Mark Peter Piette

 

Mark Peter Piette turns 60 today. He is the second of the 7 Piette kids. Born a mere 11 months and 7 days after Chas, the two of them could have hardly been more different growing up.

 

But Mark, too, was an enormous influence on me. He helped protect me from bullies, he did things in High School I wanted to emulate, and most of all he had adventures that set me up for a large part of my life. He was always there to comfort the younger kids when they needed it, and to take care of us no matter what had to be done.

 

I can remember, gosh, I must have been very young, when I had wet my pants and was very, very embarrassed. Mark saw me, and took me upstairs without saying anything, put me in the tub and got me some clean clothes. Many kids would have taken that opportunity to humiliate a younger sibling. But he never did that.

 

Growing up in Appleton, WI was pretty much growing up in the same town as Leave it to Beaver. There was no racial tension, little poverty (other than the poor folks who lived in Koenky's Woods), and virtually no crime. The schools were good, the weather was cold in the winter, but otherwise, pretty nice. But no matter how good the schools, or how quiet the neighborhoods, the shy quiet kids (that would have been me) get picked on by the mean, big kids. So it was always a blessing to come from a big family, especially one where one of the older brothers were around and strong.

 

That is Mark on the far right

 

I can remember distinctly one kid who was so bold as to push me down and start beating on me in front of our own house! Mark was home, and came running outside. The bully tried to run away on his bike, but Mark grabbed him off the bike. The bike went flying! The kid wasn't hurt (I don't remember any fists flying) but the message was made. Don't mess with the Piette kids!

 

As many of you on this list know nearly every summer the family took the train down to Louisiana to visit Grandmother, Granddad, and all  the aunts uncles and cousins. One year - it must have been 1963, the year Matt was born, we went down in three tranches. First Mel and Mark went down. (They must have been on their own, no?) then Chas and I followed (an amazing thing having a six year old and a fourteen year old going cross county unsupervised) on the City of New Orleans, and finally the rest of the family followed. When I got to Franklin I was not happy. I can remember just crying I missed my mother so much. Mark was the one who would talk to me, and comfort me, and say he missed her as well. It was reassuring.

 

Mark was the only one of the kids that I remember arguing with our father. I am pretty sure it was about the war in Vietnam, but heck, it could have been anything. Mark was eight years older than I was, and so was in High School while I was in grade school. How I wanted to be him! He was on the track team (I later went out for track in Jr High and was horrible), the Debate Team (I went out for debate in High School and was very good at it) and on many of the school plays (He was to star in Zoo Story, a play by Edward Albee until someone at Xavier figured out that homosexuality might be involved. I was in one play in High School, but was nothing more than a moving prop). Mark also has real artistic talent, something nobody else in the family had. Two things that nobody else in the family had were athletic ability and artistic talent. Mark had both in spades.

 

 

On September 27, 1969 Mark decided that he did not want to take a short vacation, so he headed out on Icelandic Air to spend some quality time in Europe. I can remember getting postcards from Germany, Greece, and Israel. It was heady stuff for a kid in central Wisconsin. It was nothing but an adventure!

 

Mark on some Greek Island

I can't remember exactly how long he was gone, but when he returned (working his way across the Atlantic on a Dutch freighter) he was quickly inducted into the US Army as a draftee. I remember him saying that if the Vietnam war was still on when he got out of  basic training he would be heading over there as a door gunner in a Chinook helicopter. Luckily for us, it was winding down and he was sent to Germany.

 

I heard about many more adventures from Germany. Most of them can't be repeated in front of his kids, so I won't. But if you know Mark, you can just imagine what went on when he was there.

 

After being mustered out of the US Army, he decided life was too calm, so he headed to Israel and the Masada Kibbutz. This was right about September 1973, if my memory serves. We all know what happened in October of 1973, so all eligible Jews were soon removed from the Kibbutz. The way he tells it, (and remember, the biggest difference between a war story and a fairy tale is that fairy tales start "Once upon a time..." and war stories start "There I was...") he was in charge of the defenses of the kibbutz. He made  the most of that little war - he even got up to the Golan Heights shortly after the war was over.

Matt, me, and Mark

But time went by and Mark decided to complete his 'round the world trip. He went cross country through Afghanistan (he told me that the way you could tell when someone had actually been  to Afghanistan is that they pronounced Kabul "cobble" and not "ka-BUHL") and ended up in Bangkok. Bad things happened in Thailand (There I was...) and he had to vamoose to San Francisco. Brother Chas had connections in the international currency market, and was able to get him enough money to fly back to the US. He stayed with Chas in San Francisco long enough to recover, and then, if I recall correctly, headed to Louisiana to work on the Shaefer Plantation.

 

Eventually he returned to Appleton and proved to be a very bad influence on me, a 17 year old high school student. More things happened here that his kids don't need to read about, but he eventually got to Madison and started back at college, about five years after he left.

 

I started college about six months later.

  

 

My freshman year at Madison was a wonderful year. There were four Piette kids in Madison (in addition to Mark and me, Abbie and Mel were there) and two of them got married that school year. We got together regularly, and oh the fun we had.

 

 

Becky

 

Mark's inspirations to me made me seek out adventure when adventure may not have been the most appropriate avenue of expression. You did not want to be the person without an interesting story to tell, and the most interesting stories don't lie around how you won a given debate tournament. So I sought my own overseas adventures, though those are not the subject of this note.

 

One of my adventures

 

Mark and I overlapped in Madison the all but my last semester, and the two semesters I worked in the coal mines. It was always fun to visit him and Becky - you knew that a good time was in store. One time was almost too good.

 

I had returned from working in a Coal Mine in Illinois, and it turned out that Mark had found a canoe (really? found a canoe?) floating on Lake Mendota. He and many of our friends had been out on the canoe many times while I was out of town. So one evening (it was late November) Mark, another geologist friend, and I went out floating in the icy cold waters of the lake with a couple of beers for sustenance.

 

 

Mark telling a story

 

Mark told our friend, who was from Arizona, to untie his shoelaces so that he could kick off his shoes in case we overturned.

 

If that was in a movie, you would call it foreshadowing.

 

We capsized about 100 yards from shore. At one point I thought it would make more sense to stay with the canoe, so I swam back to it. I soon realized that was a horrible idea, with the lake water at about 34 degrees, and the air temp less than that. I finally started swimming to shore, and honestly thought I would not make it. But Mark was there to grab me and pull me the rest of the way. I have no doubt he saved my life that night.

 

Then we walked into the nearest house (a frat house) and they let us come in and drink their beer to warm up.

 

The next day the lake froze over.

 

There have been many more things that I can say that I did because of Mark, and many more good stories I have heard. But I will leave it here.

 

Happy Birthday Mark.

 

Go drink a fifth of Johnnie Walker Red. And smash it on a rock.

 

Love,

 

Dan