A life together sharing laughter and love

Lorraine Yurkow was walking with her friend, Maureen, up Second Street in Queen Village when a second-floor window popped open and a friend of Maureen’s yelled down an invitation to her 19th birthday party, already in progress.

Lorraine also lived on Second Street, but several blocks south in Whitman. She knew no one at the party, and parties weren’t really her thing. But Lorraine could tell her friend wanted to go, and besides, she was freezing that cold October night in 1977. “OK,” she said. “Let’s go.”

The party was in the living room, but the girls first had to walk through the kitchen, where they met the party chaperone – the birthday girl’s older brother, Mark Polito.

“He had this beautiful smile and the nicest teeth I ever saw,” said Lorraine.

Mark noticed her smile, too, and her lovely red hair. “I offered her a can of Schlitz,” he remembered.

Thirty minutes later, Birthday Girl Susie had a message for Lorraine: “Mark likes you.”

“Well, what’s he like?” Lorraine asked. “He loves music, and he will take you to every movie,” said Susie.

Mark was thrilled to see Lorraine walking toward him and he didn’t want to blow it. Humor had always served him well.

“I hear they are building a library down there,” he said after Lorraine told him where she lived. “Who’s going to read down there?”

Lorraine looked into his eyes and replied, “They’re building it so the people in your neighborhood can rob it.”

They were smitten.

Mark drove Lorraine home, got her number, and gave her a matchbook on which he wrote “You made my day.” (The two still sign every note and card with an abbreviated form of that phrase – YMMD.)

The next day they browsed a used bookstore, where Mark perused the works of Hemingway and Faulkner and Lorraine was fascinated by collections of optical illusions.

“He felt my butt,” she said. “I had to make my moves,” said he.

They had dinner, then Mark took her back to his family’s apartment to meet his mother, Alice, grandmother, Blanche, and Uncle Henry.

A few days later, he met her parents, William and Lorraine. They soon realized that William had once worked for Mark’s grandfather, whom everyone called Joe Spike – the owner of Acme Piano.

Mark and Lorraine had very different experiences growing up and each was fascinated by the other’s. “Her whole family was athletic,” Mark said. “It was such a healthy environment that she grew up in.”

“Mark’s parents were divorced, and I had never met anyone who was divorced,” said Lorraine. Her parents had been married for 71 years when her father died in 2021.

Mark saw his father, Sam, on some Saturdays and holidays. But most of the time, “It was just me, my sister, my mom, my grandmom, and my uncle at home,” he said.

It was a fun, if sometimes chaotic, place. “My mom would pick up stray pets. And she would feed anyone who needed food. She had a heart bigger than anyone I know.”

Just as Susie predicted, Mark took Lorraine to three to four movies per week. He was even an extra in one of them – Taps with George C. Scott and Tom Cruise.

Early in 1983, Lorraine and Mark were driving when she announced: “I think it’s time we get married.”

“OK,” Mark said.

There was no money to spare for an engagement ring. But later, when the couple rented a home in Pennsport, they bought what they deemed their engagement couch.

On Aug. 26 that year, the couple, Lorraine’s sister, Maria, and Mark’s friend, Paul, went to City Hall. “The judge who married us was in the middle of a murder trial,” Mark said. He performed the brief ceremony during a break.

“We were married in his chambers, which were all marble,” said Lorraine. “It was very pretty and romantic.”

“After we kissed, the judge said, ‘If your marriage is half as good as that kiss, it’s going to be wonderful,’ ” said Mark.

The couple and their witnesses celebrated with a meal. Lorraine and Mark spent their wedding night in Pennsport, then spent three days in Ocean City, N.J. When they returned to Philadelphia, Lorraine’s parents had a party for them and about a dozen guests, and Mark’s aunt held a second party.

Lorraine, who is now 64, has made her career as an executive assistant. She worked at a bank, a printing company, and a child-welfare agency before taking her current job of 20-plus years with Mercer Consulting.

Mark, who is now 67, worked at a cheese shop and as a waiter. When they married, he had just started a job at the Universal Records warehouse, selling records wholesale. “It was just like the movie High Fidelity,” he said. “We were all music snobs.”

Mark went to work for Condino Heating and Air while studying HVAC at Philadelphia Wireless and Lincoln Tech. After seven years there, he spent 20 as a Philadelphia Gas Works service person, retiring in 2013 after hurting his back.

Retirement has allowed Mark to devote more time to his music. He learned to play the trumpet at Bishop Neumann High School. He also plays drums, piano, and harmonica, the latter of which is his role with the Blue Pharaohs. Mark and Lorraine live in East Passyunk and the band plays the blues, country, and rock and roll and busks on Passyunk Avenue during the summer. Sometimes, they are hired to play neighborhood events.

“I always go to the festivals,” said Lorraine. “When they busk, I’m there afterward to help eat the profits.” Mark’s share from a successful summer day of busking will fund a pizza.

Lorraine enjoys her work and has no immediate plans to retire. She also spends one or two nights every week down the Shore with her sister, Dee.

“We try to give breathing room to each other,” Mark said. “It’s healthy and it’s nurturing, and then we have something to talk about when we’re together.”

“Mark, like his mother, is one of the best people I’ve ever known,” said Lorraine. “He finds stray animals – especially when he worked for the gas company, he was always finding dogs and cats and bringing them home. He would take them to a vet he knew, get them fixed up, and then they would live with us until he could find homes for them.”

Most of the time, anyway. With some animals, Lorraine and Mark can’t bear to say goodbye. Such was the case for their three cats, brown tabby Chicletta, orange tabby Tootsie, and black tuxedo Spats.

There have been hard times, including the loss of parents and siblings. Mark’s mother was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2011 and died in 2012. Lorraine was then working on an advertising and marketing degree at Unity College. “Lorraine took her to chemo two days a week,” Mark said. “My mother was having trouble getting around, and she would call Lorraine up for help.” The way Lorraine cared for his mother made Mark feel loved, and Lorraine took care of him after his mother died. In May 2020, Lorraine lost her sister, Maria, to COVID-19. “Mark just reminded me that she had a wonderful life – a short life, but a good one,” said Lorraine.

Mostly the challenges they’ve faced have been more mundane.

“I have this theory that everything you fell in love with the person for are the same things that get on your nerves,” Lorraine said with a laugh. “Mark is very outgoing. He talks a lot.”

“It’s hard when she’s working in the living room and I want to talk to her,” he said, laughing, too.

Mark makes her laugh every day, she said. He makes her feel safe and loved and cared for. “It’s so happy, I’m almost moved to tears. He makes my heart smile,” said Lorraine.

“She sleeps with a smile on her face,” said Mark. “More than likely, that’s all about me.”

And Lorraine laughs again.