It's challenging for me to express my feelings, having  just learned of Marc's untimely passing.  Having crossed paths with him, both as a camper and staffer,  having lived across the hall from him in the waiter's cabin (adjacent to Walter and Peggy's house) for one summer season, I can share with complete candor, I never had a cross word with him. There was a mutual respect between us.

I'm not certain what conjures up these feelings; perhaps it is because we're linked to a past era of innocence that is gone.  Or because the passing of a peer reminds us of our own imminent mortality.

I can recall times, when no one was around, when you didn't have to put up a "front" in the presence of our teenage peers. Just Marc, myself, and one or two other mature, non-judgemental waiters, when it was safe to open up. We had some very enlightening conversations. Marc was most insightful on a variety of subjects. He had a unique perspective on human behavior.

I share the following in the hope it will lessen some of the pain of his passing:

I can recall one very humorous incident when Marc was driving the pick-up truck down to the barbeque area for the Wednesday night cookout (a weekly ritual, to give the over-worked albeit well-remunerated kitchen staff** the evening off).The waiters rode in the back of the pick-up to deliver the food.  Marc forewarned us about some technical glitch with the truck that would preclude him from turning the engine off. So he has the truck in the cook-out area, he's revving the engine, exhaust pipes pointing directly into the food we just unloaded, a cloud of smoke is enveloping about ten tons of uncooked meat.. Kelly is muttering something under her breath about her (expletive deleted) nephew, then tells Marc to "turn off the damn engine" (expletive deleted). Out of nowhere, Marc pokes his head out of the cab and basically tells Kelly where she can take her food, an eloquent, profanity-laced tirade about engine valve seals  that  had us both in shock and convulsing with laughter. He was saying things that we could never say to the boss (her husband's black belt in the martial arts a strong deterrent). The rest of that summer, Marc was a rock star with us!

Marc was very industrious, could break things down, put them back together, mechanically-oriented. And in today's job scene, with prima donnas switching their occupations more frequently than George Steinbrenner changed managers in the 1970's,  Marc stayed at something  for over thirty years. Got to tip your hat to him.

While I am not privy to what led to Marc's untimely passing, I can only hope he passed peacefully and comfortably.

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**Art Lustig's State of the Dining Room Address circa 1973, "I am paying my chef (a.k.a "Cookie") five hundred dollars a week. You will eat the food and you will like the food".