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Harold Pierce
Hal was born and raised in Pacheco and Benicia, Calif. After graduating from Benicia High as the local football super star, he volunteered for the service branch Army, where he volunteered for a year in Vietnam shortly after and a member of the 101st Airborne.
Not long into his tours, Hal earned the prestigious role of sniper for his marksman skills, where he became known as “Mountain Man” amongst his military superiors and peers, from that point on.
After his service in the Army, Hal worked in construction. He enjoyed construction and became quite the craftsman.
Hal first came to Lake County as a child vacationing here with his family. He lived here on and off over the years, however, moved here permanently almost 20 years ago.
It is in Lake County that he honed in on his golf skills and became quite good at it. He played golf weekly, sometimes daily, with his friends.
Golf was a hobby, but his true love was really being an outdoorsman. He loved more than anything hunting and fishing with his brothers. He was still planning his next hunting trip up until the day he spoke his last words.
Every time I saw him he would tell a joke before saying “hi” and would giggle his infectious giggle that one couldn’t help but laugh with him. He always had a smile on his face that you knew he loved life.
Hal was hunter and marksman. There weren’t many times that you didn’t have a visit will him that he didn’t speak about his new rounds or show you his latest target grouping.
Hal was a constant source of entertainment. My favorite story that he ever told was the one where he and his brothers set up a burglar that had terrorized their neighborhood with a rash of break-ins. I wish I could tell the story the same as he did because then I would have one last belly laugh at the expense of that poor teenage neighbor, turned “burglar.” They set the burglar up. His parents had left them home alone and the brothers took the liberty to make the house look completely empty. They waited and waited until sure enough, they heard the burglar coming through their window. What happened next involves ropes, duct tape and shaving cream. And for fear of incriminating my uncles still living, I’ll leave it at the “burglar” left that night scared and embarrassed. The neighborhood houses were safe from that night on.
Hal was preceded in death by his mother, Mary Jo Bishop, and stepfather, Joe Bishop, and father, Jim Pierce Sr.
He is survived by his three children, Christine, Lora Jo and Harold Jr.; his sister and best friend, Janice Donaldson and Mark Donaldson; his brothers, Jim Pierce (Kevin), David (Linda) Pierce, Chuck Pierce, Dennis (Shelley) Pierce and Joseph (Kay) Bishop; and sister Joyce Feeney.
He is also survived by several nieces and nephews, great-nieces and nephews, a great-great-nephew and several special friends throughout the area.
Final note from your niece: Uncles have a special role in life. Not being our father, they are both companion and relative; one of the few people allowed to be both. Whether you see them on just the holidays or they’re your hunting buddy, the loss of an uncle is hard.
Uncle Hal’s passing is particularly a hard one. His loss, however, is filled with years of happy memories and that special connection that belongs only to my uncle Hal.
Thank you for the goodness that you always showed to me, my mother, my father, my sisters, their children and my child. Thank for being my uncle and my friend.
No one lives forever. But, Uncle Hal, you will forever live in our hearts. Now I will go “Enjoy the ……. out of my son,” just as you told me in your final words to me.
One last cheesy joke for you, Uncle Hal: Why didn’t the toilet paper cross the road? Because it got stuck in a crack!
A memorial service will be held at Chapel of the Lakes Mortuary in Lakeport on Monday, July 31, at 11 a.m., with a gathering to follow at Mark and Janice Donaldson’s home.
Donations can be made in Hal’s memory to Hospice Services of Lake County.
For further information please contact Chapel of the Lakes Mortuary at 707-263-0357 or 707-994-5611, or visit www.chapelofthelakes.com.
