Peter Verin, saint of my pre-Internet world has fallen. Today I mourn a casualty of the cold snap that hit Victoria in December 2016 to January 2017. For me and countless people in this town, Peter Verin was mostly ‘out there,’ an odd man who lived beyond the margins of our busy, urban to-and-fro lives.
But the times that he touched my life are unforgettable.
I came across Peter in the 1990s at UVic as I fumbled my way to a Bachelor’s degree. He was there after late night study sessions at the McPherson Library, sandals and beard, interested in encouraging me in my musings about environmental issues as the trees fell in Carmanah, as the Queen Charlotte Islands were rebranded as Haida Gwaii. These rambling conversations with Peter (he had no last name I knew) in the wee hours outside the S.U.B. building left me befuddled afterwards.
He would mention philosophers that I’d never heard of, ask me questions that would stop me in my mental tracks. Weird. Yet I couldn’t write off this ragged man with his pile of books—he knew more than I did, could argue more cogently than I could.
What was a man with such a sharp mind doing out of doors? And, on the other hand, what was I doing indoors that was oh-so-important and special? Peter rocked my world. And for that I would never forget him.
But the next encounter was even more mind-blowing.
Flash forward 12 years and I had become the workin’ stiff I am now: professional ego, two toddlers and credit card debt at home, late night emergency shopping missions. I came across Peter at the Quadra and McKenzie Thrifty Foods late one September evening. I had cycled there on an errand and foolishly left my bike unlocked. It was stolen.
Distraught, I came upon Peter in the magazine section and poured out my tale of woe. Instead of philosophizing, Peter did something extraordinary. First, he remembered me from those days at UVic over a decade earlier. Second, he promised to ‘ask around’ and gave me an email address to contact him later that week. A week and an email later, I went to pick up my bike at the Saanich Police HQ at the municipal hall. To this day I can only guess how he pulled off that generous act for me.
A man who apparently had little gave to a man who apparently had more than he could care for. Yet again, my ideas of a man’s place in society, of materialism were turned upside-down.
We sometimes think that homeless people are a burden. Home“less,” the word says that they have something ‘less,’ that they are less, worthless, useless.
Let Peter remind smug residents like me, insulated behind our central heating, behind our shiny windshields, that we can enrich each other’s lives in extraordinary and unexpected ways.
Rock on, Peter.
Rest in peace with sandals on your blackened feet.
Mark BrownGordon Head