Notes on Mark Stroock II

In the spring of 1941 the principal of the Horace Mann School would not give him his diploma until he completed a successful semester at college.

On the night of December 7th he and two college buddies drove down river from Bard College and heckled the Japanese consulate in Manhattan until an Irish flatfoot said, 'Alright fellas you had your fun. Move along.'

During the summer of 1942 the wife of Governor Thomas Dewey tried to have him arrested for playing with his dog in central park.

That same year the asthmatic young man lied his way into the army by signing up at a recruiting station in upstate New York.

In 1945 he talked his way into a medical triage unit. When the C/O argued, 'But you have asthma,' he replied, 'Then what better place to be than a medical unit?'

In 1946 he and his best friend Don O'Mara broke up Bard College's Interracial Society with a song that went in part: I love the Catholics in the morning and the protestants in the evening. I'd give my shoes to those persecuted Jews.

In 1950 he was visited by square-jawed, gray-suited humorless G-men after he ran a story fore Investors Business Daily on North Korea's invasion of South Korea that featured a detailed rail map of Red China and the Soviet Union, 'Which one of your commie friends gave you that secret map?' they wanted to know. To which he responded,  'Would you like a copy? I got it at the New York Public Library.'

During the 1950s he went to work for Young and Rubicam Advertising, where he maintained an office until a few years ago.

He once recommended a business colleague, 'Tell them, indirectly, to go screw themselves'.

He once yelled at Ralph Nadar for blithely saying that you only really need three kinds of peas.

A lifelong lover of Charlie Brown, during the 90's he urged Met Life to place a giant inflatable snoopy atop the Met Life Building in Manhattan. After lunch he was not asked back into the meeting.

Mark Stroock II, my Grandfather born 6 November 1922,  died about an hour ago.