Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Keep on drifting, Driftwood...

Got a call this morning from a gal named 'Mo. My buddy Mark's live-in GF for the past 12 years. "Mark suffered a massive heart attack last night. He was working on one of his Harleys with a bad indicator and called up to me to please bring him down a Phillips head driver to the parking lot. 2 minutes later a neighbor started screaming something about an emergency and to call 911. I went down and he was on his back, not breathing, fists clenched, eyes rolled back in his head, no pulse. I tried CPR and everything and the ambulance got there soon after but I knew he was gone. My life just died with my Mark out there in the parking lot. They're gonna' take anything they can use (organ donor) and then let me know. WTF do I do NOW?" Hard phone call.

Driftwood/Mark was good friend despite his being an ex-biker, hooligan, long-time bad boy who finally found his way. When Mrs KG and I moved into suburban/rural NS MA about 20 years ago, he became my first local friend. The very first weekend after moving into Amesbury we went into a local dive bar. Not ten minutes after taking a couple of bar stools some redneck POS remarked that my wife and I were 'no good subhuman gooks' and that he wouldn't stand for us being in 'his' bar. The first thing that hit him after I flattened him with a straight right hand was Drifty's longneck across this guy's forehead as he tried to rise.

'I always hated this MF'er, he said. The name's Mark D, AKA Drifty, and I'm embarrassed to have witnessed that punk disrespecting you and your old lady just now...I know you ain't from around here but you got balls and a wicked right hand! You new in town, I see" He then laughed and asked, "What's your name, brother, and where ya from?" We became fast friends after that.

Mark was a rough character, but a loyal SOB, and as we got to know each other, and he proved himself to be a solid, repentant former outlaw/biker/sinner. He spent almost 20 of his 62 years in the joint. Hard, hard childhood. Yet despite his horrific upbringing and abuse as a child, after some hard years and very bad choices learned that doing the right things, even if the hard things, are best. I'll miss him a great deal. RIP, brother. You were a good man and an old school North Shore badass. Godspeed.