A Mark Memory

My wife and I ran into Mark one time at a beautiful winery in Missouri -- one that overlooks the Missouri river valley right at I-70. It was one of those rare, perfect summer nights. You can watch the sunset from this place easily, as it faces due west, on top of a high bluff -- right on the edge of it, actually. We're sitting there enjoying a bottle of wine (Riverside Red, I think they called it, actually).

I hear a voice calling my name, and when I look over it takes my mind a bit to figure out who it is.

It's Mark. He's sitting there with a friend, and he invites my wife and I over to drink with him.

Funny thing. He's doing something that involves the state Historian in Missouri, and he tells me the relationship between Missouri Indians and Ohio Indians. Seems they were driven from where I live in Ohio right to about where we're sitting. That was a while back (Just a couple hundred years), so it's not exactly something fresh in anyones' memory.

When Lisa, years later, learned of Marks' passing, she immediately remembered who he was, and what a great guy he had been.

And she had only met him the one time.

Contrast that with the myriad of people in my life that she's met a few times and can't exactly get straight, and you have an idea (small) just how special this guy was. There was a lot of laughter that night. It wasn't just the wine talking.
--FeriCyde