At 49, inspired by President John F. Kennedy's speech at the Cow Palace, John Pincetich joined the Peace Corps and spent the next seven years in such foreign outposts as Nigeria, Malaysia and Boston
Living large to the sweet, sweet end
Sunday, September 12, 2004
At 23, inspired by the war clouds gathering over Europe, he joined the Navy, eventually flying torpedo planes off light carriers around Baker Island, Tarawa and the Solomons.
At 49, inspired by President John F. Kennedy's speech at the Cow Palace, he joined the Peace Corps and spent the next seven years in such foreign outposts as Nigeria, Malaysia and Boston.
At 76, inspired by the tragic death of his wife of 50 years, he re-enlisted in the Peace Corps, setting sail for northern Iraq, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
And I suspect the only reason John Pincetich opened his door to me last week, at 88, is that he hopes a column might inspire someone to call and recruit him for another grand adventure.
Strange was the path that led me to his Gearhart door. I was poking around Andy Wiederhorn's compound above Little Beach, wondering if a little prison time had changed the disgraced felon's perspective on metal gates and walls, when a neighbor suggested I might find a more direct opinion on the old beach-path controversy at the Pincetich home. After 10 minutes in John's living room, I realized I had stumbled upon a far better man than Wiederhorn and a far better story than Little Beach.
Pincetich is still living large at what is, for far too many, the narrow, shuttered end of life. Age has not smothered his curiosity, passion and energy; it has only fine-tuned them.
He was born in Astoria; schooled on the Columbia River, as a gill-netter, and at the University of Oregon; and on leave from the Navy in 1939 when he met his future wife. Marjorie "Jerry" Dale Cressman was dancing with a dufus at a Park Avenue bottle club in New York City, Pincetich said, and he cut in, deciding she deserved better.
He never lacked for confidence or purpose or inventiveness. He and Jerry, who married in 1942, didn't need the additional stimulus of heartbreak but that, too, came in time when the oldest of their three children, 4-year-old John, died after being struck by a postman's motorcycle.
"We somehow read off the same page of music for most of our lives," Pincetich said. "We both reached out to live life to the fullest. You may not have that chance; Little John didn't. We were living life for him."
Pincetich worked for newspapers, steamship lines and Hawaiian pineapple companies before he heard Kennedy preach about the Peace Corps. "I was elevated by the man," he said. "I'm a romantic, and the Peace Corps is the best thing I've ever done."
He first went to Nigeria in 1965, before the outbreak of the Biafran war, teaching English while Jerry worked as a Braille typist. When the couple returned to the country to install water purification systems with Unicef in 1981, Pincetich was stunned by the dramatic changes. The school system had been uprooted, the economy upended by the discovery of oil and oil money.
"So many people wished the military dictatorship would come back, there was so much corruption," Pincetich said. "When you pull the colonial lid off, the tribal ferment boils over."
He found much the same in northern Iraq in 1994, an assignment he took after Jerry died during lung surgery in 1992.
"I've been very depressed by our whole foreign policy since the Cold War," Pincetich said. "We don't seem to understand there are other cultures with other points of view. Democracy is a foreign concept to so many people; our pushing it so strongly creates many problems.
"We're a good people, but we're not as good as we think we are. Being an American means you have the gene of arrogance. We don't understand that not everyone wants to be like us."
That may be. But if I live to be 88, I hope I'm still living with Pincetich's sense of purpose. He has never retreated or retired -- he serves on Gearhart's city council -- or lost the faith that he has something better to offer. Even now, he watches the eternal dance of war and peace, desperate to cut in.
Steve Duin: 503-221-8597; Steveduin@aol.com; 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland, OR 97201
