Mark had 3 brothers who looked up to him.  He was older than us by a few years.  He was more handsome than us with his beautiful dark hair.  He was more athletic than us, and was a varsity starter in basketball and track.  He had the coolest car in the family (orange Chevy Camaro with a Hurst stick shift).   He chose to not get married, or to own a house.  He lived life as he wanted to.  He worked hard, saved his money, was generous with his time, and enjoyed  spending time with his nieces and nephews and cousins on whatever outdoor adventure that they wanted  to do.

      I think that if I could have picked the perfect oldest brother, it would have been Mark.  He played basketball on the street  with me, helped  me to love music,  to develop the  basketball crossover step that he was famous for, and he taught me how to be kind.  At one point in my life, I needed a place to stay for a few weeks, and  Mark took me in and let me stay at his apartment.

     The story that I wanted to share speaks to his generosity.  He wanted to teach me how to change the oil in my truck.  So, sprawled out underneath the engine, Mark moved his tools into position.  At one point in the process, he asked me to climb inside the car and to do some specific thing.  I thought that he had said, "start up the truck."  But I later learned that he had said something like, "push in the clutch."  So, I started the truck, and the oil came pouring out from underneath my truck onto to parking lot space at Mark's apartment complex.  While I could tell that Mark was frustrated with me, he didn't yell at me, but reminded me of what he actually had said.

    After completing the job together, Mark told me, in the kindest of ways, that next time, I should take my truck to Oil Can Henry's to get the oil changed.  And I took him up on his advice !