To, Mark Jones

Mark Jones, 1943-2016

Dear Mark,

I did not realize I could miss someone I have never known.

But when I arrived in Del Norte, your fingerprints were everywhere. I could see them even though I have never seen your hands. The echoes of your efforts are still ringing around here.

I enjoy the buildings where you worked and I patronize the bright businesses that now inhabit them. There is a bakery in your old office now. I wonder, did you also have a passion for bread? or just buildings?

Thanks for leaving behind your friend Al, even though I am sure you miss him. I get to be his friend now, and I hear about you all the time. Your office cat is a hoot, he jumps on my lap and lets me love on him, when he's not busy prowling around the neighborhood.

Hey! The Windsor has it's very own distillery, with massive copper stills, and all the trappings of a proper booze factory. I think you would really be impressed. The boys have designed a tasting room with a window to peer into the laboratory. There is a marble bar, a steel fabricated façade, and a mural. You really would be impressed.

There is a fine organic grocer across the street from the Windsor now. You know the one. Stone walls and tall ceilings. You made it beautiful and your ashes are outside in the flower bed. It is full of the freshest food and the nicest people. I bet they miss you, too.

As a newcomer I have no frame of reference, but I have to tell you, this town has a fire burning in it's gut. There is energy here, and optimism. Some people say it’s like a wave gathering strength and I feel lucky to be riding it. I think I have you to thank for some of the wind.

As you well know, here in the valley people work hard every day. Showing up, innovating the future, and looking out for each other. Their heads are down and they stay focused on the mission, even, and especially, when the mission means having a good time. I bet you were like that, too.

Was your office always strewn with charts, and plans, and post-it notes? Did you ever answer the phone or did you turn off the ringer to concentrate? I can just see the hat you are wearing in the picture everybody has hanging around town. It's probably hanging on a hat rack, and you have a pen stuck to your clothes somewhere, or behind your ear.

I wish I could walk down to your office and invite you for a beer, or scotch, your rumored favorite. It would have been great to have called Del Norte home for years, and roll my eyes over that drink, at your wild conception of her future. I wish I could have been cynical and wrong. Instead, you are gone, and I am living in your shadow, in the cool shade of your being right all along.

I feel robbed, shortchanged, for having lost the opportunity to meet you, listen to your ideas, and feel your passion. I still think you're here, just not in the way we would like.

We all miss you, even those of us who never got the chance to meet you. I hope you have your eyes on us, and I hope we make you proud.

Yours sincerely,