SARASOTA - Doctors didn't think Rick Peirce would live after his skull was crushed by an attacker as he slept on a fishing pier in October.
"The day he got there, they figured he was gone," said his sister, Pat Klein.
He was unconscious for more than two months following brain surgery.
Then, around Christmas, the 48-year-old Peirce opened his eyes and said a few words. And in midJanuary, he got out of his bed at a St. Petersburg nursing home.
Since then, Peirce, who became homeless last year after closing a popular Main Street coffee shop, has made a remarkable recovery. At the Sarasota health care and rehabilitation center he moved to earlier this month, he's talking, walking and trying to remember.
Police are still investigating the attack. They have made no arrests.
The investigation "is going in a good direction because it's still moving forward," Detective Carmen Woods said. "The memory stops right there, that night."
Police are also spreading the word about his recovery. "Rick Peirce is back in town," said a flier they are distributing. "He would enjoy seeing some friends." Woods said she made the fliers because many of his friends thought he was dead.
Peirce's Cafe Kaldi was a popular gathering spot where college students and transients hung out together, listening to music or playing chess. It closed in late 2002.
A few days ago, Peirce went with a friend to Sarasota News & Books downtown, one of his favorite hangouts before the attack.
"I saw everybody that used to come to my cafe every day," he said. "I remembered their faces. But I said, 'I really don't remember your name again. Can you please tell me your name?"'
Peirce and another man were attacked Oct. 14. Peirce spent about a month at Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg, then was moved to a St. Petersburg nursing home.
