Mark flew out to New York for Scott and Merry McMillan’s wedding back in July of 1992 . My detail may be sketchy on some facts.
Mark arrived in NYC on a Friday afternoon. My brother Charles and I picked him up from the airport and drove straight to Southampton, Long Island. We hit the water near dusk and surfed until after dark, benefitting from the moonlit night. Mark was the last one to exit the water, dripping and grinning in his usual fashion, complementing the board that I loaned him (a 5’10” T and C that was about 3 inches thick) It just seemed way too small for his 6 foot-plus lankiness, but he ripped on it anyway.
We spent the night at my friend Nate Kirby’s house in Wading River on Long Island, and Mark instantly entered into friendly, and sometimes deep conversation with Nate’s family.
The following morning it was back to the beach for an early surf, a quick change, and off to the wedding, at least and hour and a half away. Mark arrived with his hair still wet, ready to stand-up next to his life-long friend Scott.
The following day, we surfed one last time, and then headed back to NYC to get Mark to his flight. On the way, we stopped on Canal Street to go to an art supply store (don’t ask).
So here things got interesting and “New York-ish”. We were gone from my little red civic for no more than 10 minutes and when we returned, it had been broken into.—a screwdriver jammed into the door lock. Mark’s bag was gone: books, wetsuit and plane ticket. That seemed like all he had brought on the trip, never one for needing much in the way of possessions. Classic. A bunch of my stuff was gone as well. So I called the police, filed a report, to much police skepticism, and wasted a good half-hour. At some point, Mark, unflappable as usual, took off on his own, presumably looking for his stuff. After a short time he came stalking back from up the block with his newly retrieved empty bag and a few of his books. “My stuff is for sale at the flea market in the empty lot up the block” he told us, so we “relocked” my car and proceeded to scour the flea market. Mark just walked up to a table and grabbed his wetsuit and the rest of his books, saying “this is mine”, not angry, just matter-of-fact. He recovered everything but his plane ticket if I remember correctly, and the airline just issued him a new one. It was as if NYC tried and tested him, and he looked the city square in the eye and stood his ground.