Bill Donovan, Pinecliffe. I first met Pete Wells when I became Postmaster of the Pinecliffe Post Office in February of this year. Oh, I had seen him before. Who hadn’t? Walking, hitch-hiking, making his way around on his own.
Hairy, dreadlocked, poorly clothed and shod. And, frankly, dirty and smelly. I’ve heard more than one person say that seeing him hitch-hike, they gave him a ride...once.
But into the Pinecliffe Post Office Pete Wells came. Three, four times a week. The small counter in my less-than-busy Post Office was his “desk.” There, he opened his mail, tried to interpret the bureaucracy-speak of the V.A., to where he occasionally made his way down to address his growing physical maladies.
He would talk. Not much. But he would talk: Weather. His walking. His cats. His “damn generator.” His tube-pipe, spring-fed gravity source of water and its recurring silt-induced problems. His endless wood-cutting, timber-dragging days.
Every month, he would buy Money Orders for his two, maybe three recurring bills. Months ago, I stopped adding up his Money Order amounts and their fees because he always had it nailed. Down to the penny. Cash. And then he would leave. And he’d come back two hours or so later with those bills, Money Orders, and envelopes to mail.
I said, once or twice, “Pete, you’re always complaining about your legs, feet, and circulation. Why not bring the bills and envelopes with you when you buy the Money Orders and mail ‘em all then and there?”
“Gotta keep walking. Gotta keep moving,” he would reply. I never said it again.
I always assumed, given his apparent age, and constant interaction with The V.A. that Pete was Vietnam era. Probably not just Vietnam-Era, but...Vietnam. But I would never presume to ask.
With his monthly Money Order purchases, Pete would buy a few stamps. He would always Purple Heart stamps. Nothing else would do.
The man had stories to tell, I’m sure.
I’ve been told more than once that he was a “tunnel rat” in Vietnam. “Go down in there and smoke ‘em out.” If true, enough said.
The afternoon before the fire, he left the Pinecliffe Post Office saying, “Temperature’s goin’ down. I’m outta wood. Got work to do.”
Not two hours later, a Pinecliffe Post Office customer, a long-standing good friend of Pete’s came in and, while we chatted, said he had just dropped a load of firewood off at Pete’s place.
The next morning, I saw the smoke from a mile away. It was not 100 yards behind the Post Office. It was white smoke, meaning well-doused and under control. A neighbor told me, simply, “It’s Pete’s place. He died.”
Devastating.
It fell on me to inform customers that morning. More than one customer reacted as if being hit in the chest, recoiling steps back, crying, “NO!!”
That day, the friend who gave him a load of firewood that fateful day came into the Post Office.
Devastated. We commiserated.
Had I thought of it then, I would have told him, as I do now, “Don’t feel remorse. We know not the day nor the hour, but perhaps Pete Wells’ last experience in this world was...your act of kindness.”
Pete Wells:
Veteran.
Rugged individual.
Sweet soul.
American.
His Post Office box in Pinecliffe is framed in Black, one of his Purple Heart stamps adorning it. I will miss him. And I’m certain I’m not alone in that.
(Originally published in the November 21, 2019, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)
