2 weeks

Subject: Article Response


I've just read the Saugeen Times' generous obituary for Pete Maher.  And,
because of what was said, I also dipped into the Letters section archive.

There I saw that Pete had expressed his views on many things.  (No doubt
some Times readers would remember him for frequent letters that are mostly
spontaneous attacks on privilege and hypocrisy - but that are often funny).

To my surprise I even found a Times letter (of May 2, 2009) referring to me
as a 'very straight friend' who doubted his seeing a UFO when visiting
Tasmania.  Given that Pete also enjoyed a drink, of course I doubted him.

Later, after seeing the UFO report on the front page of the Launceston
Examiner (February 20, 2009), I was a little less sure.  However, to avoid
agreeing with Pete's over-active imagination about 'aliens', I reminded
him that the first word in UFO is 'unidentified'.  Perhaps he now knows the
truth!

I was privileged to have met Pete Maher when he came to work beside me
at GM, Oshawa, 50 years ago.  We were both 21-year old migrants and,
although I'm Scottish and he was English, we struck up a friendship.

Pete was a very humorous, talented guy who could turn his hand to anything.
For example, he was an inventor, writer/poet and cartoonist.  But what he
liked to do above everything else, was fishing - sometimes using the lure he
created.

When Pete was here in Australia last year visiting his sisters, he reminded
me that I had introduced him to the Saugeen River in the early 1960's. Over
the decades he took every chance he could to fish the Saugeen, and when he
retired he went to live beside it.

Now he has died there...

RIP, Pete.  Thanks for the memories left with me and my family.

                                     Harry Joyce, Goolwa, South Australia