caused Pete to leave the area in recent years and I lost contact with him, sadly.
And now his run on Earth has ended. But the memories he made still linger. I’ll miss you, Pete “Trail Duster” Vizza. We all will.
Sam Ross Jr's site 