John Frederick Mack

John Frederick Mack was born August 26, 1943 in Astoria, Oregon to Frederick and Bessie. He was a surprise baby. His three sisters were all more than 10 years older. His early memories were of living in a ramshackle house with no indoor plumbing in Knappa, Oregon surrounded by his dad's garden, their chickens, Twinkle the cow, a doll named Bugsy and a dog named Pepper. Before dying suddenly in a logging accident when John was just 6 years old, his dad taught him to fish and took him on weekly trips to the local library to pick out the books his dad would read to him each week.

In 1951, Bessie moved the two of them to a house on 116th St. in the Parkrose district of Portland, Oregon. His older sisters and their families soon moved into homes down the street. Growing up in Parkrose in the 1950s meant popping in and out of his friends' homes, reading comic books and building models in his basement bedroom, and late night walks to the Roseway Theatre to watch "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Them." It was also a time when his worldview rapidly expanded. In 1955, Bessie decided the two of them needed to go to Europe to visit his sister Caroyl and her husband Vernon, who were stationed in France with the Army Corps of Engineers. He never knew how she afforded it or what motivated her, as a single mom, to sail across the ocean to post-War Europe. The trip through Germany, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, France and Italy sparked a lifelong love of travel for John.

With the Vietnam War underway and prospects of the draft on the horizon, after graduating from Parkrose High School in 1961 and a year at Portland State University, John enrolled in the Army. He regretted not learning a language in high school so he signed up for the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California where he learned Russian and went on to become a 'spy' stationed in Japan and Korea during the war.

Upon returning home, John used the GI Bill to return to college. His dreams of becoming an orthodontist were thwarted by an incompatibility with college chemistry. But that failure led to his life's work: teaching. Teachers had been the people he looked up to his whole life. He could name nearly every teacher he ever had. After getting his master's in teaching from Lewis and Clark College, he ended up returning to Parkrose High School as a student teacher. He credited a traffic jam for his 28 year teaching career at Beaverton High School. One of his former junior high school teachers was stuck in traffic next to him and hollered out the window that the BHS English department had an opening and she would recommend John if he applied.

From 1972-1999, 'Mr. Mack' taught more than 7,000 students high school English, auto shop and film. He was known for being a somewhat unconventional teacher; stacking all the desks in the middle of the room to see how his students would react and dropping the occasional F-bomb. He loved teaching, but 'taking breaks' was what kept him energized throughout his career. In 1980, he spent a sabbatical year living in small villages in France with his family and writing for car magazines. He spent a summer in Korea in 1982 and was selected for a year-long Fullbright teaching exchange in the Netherlands in 1986. In 1992, he traveled to Israel and Poland to learn more about how to teach the literature of the Holocaust.

John continued to volunteer in the BHS auto shop program well into retirement. Fixing up cars was one of the great passions of his life. Over the years, he found and rehabbed two Lamborghinis, a couple of Lotus', Morris Minors, Mini Coopers, a Triumph, an MG, a Berkeley, Volkswagen camper buses, and a 1974 Citroen H-van-- as he put it, "a ridiculous amount of really neat cars."

Traveling 'down the road of life' was one of his greatest joys, whether driving 'Volksie bus' on the backroads of Oregon or navigating 'Cora' (the Citroen) through the hedgerows of French World War II battlefields. He treated retirement as one continuous traveling adventure and he and his wife Karen rarely spent more than 4-6 months at a stretch without finding a new destination to visit. He visited at least 40 countries and every continent except Antarctica. But his fondest memories were of the small moments; playing miniature golf with his grandson, watching the creek by his home roll by, going clamming with his son on the Oregon coast, enjoying his son-in-law's hot turkey sandwiches at Thanksgiving, and the satisfaction of rewiring an engine.

"I've had at least a couple of lives well-lived," he said. Despite a series of illnesses, he fought for every last moment and milestone with his family. He died on August 17, 2022 in Eugene, Oregon. He was 78. John is survived by his wife Karen and stepson, Josh Bell; his daughter Jenny and son, Jeff, and their families; and his sister Marjorie Patey. At his request, there will be no service. His family asks that in his memory, you take a moment to honor the teachers in your life.