Hall of Baldness: Peter

Peter was our next door neighbor and my good friend at Stanford. He is married to Amanda, making them the first husband/wife duo in the Hall of Baldness. Peter started his PhD program in particle physics the same year that we started at Stanford, and so we got to share 5 wonderful years together. Peter is an avid birdwatcher, photographer, bicycler, and above all, University of Arizona basketball fan.

It was largely because of him that I ended up playing a good deal of basketball at Stanford: intramurals, pick-up at the church or Stanford gym, or just one-on-one games of 21 against Peter. Last week when I played basketball at the church here it felt weird not being there with Peter. A couple of summers ago we decided that we were going to dunk that year, and proceeded to work out together. We got really close to our goal, and improved a lot, but had to slow down when our knees starting complaining. He was my exercise partner for much of the last 3 years.

Peter is fun to talk to, and has a wide knowledge base, enabling him to communicate intelligently with anyone he comes across. We enjoyed many hours of fun conversation out on the playground, and he, like me, loves inventing new games to play and compete at. The most famous one we came up with was Barball (In Barball, you swing on a swing holding a ball (soccer or volleyball). The goal is to throw the ball over the bar of the swing on each half swing, so that the ball is passing the bar everytime you do, but just going over the bar instead of under. I think our record for consecutive completed tosses was in the hundreds, although I am sure he will remember more precisely, since he had the final record. We would practice until our arms were aching. Fun times.) Within ten minutes of hearing of my diagnosis, Peter was a self-proclaimed "expert" on Hodgkins Lymphoma. I am glad to have him in my corner, and am so grateful for his friendship. Peter, welcome to the Hall of Baldness!