Peter B. Cummings
Tony Lavely ’64 remembers Peter. Peter B. Cummings R1 (1942-2026)
I was deeply saddened to learn about the death of Peter B. Cummings in May 2026. Peter was my friend, dating back to our time as football teammates at Yale. We also lived in the same residential college, Branford, as undergraduates. Later, I affiliated & had reunions with my original 1964 class, so Peter & I didn’t see much of each other, but we did stay connected over the years. I remember seeing him in Big Sur California in the 1980s where he had established himself as an artist, under the moniker, “Swimming Taco.”
After Peter moved to Santa Fe, we exchanged holiday greetings & long telephone calls. Through these, I became aware of his growing anxiety over what he felt was unwanted guardianship in a seniors living facility. When my card to him in 2025 was returned & the phone number I had for him was disconnected, I learned from a Google search that he had been picked up by the Santa Fe police while wandering away from his living facility, but they wouldn’t give me any information over the phone. I was planning to go by his facility in October while visiting New Mexico to see other Yale classmates. It was then that I learned from one of his classmates that Peter had died in May. I had a nice phone conversation with Mel Shaftel, another teammate, and he put me in touch with Peter’s sister, Ann. Coincidentally, Ann married one of my original 1964 classmates, Cliff Iverson, with whom she now lives in Colorado. Cliff was in a terrible car accident while he was an undergraduate and took off several years to recuperate before graduating from Wharton. It warmed my heart to talk with Ann and learn how much she cared about her brother.
It was no secret among his Yale friends that Peter had been estranged from his father since college. Barton A. Cummings had been a football All American at Illinois and went on to become a very successful advertising executive as CEO of Compton Advertising in NYC. Bart was famously characterized as “one of advertising’s benevolent dictators.” Under Bart’s leadership, Compton specialized in representing Proctor & Gamble brands, the crown jewels of consumer brands. Another coincidence was that I worked for Compton in 1968-69, as Account Executive on Tide & Cascade, but I had little direct contact with Bart. I know he spent a lot of time in Cincinnati.
Peter & I sat next to each other at Commencement on the Old Campus in May 1965 and then followed Master George Schrader in the ceremonial procession to Branford courtyard, just across High Street, for the awarding of degrees. I don’t recall that Peter’s parents were there, but I know my parents had to split up (they flipped a coin) with my father accompanying me to Branford and my mother joining the procession to Silliman College for my brother, Jay, who was graduating with honors as a bone fide member of 1965. I took a year off after my sophomore year, so my graduation was delayed.
There was one Yale anecdote that endeared Peter & me to each other for all these “after years.” One rainy spring day in 1964, we had walked from Branford to our favorite hangout on Chapel Street, “My Brother’s Place,” for a late coffee & danish, as we often did. We were getting the side eye from “townies,” and as we left the restaurant it broke out into a street fight, 3 against two. Peter & I held our own, even though 2 of the bad boys were swinging tire irons. I tackled one of them to avoid the downward arc of his weapon & we both went through the plate glass window of what it now a Starbucks. Then, all Hell broke loose with bystanders screaming & sirens arriving. Lou & Jerry, the brothers, hustled us into their kitchen, but we surrendered when the cops started searching. So, into separate Paddy wagon we went, cuffs on & belts off. We spent the night in New Haven jail, since the Yale campus police had lost the combination to the safe in Phelps Gate that contained a cash bail fund endowed in years past by a Yale alumnus for this very purpose. When we finally got our day in court, Peter & I were acquitted. If a night like that didn’t make us “Brothers in Unity” (the actual name to this day of our Branford court), I don’t know what would. RIP, my brother!