Mark Pepp

I’m single and content, grateful for wonderful family and friends. I am a retired freight train conductor. I’ve fallen in love with Brasil, hope to maybe one day retire to Rio de Janeiro. I keep very active participating in community groups including the West Suburban Seniors/SAGE group, OPALGA (Oak Park Area Lesbian/Gay Assn) events including great monthly potlucks (I’m finally learning my way around the kitchen beyond the refrigerator door due to the need to create and bring new side dishes for potlucks each month). I have volunteered since high school days. I volunteered for the Special Olympics in 1975, Muscular Dystrophy Assn summer camps in 1974 & 1975 (assigned one camper to act as their buddy assisting them swimming, horsebackriding, crafts, bowling and nightly campfire singalongs). I even dressed as Smokey the Bear in 1975 for the Chicago Lung Assn's "Great Smoke Out" stop smoking campaign at the Civic Center (now the Daley Center). Later, I volunteered at the Howard Brown Health Center from 1981-1984, and at TPAN (Test Positive Aware Network) as a co-chair/facilitator for their weekly Tuesday night Positive Living support group for people living with or impacted by HIV/AIDS from 2000-2005. I was a crew support team member for the Chicago Ride for AIDS 2007 for that bike marathon. I currently volunteer every Wed & Sat at the Beyond Hunger Food Pantry during their drive-through grocery distribution, and on Thursdays deliver books to shut-ins for the Forest Park public library. Fave quotes/aphorisms/stuff: 1) Our dreams are waiting for us to come true 2) We are what we love, not what loves us 3) Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it- every, every minute? (from Our Town...) ...the fragrant world- a world of moonlight and flowers and community and the extraordinariness of ordinary things.... more Thornton Wilder: "We all know that something is eternal. And it ain't houses and it ain't names, and it ain't earth, and it ain't even stars- everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings." "All Nature strives to bring every detail to its truest expression of its function. All Nature is working for you. Rise above the immediate things and feel that- get a hold of that. Float in the teleological tide." ...if the gold rusts, what will the iron do?... (from the Canterbury Tales)