Eulogy for Mark

A vigil for Mark is being held this Friday night in Sellwood. I sadly can’t make the drive from Coos Bay because of a back injury, but I wrote this eulogy for my special friend. At the end, you will find the URL for a YouTube video of a short documentary a Portland filmmaker made about me and Mark’s journey. Check it out.

A homeless man and bibliophile, my friend, died on a Portland sidewalk Halloween morning after spending the night sleeping on the front deck of bookstore surrounded by unwanted, moldering books destined for recycling.

Mark Leavenworth couldn’t bear seeing any book die so he often rescued hardbacks in serviceable condition, classics of literature, some editions over a hundred years old, from the store’s recycling bin.

I’ll never forget the time he proudly held up Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. He’d already read it. I had not. So Ivanhoe went home with me.

Was Mark the only homeless man in the history of American homelessness who recused a century-old copy of Ivanhoe on the verge of destruction?

Undoubtedly. He’ll hold that title forever.

I picked up Ivanhoe a week later. The spine cracked halfway through the reading and pages began falling out with almost balletic movement.

We discussed Ivanhoe at considerable death, right there on the sidewalk, with Mark slightly sauced on his drink of choice, Old Crow.

I know Mark died with a book (or three) stashed in backpack. He probably was reading while drinking a Plaid Pantry coffee when the heart attack struck and killed him.

What was Mark was reading at the end? It was probably one of those damn Dune novels. Most numbered 800 pages or more! He’d read them a dozen times and insisted I dive into their science fiction brilliance. I had tried to read the first installment of the series three times and stopped after reading lines like this:

In a few days Standard, the entire household of Duke Leto will embark on a Spacing Guild liner for Arrakis. The Guild will deposit them at the city of Arrakeen rather than our city of Carthag. The Duke’s Mentat, Thufir Hawat, will have concluded rightly that Arrakeen is easier to defend.

Okay, friend. I’ll give Dune one more try, on a rainy winter night on the Oregon Coast, a fire going, and some Old Crow splashed in a mug of hot chocolate.

To view a short film of Mark and mine’s friendship and journey together directed by Portland filmmaker Kelly Clendenon, go to”