HACC Chairman Peter Teachout Assassinated With Grenade

Photo by John Hoff

My 11-year-old son and I went over to Peter Teachout's place, where we played video games and watched "X-Men 3." My son pretty much mopped the floor with Peter playing "two player duel" in X-box "Halo 3."

In fact...

Peter never won a single round against my son. Peter tried going into the game settings to change the rules, attempting to create a scenario of weapons and terrain which would allow him to beat my son. At one point, Peter led 4-0 in a 25 point game and announced "I rock."

"Then why is there a plasma (grenade) stuck to you?" my son asked, as Peter's character was blown apart in a blue explosion of light.

In one instance, my son won a game 25 to 0. My kid was always getting his hands on a superior piece of equipment--like a Banshee jet fighter--and running the game. It was pretty ugly. Peter's numerous corpses littered the ground of the virtual world, and my son would scavenge weapons from the dead.

"Plasmas, mostly," my kid explained.

Peter, to his credit, is a self-confessed glutton for punishment; which is why he kept playing my kid for hours.

"Don't be holding back on him just because he's a child," I told Peter.

"I'm NOT!" Peter said. "That's the PROBLEM!"

The game was interrupted once by a need to call 911 over "shots fired or possible firecrackers" on 6th and Lowry. Another time, Peter went over to check on a neighbor and insisted on walking instead of driving, saying, "I don't like to feel as though I live in a war zone."

"That's really too bad," I replied. "Since you do, in fact, live in a war zone."

Peter and I are both working to clean up the neighborhood, but we have different approaches. Like my son, I believe in bringing too much to the fight, rather than too little. Peter was brought up to have faith in God, and I was brought up to have faith in ammunition.

Peter said when he and his brother used to play duel-player Halo, they had a "no screen peeking" rule. I say, "When screen peeking is outlawed, only peekers will have screens."