“Most scenic outhouse in all of Ukraine,” my Ukrainian cousin Odik remarks to me with a smile.
It’s a bit of a heartwarming moment; Odik speaks about as much English as I speak Ukrainian—which is to say, not a whole lot. But the ability to use humor to bridge linguistic differences between two newly united relatives is a commendable skill, and doubly so when achieved outside one’s native tongue.
But joking aside, he’s certainly not wrong; the view from beyond the row of simple wooden outhouses is truly phenomenal.
We’re standing on top of a hillside in the village of Krylos in Western Ukraine. The wide vista before us is undoubtedly the true intended embodiment of the Ukrainian flag; crossed patches of golden fields below, meeting up with a brilliant blue sky at the horizon. At the forefront, the land is dotted with dozens of the simple rectangular block homes commonly found in the Ukrainian countryside. Further off, I can see evidence of a variety of rural towns and villages, although as a mere visitor I’m hesitant to put a name to any of them.
Perhaps the only blemish to this idyllic scene is a distant Soviet-era coal power plant, its two smokestacks diffusing ash high into the air. At first glance, it seems to stick out like a pimple on an otherwise perfectly smooth face. But strange at it sounds, I find even the power plant only manages to further compliment the entire scene and add a strange contrast to its overall beauty, serving as a necessary, inescapable reminder of that stark, industrially obsessed era now referred to by many as “the Bad Old Days.”
I don’t know. Perhaps it’s just the cynical side of me, but a part of me thinks that even the most beautiful of things need to have just a small sampling of sadness to add to the larger effect.
As picturesque as the entire view is, it doesn’t necessarily seem entirely unfamiliar to me. I’ve found that a lot of the Ukrainian countryside bears a strong resemblance to certain portions of Pennsylvania or Virginia that I’ve visited many times before. But one thing I see that manages to snap me out of my domestic frame of mind, one thing that seems to scream to me that I am in a completely foreign and unique land very unlike my own.
Specifically, I’m struck at how the warm afternoon sun shines across the valley, across the golden fields, until it reaches each one of those towns that sit on the far horizon. And when that sunlight comes to those towns, it inevitably finds that respective town’s church. Most churches in Ukraine are of the Byzantine style—with their large onion shaped domes plated in gold—so when the sun hits those metallic domes, it naturally reflects right back.
And standing on that hilltop in Krylos, I could see the reflection of each and every one of those churches from miles away. They shine to me as singular, brilliant points of light, as if they are distant stars or lighthouse beacons, dazzling themselves to travelers from afar.
And so, it is that moment that I sudden realize I am as far away from home as I can possibly be; I am in Ukraine.
Of course, we did not travel to the middle of Ukraine just to see a couple of outhouses, scenic as they may be.
It is July 4, 2019. For reference as to recent events that have catapulted Ukraine to the forefront of the news, that’s roughly three years before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but five years after the initial round of hostilities began between Ukrainians and Russian proxy forces in the far east of the country.
I’m currently halfway through a 10-day guided tour of the country with my mom, who was born in Soviet Ukraine but—along with my grandparents—was forced from her homeland as an infant due to war and political persecution.
The tour included three days in the city of Lviv, home to Odik and the rest of my mother’s family. And let me tell you, the experience of meeting new relatives—as an adult—is something to behold. Here are these people whose names you may have heard and whose pictures you may have seen, but it isn’t until meeting them in the flesh that it all becomes real. It’s Automatic Family, and it is absolutely fantastic. Yes, in actuality they are all just regular people with regular lives of their own—ups and downs and everything in between—but when you first meet them, the feeling of hospitality and belonginess without any aforethought just hits you immediately.
So at dinner the night before, when my mom mentioned to them that she was looking to take a trip out to Krylos—and that we would most likely be arranging to hire a driver to take us there—the response was a resounding, “No, no! Don’t even think of it! Odik will take you!”
With that, Odik—along with my Teta (Aunt) Darka and Teta Chrystia—arrived bright and early on the morning of July 4th at the historic Hotel George in central Lviv where we’ve been staying in order to take us the roughly 2-hour trip out to Kyrlos.
And what was the personal significance of Krylos that made us want to take such a drive?
Well, Krylos happened to be the childhood home of my Dziadzio (Grandfather) and the final resting place of two of my great-grandparents.
***
I never knew my Dziadzio. He died 14 years before I was born.
While one might assume he died young from that particular fact, he actually lived a relatively full life all the way to the age of 70. Amazingly, he was born in the 19th Century—1895, to be exact—and after being widowed with a young daughter in his first marriage, he met and married my Babcia (Grandmother) at the height of World War II. My mother was born shortly thereafter during a period of great turmoil that saw Ukraine being fiercely fought over by the Red and Nazi armies. Sensing a no-win scenario regardless which of those two brutal regimes came out on top, my grandparents made the extremely difficult decision to flee their homeland with my infant mother, adolescent aunt and only their most valuable of belongings in tow. The account of their trip through war-torn Eastern Europe reads like a real-life action-adventure movie, as they dodged bombs and angry partisans, found themselves interned in a concentration camp at one point, and finally escaped into the American sector of Vienna by hiding in the back of an ambulance.
My Dziadzio was a doctor by trade, both in Ukraine and later in the United States. But he was also something of a renaissance man. He was an artist, a scholar and a historian; as a young man, he was heavily involved in an archeological excavation of the Assumption Cathedral—an ancient church which dated back to the 12th Century—in his hometown of Krylos.
Of course, I did know my other grandparents; every Sunday, my family would take the dutiful trek from our home in rural Southern Maryland up to Baltimore, where both my Babcia and my paternal grandparents lived. It was the type of obligation that never actually felt like an obligation to me; as sheepishly sentimental as it might sound, I can honestly say seeing them was typically the highlight of my week. (What can I say? I’m an ISFJ who values both tradition and family.)
And while I never actually knew my Dziadzio, that’s not to say I never saw him. I would see him typically at least once a year at the St. Michael’s Ukrainian Catholic Church Cemetery in Baltimore.
The cemetery was situated on a fairly steep hill in the neighborhood of Dundalk, with my Dziadzio’s thick, dark gray granite cross headstone sitting at the very top row of graves. Every Pentecost, there would be a blessing of the graves, and not wanting to shame my grandfather’s memory, my parents would always arrive early to tidy up the gravesite.
As my parents worked hard to pull out weeds and plant brand new marigolds around my Dziadzio’s grave, my Babcia would typically sit nearby in a folding chair under the shade of the trees that lined the back of the cemetery. On one occasion—when I was probably about 7 or 8 years old—I recalled her pointing to my Dziadzio’s headstone with that old arthritic finger of hers, and telling me in her broken English with just the slightest bit of a smile, “My next house.”
Which admittedly was a bit of a morbid thing to tell a young kid, and I can distinctively recall at the time feeling my heart sink a bit when she said it. But in retrospect, it did make sense. She was from the Old Country, from a particular time and place when a long life was never a guarantee and death was a frequent visitor, so maintaining a dark sense of humor about things was simply second nature for most people.
And while the first thought that any cemetery brings is inevitably death, that doesn’t necessarily mean that St. Michael’s cemetery was by any means an unpleasant place. When we would visit, usually it would be late spring, meaning the air was warm, the trees were full and the flowers were in bloom.
From where my Dziadzio now sits—there at the very top row of the cemetery, at the very top of the hill—he is offered a fairly impressive view. Indeed, one might say his final home in Dundalk is not all that unlike his old childhood home in Krylos.
True, the area around St. Michael’s cemetery is far more urbanized than Krylos’ country surroundings. But just like Krylos, if you’re there, you still can’t help but look out and admire the great picture in front of you.
Houses and schools and ballfields all sit before you like train set miniatures, leading all the way down to the Patapsco River. You see the gracefully curved metallic span of the Francis Scott Key Bridge to the left and the loading cranes of the Port of Baltimore straight ahead of you, silent ironed giants that they are. Over to your right—assuming the air quality is descent enough—you can make out the tall, busy skyscrapers of downtown Baltimore.
And—for good measure—you can even see a smokestack or two, spewing its ash high into the air.
***
Out of sheer curiosity, I once googled the distance between Lviv and Krylos, and found it to be nearly the exact same distance—roughly 70 miles, give or take—that sits between my old home in Southern Maryland and Baltimore. Of course, there’s something of a role reversal in our trip; whereas the drives in my youth took us from country to city, here we were now heading from city to country.
I’m in the front passenger’s seat of Odik’s car; my mom and two aunts sit in the back. Odik has the Red Hot Chili Peppers playing on the car stereo as he drives along the freshly paved two-lane road headed towards Krylos. (I was told that prior to my visit, these same roads had been riddled with potholes thanks to years of government neglect.) As we are driving, a car pulls up behind us, flashes its lights, then quickly swerves to our left and then jets back in front of us to overtake us. Odik honks his horn at the aggressive driver in frustration and lets out a stream of words in Ukrainian that I can only assume are whatever curse words of his choice.
As someone with limited foreign travel experience before this trip, it’s a bit of a learning experience; specifically, I realize that, yes, asshole drivers truly are everywhere you happen to go.
We stop at an OKKO—basically Ukraine’s version of a 7-11 or Wawa—to get some coffee, and soon enough, we’re in the area around Krylos. And it is absolutely steeped in history.
There’s a church there—St. Panteleymon—whose original existing and fully functional structure dates all the way back to 1194. In the nearby town of Halych, a stone castle sits on top of a hill; it had once served as center of the Galacian principality, ruled over by the famed King Danylo. Everything about the area is ancient, so much so that it manages to put all the places I’ve visited before in the United States which have been deemed “old” or “historical”—Williamsburg, St. Augustine—to shame. But that’s the Old Country for you.
We make the turn-off to drive up to Krylos. Alongside the narrow, gravel road are these stone figureheads of famous names in Ukrainian history, each with their own accompanying superlative. Volodymyr the Great. Yaroslav the Wise. Nestor the Chronicler.
Finally, at the top of the hill, we reach Kyrlos. It is what I have expected—a quaint, rural village. In the center of the town stands the Assumption Cathedral—rebuilt on the same grounds that my Dziadzio had helped excavate decades ago. Next to it is a small museum that celebrates the rich history of the area, as well as paying homage to the archeologists—including my Dziadzio—who helped to preserve it.
But first things first. The OKKO coffee has made its rounds through the group, and we are forced to seek out the aforementioned Most Scenic Outhouse in Ukraine. (If there’s one legitimate gripe I do have about my visit to Ukraine, it’s the fact that locating a serviceable public restroom was frequently far more of a chore than I had ever planned.)
Our bladders now fully relieved, we head into the museum. It’s small but still impressive, and the displays are captioned in English as well as Ukrainian, so I’m able to fully grasp the significance of everything in there. On the far wall of the museum, there’s pictures of the dozen or so individuals responsible for the excavation of the cathedral. And right in the center is my Dziadzio himself.
I take a look at his photograph there amongst the others, and I notice something: He’s actually one of the younger members of the group. A few of his colleagues were actually born in the 1820s. Even the more recent history of this place still ends up being very old.
Next, we head into the church next door. We get it all to ourselves. My Teta Darka goes to light some candles, while my mother and Teta Chrystia look up at the building’s high, vaulted ceilings. Of course, it’s all a reconstruction—meaning that it’s the exact same style as many of the centuries’ old churches I’ve been seeing throughout my tour of Ukraine. But the paint on the icons is bold and fresh, the floors are smooth and polished, the walls are unstained by the smoke from the candles. Basically, what we have here is a new version of an old thing. But even so, none of that makes it any less impressive.
Leaving the church, we take some time to explore the village itself and walk towards a springhouse a short way down. As I’ve already mentioned, all of Krylos is on a hill, so no matter where you are you simply cannot escape that glorious panorama of the Ukrainian countryside before you. Everything there is so damn idyllically bucolic, down to even the chickens that are free-roaming in the streets.
And at this point, my mind begins to wonder: what was life like for my Dziadzio when he lived here? Honestly, I don’t even know how he lived here, or which of these houses may have been his. I know that his father—my great-grandfather—was a lay administrator for the local diocese here, and his mother—my great-grandmother—was, like so many other members of my family, a teacher. But right now I couldn’t even tell you their first names off the top of my head, or what they might have looked like.
I wonder how my Dzaidio may have viewed living in such a laid back, provincial sort of setting. Were his feelings about living in Krylos similar to how I felt about the place where I grew up in Maryland, which is to say an odd mixture of warm affinity and boredom?
These internal musings keep me occupied all the way until we reach the car again. But before we head back towards Lviv, my mom says there’s one more thing she wants to do in Krylos.
Specifically, she wants to see the cemetery where my great-grandparents are buried.
***
As the one grandparent who I never knew, there was always a shroud of mystery to me behind my Dzaidio. So, throughout my childhood, I would on occasion pepper my mom with various questions to get a better sense of what he may have been like.
What type of things did he like to do? What was his personality like? How well could he speak English?
And to her credit, my mom did the best she could to answer them.
For starters, he loved to fish. He loved his dogs. He was generally a quiet, reserved person, but when circumstances required it, he had no problem being social. (In other words, an introvert with an extrovert switch, much like myself.) As a doctor in the United States, his job required him to have a working command of the English language.
Of course, I had also seen multiple photos of my Dziadzio. He was a handsome man, with dark thick hair and a strong chin; in one picture of him from his days back in Ukraine, he actually seemed to bear a fairly strong resemblance to Humphrey Bogart. Then the war came, and the escape through Europe which followed, and it really did a number on him. I saw one photo of him just after the war; his face was thin and gaunt, his hair gray, and his look was just that of overall immense fatigue. Apparently, both he and my Babcia lost teeth during this time due to severe malnutrition. Thankfully, once things turned stateside, they both were able to recuperate reasonably well.
But perhaps the most indelible picture I had of my Dziadzio was not a photograph, but rather an oil portrait painted by my godfather, Vuyko (Uncle) Wasyl. He’s older in that painting, wearing a buttoned shirt, suspenders, and a rock-solid expression on his face that gives him just the right amount of gravitas. That particular painting has been everywhere, from my Babcia’s rowhouse in Baltimore, to my old home in Southern Maryland, and now at my parents’ current home in Florida. It’s actually probably the last thing my Babcia saw before she passed peacefully in her bed at home.
My Babcia died during my senior year of high school. She was 91 years old, and by all measures had lived a full and truly remarkable life. So there was no surprise to it when she went; even so, we were all naturally sad, as people get at the death of a loved one no matter how well a life is lived.
The funeral was in November, meaning that St. Michael’s cemetery felt very different than it did during Pentecost. The grass was brown, and those trees at the back of cemetery that usually provided so much shade were now barren and empty. The top of my Dziadzio’s grave had been stripped bare of its marigolds and other colorful plantings in preparation for my Babcia’s internment.
I remember it was a miserable, gray day, with cold, swirling gusts blowing light snow flurries in our faces. After the priest had said his final blessing, the funeral director—a tall, blond woman clad in a long black overcoat rippling in the wind, looking as if she were some sort of Angel of Death—handed each of us a rose from on top of my grandmother’s casket.
And just as I took the rose from her, I instinctively glanced over in the direction of those trees at the back of the cemetery. And in the exact same spot where my Babcia would sit in her folding chair during Pentecost, resting right along the chain link fence that denotes the cemetery’s boundaries, I saw something that made my heart suddenly jump into my throat.
It was the long, concrete rectangular cover to the burial vault which contained my Dziadzio’s casket. The cemetery workers must have temporarily placed it there after opening the vault so my Babcia’s casket could be placed alongside his. I’ll never forget how it looked—cream white, with these ornate, intricate grooves along its top and a dark name plate across the center. The sight was such a jolting shock to me that I almost reflexively and immediately directed my gaze back away from the cover almost as quickly as I had first seen it.
Now, I was seventeen years old at the time. By this time, for all intents and purposes, I was basically a grown, rational adult. I knew what I saw was not my Dzaidio. I knew it wasn’t even my Dzaidio’s casket. It was nothing more than the cover to his burial vault.
But even so, it remained a moment that was extremely haunting to me, yet at the same time filled me with this strange sense of powerful and truly unspeakable awe.
Because after years of knowing my Dziadzio just through stories, through photographs, through a painting on the wall—for the very first time I had come face to face with an object that was somehow a physical part of his current reality.
And so—in the strangest of ways—my Dziadzio felt more real to me on that day than he had ever felt to me before.
***
The cemetery at Krylos probably contains about 400 to 500 graves. It sits just a stone throw’s away from the Assumption Cathedral and is directly across from another much older burial site, namely a tall burial mound that is said to contain the remains the founders of ancient Halych.
Cemeteries in Ukraine are a curious thing. A couple days before, our tour group had visited Lviv’s Lychakiv Cemetery, which is not so much a burial place as it is a vast botanical sculpture garden that coincidentally happens to have gravesites in it. Wide, winding, brick paths take you through thick, luscious tree cover, as you come across one beautifully sculpted headstone after another, each daring to be fancier than the last. Outside the cemetery gates, vendors sell maps to the burial sites of all the notable political, literary and cultural figures who are interned there, not unlike how people might sell maps to the stars’ homes in Hollywood.
But the cemetery in Krylos lacks such star-powered fanfare or—even more importantly—such fastidious upkeep. Much of it is covered with thick undergrowth that obscures the names of the souls buried there and makes even traversing one row to the next something of a difficult task.
My mom has actually been to this cemetery before and seen her grandparents’ grave; but that was over a decade ago, and the hazy memory coupled with the uncut vegetation makes its exact location still very much a mystery.
She does recall, however, the appearance of the gravesite, that it is surrounded by short spiked fence and headed by a simple wrought iron cross. But at initial glance, there’s probably at least a few dozen such sites in the cemetery, so that particular fact does little to narrow down our search.
But undaunted we are, as we proceed into the cemetery and split up, hoping against hope that we might somehow be able to track down my great-grandparents’ grave. I’m actually going in doubly blind; at least my mother, aunts and cousin have the benefit of being able to read the names on the markers in Ukrainian.
A few minutes in, it feels like a futile search. No one seems to be having any luck at all. Eventually, I come across a grave. There’s a metal fence. There’s a cross. But there’s no name whatsoever. Is this what we’ve been looking for? Frankly, I haven’t a clue, and I’m almost too embarrassed to ask.
But it might be my great-grandparents. I mean, there’s nothing here to tell me that it isn’t. So it causes me to stop there for a moment.
Even for believers of any degree, talking to the dead at their headstone is actually a lot harder thing to do than you might think. Hollywood makes it seem easy—think Forrest Gump standing in front of Jenny’s grave, telling her that he misses her. But in reality—and on a purely physical level—it’s always going to be a one-sided conversation. True, it’s not the only type of one-sided conversation you can have; people do talk to their pets all the time. But at least in those circumstances, sometimes you’ll get a woof or meow in response.
Still, at this point, I’m figuring it might be the best chance that I’ll get today. So, I make the Sign of the Cross three times in the Ukrainian-Catholic tradition, bow my head, and pray. Or, well…converse.
“Hi…I’m not sure whether you’re my great-grandparents or not, but if so, I’m your great-grandson—”
Okay, stop. This is stupid. Even if I am somehow managing to converse with some dead soul right now, chances are that he or she is extremely, extremely confused at the moment.
I let out a deep sigh. We’re looking at a haystack’s needle level of chance by now. And frankly I’ve reached the acceptance step at this point. Even without having found my great-grandparents’ grave, I figure it’s still been a fascinating, worthwhile day.
But just then, I hear my mom cry out. They’ve found the gravesite! It’s towards the back of the cemetery! By the trees!
Everyone quickly comes from their respective corners of the cemetery and gathers together. And for sure, there it is, just as it had been told.
And it looks…rough.
Knee-high weeds fill the entire area within the iron fence. A veritable forest of stalky Tree-of-Heaven stems shoot at least six feet into the air. Only with the keenest eye can you peer through the brambles and make out the small plaque on the cross containing my great-grandparents’ names.
Suddenly, without saying a single word, Odik pulls a Swiss Army knife out of his pocket, opens it up, and immediately starts thwacking away at the plants and branches with all his might. Pretty soon, the rest of us join in, pulling at the weeds and carting away all the sticks that Odik has cut away. It all takes about five or ten minutes, but eventually the entire gravesite is cleared.
By the end, everything looks quite clean and respectable. No marigolds, perhaps, but still a proper eternal resting place for our loved ones nonetheless.
We stand back and admire this minor miracle for a while, and then everyone begins to walk back to the car to prepare for the long drive back to Lviv. However, I decide to hold back for just a moment longer in order to process my thoughts.
Despite all the awkwardness back at the last grave, now that I’ve found them at long last, I still feel the desire to say a few words to my great-grandparents. But standing there, looking at that rusted old cross surrounded by that spiked iron fence—all nearly a century old by now—I can’t feel but just a little unsure of myself.
After all, I only knew a few scant facts about my great-grandparents. And—unless it turns out they had actually been assigned to be my guardian angels for all these years—they would know absolutely nothing about me. How odd would it be for them now, looking out at the present world from their grave, and seeing this strange man from America appearing out of the blue, claiming to be their great-grandson? A guy who knew barely just enough Ukrainian to order a cup of coffee but little else? What could they possibly think about that?
When members of your family pre-date you beyond any generation of which you have any sort of personal recollection, they’re no longer just your relatives; they’re now your ancestors. And “ancestors” is a word that automatically holds a mysterious, almost spiritual connotation to it. You need not look further than the mere title of the classic Ukrainian film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors as proof of that. And once someone is your ancestor, it’s as if there’s some sort of forbidden void of time between you and them that’s not supposed to ever be crossed.
So, I stand there for a little bit, staring at the names of my great-grandparents’ names written in Ukrainian Cyrillic on that small little plaque, perplexed on how I might address this situation. But then it all suddenly dawns on me.
Ancestors or not, they’re still my family. And if there’s anything that I’ve learned on my visit to Ukraine, it’s that family ties—no matter how far away geographically or temporally—are always automatic.
I realize that while our trip to Krylos this day was for my mom and I to get a better sense of where my Dziadzio and his parents lived, Odik, Teta Darka and Teta Chrystia were actually all relatives from my Babcia’s side of my mother’s family. Meaning they had no blood relation to any of this. Other than maybe as an excuse to take a nice road trip into the country, they were under no obligation to personally take time out of their schedule and drive us here. Odik didn’t have to immediately jump to action and clear out the gravesite; after all, it wasn’t his great-grandparents who were buried there.
But they did all those things regardless, for no reason other than the simple fact that we were Automatic Family.
And looking down at my great-grandparents’ grave, I make the determination that no matter how much of a foreigner or outsider I might seem to them, I think in the end they’d be pretty happy to see me no matter what. After all, I figure if when I am long dead and buried, and someone comes to my grave telling me that he or she is my long-removed descendant—well, I personally think that would be pretty damn cool, regardless how funny or unintelligible he or she might happen to talk.
So, with that reassurance in mind, I say a brief prayer, have a short word with my great-grandparents, and then depart Krylos.
On our way back, Odik takes us to a restaurant called Holodnyy Mykola; the name translates literally to “Hungry Nicholas.” It’s a place whose entire theme revolves around famous people named Nicholas—from Tesla to Cage to St. Nicholas himself—and, yes, it’s every bit as delightfully charming and whimsical as it sounds.
We arrive back at Hotel George around dusk. It’s our last night in Lviv; tomorrow, our tour group will be moving on to our next Ukrainian destination. With that in mind, it’s time for everyone to say their final goodbyes.
Soon, we’re all exchanging hugs and telling each other, “Pa-pa,” the informal way to say goodbye in Ukrainian. And as we’re doing this, I’m suddenly overcome with this intense but warmly nostalgic feeling that has me instinctively smiling.
I try to pinpoint the source of this blissful emotion, until it finally hits me: I probably haven’t actually told anyone “Pa-pa” since my Babcia died over 20 years before. And suddenly, I am taken back in time, back to when I was a young kid and we’d all gather in the vestibule of my Babcia’s Baltimore rowhouse and wish her “Pa-pa” after a nice Sunday’s dinner.
I’m happy then. I’m happy now. And I’ll be happy for years to come. Because I’m with family.
And after all, family is automatic.
Author’s Note: Since first writing this piece in late 2023, two of the landmarks I referenced have been significantly impacted. On March 26, 2024, Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge was destroyed when a cargo freighter collided with the bridge’s support, causing it to collapse into the water. Four days prior on March 22nd, the coal power plant that was visible from Kyrlos—Burshtyn TES—was severely damaged in a Russian missile strike. After some deliberation, I ultimately decided to leave in the references to those two places in my piece in the Ukrainian spirit of Vichnaya Pamyat, or “Eternal Memory.”
Peter Ulanowicz is an attorney from Florida who specializes in labor and employment law. He holds a BA in English from Stetson University. His two-part piece “Taking the Fight to the Bullies: Tortious Interference Liability for Both Employer and Attorney on Baseless Restrictive Covenants” was published in the Florida Bar Journal in 2011. Peter recently completed his first novel, Invisible King, and is currently in the process of seeking offers for publication of that work.