Hometown Heroes
Just Livin' the Dream
I grew up in Alberton, Montana, moved to Missoula after high school, then moved back there in my early twenties, and left for good when I was thirty. So, I’ve been gone from that town for over forty years. Still, you never leave a place like that, or it never leaves you. But the town does just fine without you. Alberton began as a railroad town in 1908 and ended as such in 1980. Hardly anyone I knew remains there today, just a few who I’m still in contact with, but through those connections, I have tried to tell myself I’m still a member of the Alberton community. Funny how we live these full lives in our minds.
So, this edition of Mark My Words is composed with a couple of pieces I wrote years after I’d moved away from Alberton. This first piece is a eulogy I wrote for the son of a friend who still lives there. I’ve talked to many people who equate preachers and poets, prayers with poems, and I don’t disagree. Both deal with celebrating life, and when this old friend, who lost her son in an accident, asked me if I’d consider delivering a eulogy, I couldn’t say no. So, like many preachers who often don’t know the folks they are burying at all or very well, I visited with some who did know him well and wrote this short memorial for Mark Zylawy who was killed on the highway in 2008 trying to assist a traveler.
It’s always a tall order to compose a eulogy that you hope will honor the deceased, comfort the family and loved ones, and will yield some kind of truth all can relate to, especially in that brief time-window one gets between death and a memorial, as everyone is highly emotional and grief hangs heavy over any ceremony for the sudden death of a much loved young person. So, when I rediscovered this eulogy recently, I hoped I wouldn’t find it cringe-worthy when I was rereading it, remembering that part of it was rewritten lyrics to Danny Boy I then sang at the service. I guess the performative nature of that act makes me blush and second guess myself still, but at the time, in those moments when one is immersed in the act of creating something, one has to risk trusting their feelings and believe that what they are doing is beyond themselves and done in support of others—it simply becomes a leap of faith. You have to trust yourself and tell yourself to just do it, jump, that this is the way. I felt certain it worked well at the memorial, and I hope it still works well here for you.
Memorial Service for Mark Zylawy Goodbye my friend it’s hard to die When all the birds are singing in the sky Now that the spring is in the air Pretty girls are everywhere Think of me and I’ll be there We had joy we had fun We had seasons in the sun But the hills that we climbed Were just seasons out of time “Seasons in the Sun” by Terry Jacks was one of Mark’s favorite songs growing up. He’d literally spin that 45 rpm record over and over again, knew the words by heart. While the song acknowledges death, it celebrates life. I think at a very young age, Mark understood that our days are numbered, and that appreciation helped motivate him to pay attention and live each day as if it were his last. And how do you live your last day? The same way you live every day—do it the Marky way: reach out to others, listen, offer help, entertain—be worthy, be a friend. Mark understood that the world was way too serious to be taken seriously. In a word, he was “fun,” intoxicating fun—that puppy-dog-presence—the glittering eyes, the mile-wide-smile, that bubbling energy and ecstatic movement of body and voice, his laugh—the whole package was joyous. To be open, friendly, vulnerable, and truly interested in others is to be childlike—the embodiment of love—and it is impossible to be afraid when you’re in love. Mark loved stories, and I wanted to tell a good “Marky” story today. So I leaned on my nephew, Pat, who grew up with Mark. The first thing Pat said was, “that kid was fearless.” One time on the old Petty Creek gridiron he and Mark were going head to head, again, the Steelers vs. the Eagles. It was Eagle’s ball, and Jaworski, a.k.a. “Big Daddy Bill,” took the snap, scampered back, as Carmichael, a.k.a. “Marky Z,” went deep on a fly pattern along the fence, got a step on Mel Blount, a.k.a. “Club-foot Nagy,” and “Old Jaws” threw a perfect spiral toward the end zone. And it’s at this point in the story that Pat reminds me the driveway was the end zone which had recently gotten a new layer of hand spread asphalt, a moonscape of gritty, volcanic hills and valleys you could sprain an ankle in just walking to your car. So anyway, there it was, the pigskin laid up just out of Marky’s reach. He had to leap, leave his feet, stretch out to make a diving grab, and . . . YES! He made the catch, skidded across the turf, and immediately bounced up and spiked the ball—Touchdown, Eagles! He was skinned from wrists to elbows, nose to chin, laughing, grinning, fearless. “Pound for pound,” Pat told me, “he was the toughest guy I’ve ever known.” After he’d put the hurt on someone in practice or a game, he was always the first to help them up, make sure they were okay. He’d walk guys off the field, and stay after practice, visit and mother them while they recuperated in the whirlpool bath. That combination of intensity and compassion was Marky’s formula for life. Another student of history, Studs Terkel, not only loved collecting people’s stories, but he recorded them in books which chronicled events from the great depression to race relations in America. In his nineties, Terkel, still wrote for a newspaper in Chicago and walked to work every day. Family and friends concerned for his safety tried to get him to stop, but he waved off their fears. Terkel believed that our “fear of each other” will be mankind’s undoing. He would smile at and speak to everyone he passed on the street: man, woman, black, white, young, old, costumed, or crazy. Not everyone returned his greetings, but that didn’t change his practice. Like Marky, Studs believed in the power of community, of communication and neighborliness. Practice, practice, practice—Marky knew the importance of daily practice. We say “practice makes perfect” for good reason. Vince Lombardi, the great coach of the Green Bay Packers, knew perfection could not be achieved, but he made it the team’s goal to “achieve perfection” because he knew in the effort to be perfect they’d achieve excellence. Marky was excellent; he wasn’t perfect, but he got close. He got close to us all. He made a difference. What a teacher; what a spirit. We have all been touched by his life. marky boy oh marky boy the hearts, the hearts have fallen this gray Sunday no bullets, the same old whys you lift us up your smile sunbeams breaking through clouds the rain kisses softly the mountainside oh marky boy your pipes are surely silent your sword is sheathed white petals on your eyes still lift us up please marky don't you leave us the sky will clear and you'll be here in springtime oh marky boy our barren winter’s thawing you melt the ice and bloom inside till it’s our time so while we’re here we’ll laugh and thank you marky the shadows come we feel your love and pass it on the shadows come we feel your love and pass it on In honor of Mark’s generous and friendly spirit, let’s pass it on. Whether you’ve known the person’s next to you all of your life or you don’t know them at all, please take this moment and turn to them, look them in the eye, smile, and take their hand. Like Marky, for Marky, pass it on. Mark Gibbons February 17, 2008
Pass it on. Pay it forward. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. As one of my favorite poets, Leonard Cohen, wrote:
Talk of love not hate Things to do it's gettin' late We're on one road And we're only passin' through
Then on 2024, I was asked by the Alberton High School Senior Class to give their graduation address. By now, I didn’t know any of the seniors, nor most of the folks who showed up for the graduation and filled the seating in the gymnasium. But as an old alumnus asked to deliver, I couldn’t say no. I felt honored to be considered, though I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to say. I don’t like getting advice let alone giving it, and that’s what graduation speeches are by design: words of wisdom for moving forward in life. My own graduation was lackluster and dangerously close to not happening for me as I tip-toed the edge of decorum. I was more than ready to leave by graduation. Part of the problem for me was personal, part was the political nature of the time, 1972, but mainly I was just ready to get out and explore the world and have new experiences. I never liked being told what to (still don’t) particularly when what I was being told made absolutely no sense to me. Of course, there was also the possibility (shared by more than a few assholes!) that I was one smart son-of-a-bitch way ready to share my intelligence with the woefully ignorant world. Heh-heh.
In preparation for the address, I dug out the graduation speech I wrote thirty years before for a Senior Class in Augusta, Montana, where I’d taught English for six years. There were a couple ideas that I included in the following address I delivered two years ago. And while I was grateful to do it for the AHS 2024 grads, it was an odd experience giving a speech to a foreign audience in that place, the location where I spent your formative years. How many times had I been in that gym from 1961 into the mid 1980s? Alberton is the place I still call home, but that place and those people I grew up with are gone. They only exist in my mind. It was a trip, and I wasn’t sure how well it was recieved at the time, but afterward many people expressed their appreciation; so, I was glad I accepted the invitation. Here is the address. Again, I hope it is worthy of your attention and interest. If it is, please pass it on.
Alberton Commencement Address — 2024
Leap of Faith it's what we take every morning we open our eyes that phrase we need to explain why it's how we see the world as we proceed to where we're at moving along to the song we hear that one we choose to spin today
Contrary to the opinions of many learned and financially successful people, life isn’t a race, nor do the ones with the most toys and awards win in the end. When the buzzer sounds in the big game of life, winners are just as dead as losers. We’re gone. Invariably, in America, we equate success with money; the more you have, the more successful you are. That’s always bothered me, but then I’m a poet, and if you don’t know it: there’s no money in poetry. But as a parent and a teacher, I know we often hound young people about their “goals and plans” for the future, convinced we are helping them to succeed, to find a “good paying” job. It’s what our parents wanted us to do, so we passed that guidance on to our kids.
While I believe in hard work, a day’s work for a day’s pay, more importantly I practice the “golden rule:” “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Being able to verbalize on graduation day what you plan to do for the rest of your life is really kind of silly since we have to go out into the world to find out what we’re good at or passionate about, and if we’re lucky over the course of our lives things will change for us many times. The idea of setting a manic course to achieve a top-dollar job may yield a future of unhappiness. It flies in the face of all I learned growing up in Alberton. We were one big family. We were on the same team.
Fifty-two years ago, I sat where you are now, which blows my mind, but maybe not as much as it does yours. I don’t know how I got this old. I had no clue about my future. I was just excited to get out of here and be on my own. My short-term plan was to start college and (against all “good advice”) I wanted to marry my girlfriend. We were in love (definitely in lust) and we wanted to be together, so we tied the knot. Over the next decade we had a lot of fun, and I mean a LOT of fun! We made a ton of friends and enjoyed hanging with them: arguing into the wee hours, learning to appreciate each other’s uniquely ignorant and bull-headed points-of-view. I know the serious, career-minded folks thought those “lost days” were wasted time, but they weren’t for me. So you can see I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about “taking advice.” I inherited that from my dad whose favorite line was “Mind your own business,” which I liked. “Live and let live” is one of mine. If friendship and joy were measured as wealth, I’d be rich! Last summer my wife and I celebrated 50 years of making “the biggest mistake of our lives.”
When I asked Lacey if you had a class motto, she paused. I could almost hear the gears grinding in her head, like “A class motto?” And I realized many things had changed in half a century. I don’t remember our class motto, but I love the John Lennon song lyric: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” It’s true. Don’t forget to live the moments of your life. Enjoy your work today. Life only happens now, so don’t miss it. Laughter and love, what you learned in this little one-horse town, will help you live everyday anywhere you are.
A popular slogan 40 years ago was: “Practice random acts of kindness.” It’s a simple idea. Do favors for others and don’t expect anything back. When someone does something for you, it tends to rub off. The joy of giving feels good, so pass it on! I learned that growing up here. We called it “being neighborly,” and figured “what goes around comes around.”
Our ancestors, Native or immigrant, depended on each other to survive. It was a team effort. They learned to put up with one another though often they didn’t see eye-to-eye. They understood that cooperation and tolerance were necessary to sustain the community, and they instilled those values in their children. That sacred trust is at the root of our democracy, and it’s essential to the survival of the human race. It’s equally important to our personal fulfillment. My advice (now you can go ahead and forget that part about not listening to advice) my advice is to be kind, be a good neighbor, and try to respect others no matter how idiotic, stupid, or absolutely worthless they sometimes seem to be.
Goals and plans do motivate us and give us focus, but remember to enjoy the ride. The trip is all there is until you arrive at your destination. Once you get there, the trip just continues if you’re lucky. Make time for those around you. We need one another. Smile and speak to others. Reach out to friends and strangers alike. Kindness makes a difference.
I am reminded of an old TV show from back in your parents’ day, Northern Exposure. I loved it, gave up Monday Night Football for it. Set in a small Alaska town, it was funny and honest—the writers really knew small towns. I remember one episode where a 108 year old man tells the story of how the town came to be. He told the young man interviewing him why a town is important: “One person can have an influence, but two people, well, two people can change the world. Two people can work miracles.”
It takes teamwork to accomplish anything worthwhile. So take your small town skills out there and spread them around. If we don’t try to be good neighbors, we are going to self-destruct. We need to foster a climate of unity and cooperation to solve the problems we face. You have the skills: look others in the eye and smile, give them the benefit of the doubt, and don’t be too hard on yourself. Life is a series of mistakes. It’s how we learn. So . . . before I leave you, we gotta have one more poem:
Humility
I hope I don't die
before I clean out
the basement
There's bound to be
embarrassments down there
for my children
Obviously nothing would
bother me once
I was dead
That said I don't know
why I'd care about
being found out
human by my kids
We all know we are
capable of Shakespearean
faults and vain lusts
blindly murderous impulses
petty jealousies and fooleries
Still it's difficult to let go
of fearful parental roles
patterned after God
that one you thank
out of reflex knowing
you'll be gone
when they discover
you were just another
love-clumsy bag of airAgain, I want to thank those of you who have sent a few nickels my way for these scribbled thoughts. It is much appreciated, thank you!