Where are you Mark? Come in? Check in?

I’ve wanted to send a post for a long time now. Where are you Mark? You are everywhere. While your body is gone, your soul is not. We miss you, but we have your memory—and lots of them.

Mark was a dear close friend to us all. What I didn’t know was how much he struggled later in his life with bi-polar disorder. Mental illness is a terrible a blight that eats at you and forces you to push people away—even the ones who love you the most. I didn’t know that was happening to Mark and it’s hard for me understand why bad things happen. My memories of Mark are clear and happy ones. I’ll choose to keep it that way. He was a decent, honorable and loyal person. Those are the things I will remember most. Here are a few others.

The Wonder Years

St. Norbert School was a wonderful place to forge life-long friends, try to be cool, be good at sports and occasionally, taunt and otherwise disrupt the good natured nuns of the Sisters of St Casmir. That’s where I first met Mark. In the early years at St. Norbert I remember Mark as a quiet, studious boy with the skin complexion of a perfectly toasted marshmallow. Who was he? Where was he from? He reminded me of the pagan jungle boy we saw in those religious film strips. It was all rather mysterious until we began to change classrooms in the fifth grade.

St. Norbert operated on the academic caste system. Mark and other taller, smarter boys and girls were promoted to Group 1 where they put the arithmetic and English elitists in one group. You know the ones who had all the SRA books completed and the first ones to put pencils down during an exam. Others like me, Andy Thornton and Corey Gursdorf were relegated to Group 3 or more commonly known as the “slow class.” So I didn’t interact with Mark much on an academic level, (and never really have). In the fifth grade we began to play competitive sports. It was pretty clear early Mark was a very good athlete, smart and good looking too. His face was chiseled and he had natural blond highlights in his hair.

By seventh and eighth grade we were rambling about, listening to music, riding bikes, staying out past curfew and now taking interest in girls. And by now Mark had established himself as a popular and desirable attraction. He also was confident enough to cause a little harmless trouble from time to time. Poor Sister Helen Michelle. I remember in eighth grade Mark bringing the projector in and out of focus and telling the good Sister that she needed her eyes checked or her glasses cleaned. Ultimately he made her retreat to the back of the room where miraculously she could see again.

Mark to a liking to Linda Cassidy, a seventh grader who lived on Oak near Phingsten. It was shocking to the other eighth grade girls. Why would the best looking, most athletic boy go for a freckled face seventh grader? It was scandalous. Mark and Linda spent time together, but I think her family moved to Grand Rapids before things got too serious. Mark always bounced back quickly and from that time on he was seldom without a girlfriend.

Some of my most vivid memories of Mark were when he and Andy would borrow my sisters’ tandem and cruise the parks, pools and other public venues in Northbrook to meet girls. It was a sight to behold. Both boys would dress in pressed denim Levis and bright colored polos. Gym shoes were white to match their white belts. I think they got the idea from Mark’s Father, Paul, who was also a very snappy dresser. It was almost like looking at Tiger Woods today. We wore our hair longer then, but not too long-- so not to seek out the attention from school administrators or Hugh O’Reilly. Hair was very important to the “look” back then. Andy and Mark had great hair and it was always combed (parted in the middle), clean and perfect. Whatever happened to Prell shampoo? Those two boys went through drums of it. Whatever they did, it seemed to work. Often they would end up at girls babysitting jobs. At the end of the evening they would return the borrowed bike and talk about what girl they liked better. They were the original boys of summer.

The Boys of Summer

We all held pretty tight the summer after eighth grade. We were going to different schools in the fall. Mark, Billy Krause, Al Schwall, Brian Shanley, me and some of the others were going to Loyola. Andy, Mark Dockery, Delaney and Shultz and Schwieger were all going to GBN. The once famous basketball and football powerhouse of St. Norbert was breaking up. It was time to get a job at the local Jewish country club, Green Acres. “Caddy, can you hold my wet, soggy cigar,” they would say. Mark and his brother Peter were good caddies and we laughed and mocked the members at will. I suppose those days were a lot like Caddy Shack which didn’t come out until years later. During the hot summer nights we cruise on bikes and would likely end up in someone’s basement listening to music and drinking beer. I had my first can of beer in the Rollins’ basement. It was a Schlitz. You still needed a can opener to pry it open back then.

Football double sessions wouldn’t begin at Loyola until August 15. Already Mark was being eyed by coaches as were other boys from St. Norbert including Al Schwall. Our freshmen year we went 8-0 and won the whole conference. We were destined to be great by senior year. We all know how that ended. In those early years at Loyola we made many, many great friends, Bob Toland, Mike Schostock, Chris DeWald, Tony Lazzaroni, Tom Burns, Billy and far too many others to mention here. I admired Mark very much and wanted to be like him and do the things he did—even in school. Loyola was pretty tough, especially for me who, if you recall, started out in Group 3. Mark enrolled in a Latin class with Vito Volino, an extravagant dresser who wore powder blue suits and a bow tie neatly knottd every day. How hard can Latin be? Afterall, I had nearly three years of Spanish with Sister Francis. I still know all the words to “Pasa La Pelota.” Anyway Latin didn’t go well for me. I spent many days in Mr. Volino’s class kneeling on my knuckles on a hard linoleum floor. I was dismissed from the class at the semester. Mark went on to excel in Latin. He had a great command of English. It was evident by his vocabulary, writing and the way and order he chose his words.

By sophomore year football was heating up. Some of the freshman boys were asked to play with the varsity during Doubles—a real honor. Mark and Billy Krause were noticed for their aggressive, hard-hitting play. I, on the other hand, got my ass kicked by Pat Dowd, Fletcher Jenkins and other menacing seniors. In between the afternoon and morning sessions we would seek respite and air conditioning from the summer heat somewhere inside the Academy. Only sometimes was there any. Mark played varsity from sophomore year and on. Not only was he a good football player, he was good-looking football player too. He painted his helmet often, had the newly designed chin straps, wore eye-black and taped his shoes from toe to heel. I think he thought it was photo day, every day. But at the end of the game he had earned his keep. Like many things Mark did in his life, he was ALL in.

When school began, the Rollins family was nice enough to drive me to Loyola. Peter was the chauffer of an ill-equipped red Chevy Vega that was not road worthy. The only thing that worked consistently was the aftermarket sound system that Peter installed. I was late for class almost every morning until one day, an assistant dean and the teacher of my first class pushed me into a locker and told me, “Never be late to my class again.” And the very next day in heavy traffic, I had to abandon the Vega and sprint two blocks to class. Mark and Peter thought it was very funny. I still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes sweating.

By junior year we had since graduated from the summer caddying gig. Mark, Andy and I had formed a painting company. Forty years ago this year, on the day Elvis died, and the day before double sessions, we were painting Jackie Sharlot’s house--kind of surreal for those who loved music and could not ever be too far from a radio. In our mourning of Elvis and haste to report to double sessions, we had spilled almost a full gallon of white paint on the black shingles of her mansard roof. What a mess? But what do young inexperienced painters do? We painted the shingles black. I still drive by the house now and then and you can still see our artwork sticking out like a sore thumb.

Mark dated Jackie for some time. They were inseparable. They were really tight and she may have been the longest girlfriend Mark ever had. I don’t know.

Our days at Loyola were remarkable. We had more fun than you can imagine and most of it was legal except for the parties at the Krause house and the trips to Tony Lazzaroni’s place in Lake Geneva. Tony had a brand new Cutlass Classic. It was white with a red leather interior and beautiful. One morning at Tony's Mark woke me up early to take the car for a spin to a local convenience store. “Hey man, you don’t have your license,” I said. It didn’t matter to Mark. Most days he was calculating. On other days he was recklessly fun and funny. You do know he was thrown out of altar boys, the Torch Club. We made it back from our mini carjacking just fine and in one piece, blasting Supertramp’s “Breakfast in America” the whole way. (Tony might be learning of this for the first time.) Sorry Tony.

Senior year Mark was elected president of the senior class and I was elected treasurer. As I mentioned earlier the football season was a bust. Our biggest job was to maintain the senior lounge and make sure the Coke machine was filled, and try to figure out where to go to college. The gang would be splintered again.

College and Beyond

It is amazing to think that Billy Krause went to grade school, high school and college with Mark. And they were great friends. Perhaps no one knows Mark better than Billy. I don’t know how, why or when, but Mark and I faded a bit. Not because of anything other than geography. As we get older time moves more quickly and there is less of it. He graduated Harvard and took a job with First Boston, I think. Mark went to Stanford and rode his bike across the country. He ran and ran in Central Park. He even went to Peru for a year. I still have his letters, but I didn’t hear much from or about Mark for some time. I figured he was in New York working hard and playing hard in the city that had everything for everyone. He took risks and I think he saw the world differently. He did things we all wanted to do, but never did ourselves.

The Music

One of Mark’s greatest gifts was finding and listening to great music. We would listen to WXRT even before it became a 24 hour station. He loved all kinds—Ted Nugent, Aerosmith, Atlantic Rhythm Section and other southern rockers. A new Elvis was bursting on the scene—Elvis Costello. It was new and it was cool. There was always music. There was always music. We wasted hours in the Rollins’ basement and looking at Peter’s unfinished masterpieces of Che Guvre, Jimi Hendrix and other brightly painted wall murals. But I think the Blues was Mark’s favorite, Muddy Waters, John Mayall, Eric Clapton and the Yardbirds. The list goes on and on. I remember Mark making trips to Biddy Mulligans on Sheridan Road and other Blues haunts in Chicago to see his favorite bands. It’s funny how they call it the Blues when the songs were all about hope and breaking fee. Mark knew that.

I wasn’t surprised at all to learn Mark and Johnny starting a venture magazine called Vibe. It was hip and cool and Mark was so passionate about it. I liked it too because Mark came to Chicago now and then and we could reconnect even for a short time.

I didn’t see or hear from Mark for a long time. He came to my wedding. He also came in for a St. Norbert reunion which was a complete blast. There may have been a Loyola reunion too, but the last I really saw and spoke to Mark was at Claire’s memorial mass at Loyola. As I think back now he was a bit detached. He showed up late and left early.

I was very very saddened to learn of Mark’s death and more saddened to learn more about his circumstance and the pain he carried inside of him. I hope for those of you that were closest to Mark and had to “put up with everything” will know and remember that he loved us all too--once upon a time.

My dear, dear friend, we love you wherever you are. Peace be with you.

E. J.