DeKosta, ChM

REMEMBRANCE of a WHIRLWIND (Spohad Vykhoria)

September 22, 2003 – 30th Anniversary

To-morrow would have given him all, Repaid his pangs, repaired his fall; To-morrow would have given him power To rule, to shine, to smite, to save- And must it dawn upon his grave? (Mazeppa, Lord Byron, 1818)

What does it mean to be a man? A hero? A patriot? It‟s been thirty years since we heard that the small plane he was piloting never made it to Detroit, and still Vykhor comes to me - and I think to all who knew him – when we need strength or courage or the righteousness to do the right thing. In these past three decades, can we say that we carried on the traditions and the work that was passed on to us by Vykhor? Those who knew Slavko Luchkan (Vykhor), interacted with him but for a brief decade. But the work of our Chornomorskiy “collegium” was as intense during that period from 1961-73, as the decade was tumultuous. While we can‟t compare it with the extraordinarily harrowing decade of 1938-48 that our parents, and many of our older Chornomortsi survived, it was an important and defining period of our lives in America and that of Plast itself, with an astonishing density and rapidity of world events that formed the context for our experiences. That decade was the foundation for our transition from exile émigrés to immigrants to citizens – from boys to teenagers to men – from the immutable pre-war European world of our parents, to the fast-paced modern world of continuous changes. We lived in a parallel universe, then – in countless ghettos – in the insular world of the “”, where most of our parents lived as exiles, expecting to return to our fatherland, and devising a virtual reality set of institutions which replicated the lives they left behind. Some looked forward – they were the immigrants who came to stay and build new lives – they were happy to leave the constant misery of their daily lives behind them. Most preferred to remain émigrés and exiles, living in the past and unable to cope with the culture of their new land.

We crossed haltingly, at first, between our two overlapping worlds of a dynamic, fast-paced American society with its “rock and roll” culture and the arcane, “old world” social structures of our diaspora, which included Saturday Ukrainian schools, Plast camps, debutante soirees, and an annual checklist of anti-Soviet demonstrations, seminars and commemorations of glorious Ukrainian heroes and countless monumental battles that were mostly lost. We had to keep the faith in some way, and while there was a self-delusional and self-indulgent quality to all these activities, there was also a self-sacrificing nobility in our endeavors – it was for the “right cause”. PLAST was our transition zone between these two worlds – our decompression chamber, allowing us to adjust to the accelerating and confusing pace of life and clash of values. As we fought for human rights in the USSR, we were encompassed in the burgeoning battle for civil rights in the US. We couldn‟t understand why our American college friends, the confused intellectual progeny of Jean Paul Sartre, who famously proclaimed that “…an anticommunist is a rat”, could not identify with our causes, our values and our pre-war European culture. College campuses were beginning to spawn the radical New Left, which viewed “Amerika” as the root of all evil. While the Cold War was our motivation, and John F. Kennedy was the inspiration for our generation, the Vietnam War changed everything. We lost our political innocence on Nov 22, 1963, when JFK was assassinated, but not our idealism. There were many in Plast, like Vykhor, who stoked the idealism that our parents inculcated in each of us, and stiffened our resolve through the turbulent decade that began with JFK‟s death.

Our parents lived through a rapidly escalating sequence of history‟s horrors - what the recent Nobel Laureate, Imre Kertysz termed “the barbaric arbitrariness of history”. Prof Hryhoriy Kostiuk captured many of the same insights and observations, for subsequent generations, of countless Ukrainians who lived through this period under the Stalinist regime, in his memoir “Okayani Roky” (Accursed Years). We, on the other hand, lived in our urban ghettos, in our parallel universe and microcosms of virtual reality, vicariously trying to imagine what life was like in Soviet . Our parents‟ thoughts were with the families and relatives they left behind, wondering if they would ever find their unmarked graves in the vast and anonymous Soviet Gulag. We could not imagine how 60 years of oppression had changed the minds of the new “Soviet man”, though we had infrequent encounters with Soviet apparatchiks on the streets of New York. They were the select, privileged few, who were embedded in the Soviet hierarchy and sent here to study our ways and to subvert us. And they were good at their jobs, penetrating our organizations and creating discord.

While Bob Dylan mesmerized the “baby boomers”, his counterpart, Vladimir Vysotsky was coming to prominence in the USSR. The “shistydesiatnyky”, the Ukrainian dissident movement of the 1960‟s, who were the intellectual heirs of Kostomarov and Drahomanov, were just beginning to emerge. The “samizdatnyky” were not America‟s “yippies”. Lev Lukiananeko, Nina Strokata, Vasyl‟ Stus and Vyacheslav Chornovil (“Lykho z Rozumu” 1967) and Valentyn Moroz did not fight for the same ideals as the “Chicago 7” or the radical “Weathermen”. Alexander Solzhenytsin (“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch”) could not relate to the work of J.D. Salinger (“Catcher in the Rye”). Yes, we lived in a parallel universe with vastly different realities. The waves of arrests in Ukraine of the “shistydesiatnyky” in the „60s, „70s and „80s had a profound effect on us, as did the crushing of the Czechoslovak revolution in 1968, and the assassination of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King in 1968. We sang American folk songs and protest songs (“Blowin‟ in the Wind”) at our “hootenannies”, just as we were discovering the music of Volodymyr Ivasiuk (“Chervona Ruta”) during “Soyuzivka” weekends and Plast campfires. We agonized through the Cuban missile crisis, the failed “Bay of Pigs” invasion, and the assassination of numerous “third world” dictators and tyrants (Lumumba, Trujillo, etc.), each the potential cause of a nuclear conflagration.

It was a hectic and somewhat surreal decade for our diaspora and for us “Chornomortsi”, the presumptive heirs of a noble line of partisan heroes. For as we were still mourning the assassination of JFK, the Beatles arrived in the US, and it was only 4 months later that Chornomortsi were singing Beatles tunes with newly composed Ukrainian words at all the Plast camps on the east coast (“Zaplyiusch Ochi Mylenka”). And like the Beatles, we “took sad (Ukrainian) songs and made them better”, while frequently taking bad songs and making them worse. As we were adapting to our new society, our fathers, who had fashioned their own version of reality, their own cocoon - a time warp which froze their view of Ukrainian society to reflect the time period between WWI and WWII - were desperately trying to protect their world and our role in their world. Plast was the compromise zone for the coexistence of our two cultures. We daily stepped into this time zone to escape the persistent contradictions of our lives and the growing disenchantment with the radicalism of the New Left and the seeming hopelessness of our anti- communist protestations. Plast (and Chornomortsi) was our “Camelot”, governed by the “Druids of Euxeinos Pontos”. But even Camelot needed knights to defend and promote its idyllic and idealistic view of the world, and Vykhor was one of those Kozak-knights, a “lytsar” who believed in the virtues of Ukraine and Plast.

Every generation and every group has its “band of brothers”, which Shakespeare memorialized in the classic speech by Henry V, after winning the Battle of Agincourt against great odds:

From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he today, who sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother;

So many of the original Chornomortsi, laid down their lives for Ukraine – and for us. We were the lucky ones who survived and who could reflect on the achievements of those we left behind and carry on the traditions and values that they cherished, recreated and passed on, fought for and died for. Though we could not fight with them, we were part of their dreams and aspirations – we were the descendents of a band of brothers whose lineage stretched as far back as Jason and the Argonauts, and we had an obligation to carry on the long-standing struggles for a free Ukraine. Of our generation, no one understood this more than Vykhor and no one fulfilled his duties more seriously and fervently.

As I wistfully reflect on 30 years of unfulfilled opportunities with our fallen friends, how hard it must be then, for Bohdan Chaikivskiy, now 90 years old, to sit alone in his room in with his memories of the distant past. As far as I know, he‟s the last of the original first generation Chornomortsi who walked the streets of with his friend Roman Shukhevych, having opened a business with him between the wars and spent his early years in the Plast underground with Shukhevych, Yaro Hladkiy and countless other plastuny agitating against Polish rule. In between the flashes of past events, Chaikivskiy no doubt worries about his son-in-law, and our friend Daniel “Frenchy” Boudana, who suffered a recent stroke. By an odd twist of fate, “Frenchy” was introduced to volleyball by his Chornomorski friends and has excelled in debating the finer points of the rules without ever learning how to play (entirely consistent with the French national character). I‟d like to know what‟s on Chaikivskiy‟s mind because he was part of our beginnings, he was there at “the Creation” of Chornomortsi and has the entire 75 years of the history of our kurin as a panorama for his reminiscences, including the most turbulent years of the 20th century. Our histories overlap and the torch was passed to the following three generations of Chornomortsi. The first two generations well knew what the cause was and they made the ultimate sacrifices. For us, the “Third and Fourth Waves”, it‟s less clear, now that Ukraine is independent. It shouldn‟t be that difficult sorting through a jumble of four decades of randomly pleasant and benign memories to figure out what imprint 40 years of easy life leaves on a man, his friends and its significance to our place in that history. Yet it is difficult, and it requires someone with a writer‟s skill and sense for the small but significant milestones of one‟s life. It‟s harder still to realize that it is 30 years since we lost Slavko Luchkan („Vykhor‟), one of Plast‟s most dynamic and charismatic leaders of the past generation.

Everyone has their own unique way of dealing with their personal histories, important events, and the loss of a close friend or family member. The mind treats those whose deaths were untimely in a different manner – with the anticipation, puzzlement and irritation of unmet expectations of a fascinating historical novel without its concluding final chapters. “Vykhor‟s” „novel‟ may be completed someday, but it will have to wait for a more talented writer. I fantasize about a novel where we could go back in a time machine, and undo the fateful events of September 22, 1973 to write those final chapters. How would our lives have changed? Where would we all be today? Would Vykhor have made a difference in the overall scheme of things? I‟m sure of one thing, though – Plast would be a much stronger organization today because Vykhor was a supreme organizer, fearless leader and a terrific motivator who would have gotten all of us involved in one way or another. And our Chornomorskiy kurin‟ is a substantial force when mobilized to achieve worthy goals. And in the early years we were preparing ourselves to regain the “fatherland”.

All that I see now are faded images of fallen friends - Vykhor, Rekin, Roman - through a series of blurred sepia photos shot by an unsteady hand, Yet I can‟t quite make sense out of our shared lives and important experiences. They inspired and motivated us to be the best at what we do, and we worked and struggled in the early years of our exile. Our finest moments are virtually all derived from our common efforts – and over the decades, there were numerous triumphs, and more than a few tribulations. Whatever meaning our collective efforts may have had, however, could best be characterized by „Vykhor‟s life. By examining his life and contributions, we reflect on ours. His story, perhaps, best mirrors our lives as émigrés, whose hopes, dreams and ambitions to do well in our adopted land never superceded our distant struggle for Ukraine‟s freedom. Vykhor lead the way for us, and for the next generation. He was our Galahad in the quest for our “Holy Grail” – freedom for Ukraine.

Oddly, in those instantaneous images of a previous era, I see neither struggles nor disappointments - only young and smiling faces, active and enthusiastic, forever preserved in a time of carefree youth. Occasionally, when I daydream, the mind unreels flashes of overlapping, ancient 8mm camera flashbacks; soundless, jerky, grainy footages of „Vykhor‟, on his motorcycle; of us, dashing about the woods, marching on dirt roads and through fields of countless Plast camps; marching in „Loyalty Day‟ parades; demonstrating under the UN when Khruschev appeared banging his shoe on the podium; and the countless Ukraine freedom rallies all taking place in dimensionless time and space. We lived in a parallel universe then, each in our Ukrainian ghettos, embedded in the downtown core of the large industrial cities of the U.S., dreaming of our futures here and imaging what it would be like in Ukraine if we had a chance to return. The images of our daily lives and of those who were left behind all intermingle with the idyllic country settings of our Plast camps and our campfires where we sang of freedom that was yet to come.

The images of 40 years have all blended into anecdotes of a few vividly humorous episodes. These are the stories we tell when sitting around. It wasn‟t all fun and games, though – we struggled and worked hard to bring the plight of Ukraine to the attention of the US policymakers and the world. Few listened in those days. There were symbolic highlights, like the commemoration of Shevchenko‟s monument in Washington, DC in 1964 by former President Eisenhower. We were all there, over 100,000 marching and standing for hours in the oppressive heat and humidity of a typical August day in DC. But there were many more disappointments than victories in the years before and those that followed. But „Vykhor‟ never gave up- he had an infectious optimism that kept us all going. When I was a small boy, I recall my father and his friends laughing and joking about some of their hair-raising deeds during the war, and I only now understand why we selectively dwell on the joy and humour of past events, even though they were often embedded in difficult situations with deadly consequences. Vykhor did not allow the disappointments to deter his mission – to build Plast into a lasting, self-sustaining organization which played a major role in our émigré community as force in the struggle for a free Ukraine.

Some of us can see each moment clearly and can account for every word that was said, and what was worn on a particular occasion. Good writers have that sort of eye and ear for the small, mundane details of life. Others, recall the larger moments and meaning of it all, the struggles, the small victories and defeats. Still others look for the humorous anecdotes. “Ridnymy Playamy”, a series of short stories about the early days of Plast in western Ukraine, was written in the whimsical style of P.G. Wodehouse (Jeeves and Wooster series). My first encounter with Slavko was in June of 1962 in Hunter NY, my first Chornomorska Rada as a candidate to the kurin‟. He was inducted as a full-fledged „Chornomorets‟, having just completed his Army tour. I also met numerous other “characters” that weekend, interesting, unique young men from Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Rochester, Cleveland and Toronto, all with the same history and heritage and dreams and strong sense of Ukrainian patriotism. Vovk, Yontek, Rekin, Hak, Nel‟ko, and Liubko were all there. The “Druids of Euxeinos Pontus” were still acolytes then, but Severin Palydowicz was already known simply as “Erko”. We also met, for the first time, the remnants of the original first generation Chornomortsi – the men who once sailed down the Dnistro with Roman Shukhevych, who fought by his side and lived to tell about it. It was an electrifying moment for all of us youngsters just entering a new phase of our lives, standing side-by-side with those who were a part of Ukrainian history. We were too young to appreciate, then, that many of us had parents who fought alongside these very same „Chornomortsi‟ who carried the torch of Ukrainian nationalism.

These images all blend into one unforgettable scene of Slavko standing on the prow of a motorboat at Stillwater reservoir in 1971, shading his eyes against the sun and glare of the water, looking for „Twin Pine Island‟ across miles of open water on Stillwater Reservoir. At that moment he was „Hamalia‟, our fearless leader, explorer, pathfinder – were it not for a slightly embarrassing incident. He ran his motorboat aground, disabling it for the rest of the camp, and enduring perpetual ribbing from his friends. Although there‟s lots of humour and countless priceless and wonderful moments in each of our Plast and Ukrainian community service experiences, my mind is invariably drawn to the nobility, sacrifice, leadership and a perpetual commitment to “the cause” of the true heroes of Ukrainian history.

What is it that we saw in Slavko Luchkan, (“Vykhor”) that made us want to follow him and serve in Plast despite the hardships and inconveniences. Some would say sacrifices, but I reserve that term for heroes. What exactly was the essence of his charisma that made him a leader in our time, and perhaps a hero in a different time and place? Had he been born 25 years earlier, might he have been a leader in UPA? But then again, had he been in UPA, perhaps I might have met him as a different and much-changed person, like I once met Taras „Bul‟ba‟ Borovets through a chance encounter on a street in New York City. Borovets was one of many unsung Ukrainian partisans who did not quite achieve heroic stature, even though he was a brave man. It‟s difficult to predict who could be or would be a hero, because of the few true heroes that I personally came to know and observe, none looked or acted the part. In the 1950‟s, when I was still a boy just beginning to understand life, I visited some of my father‟s friends from the war, and later learned of their heroic deeds and unspeakable hardships that they endured. Many of them couldn‟t bear the hopelessness of their struggles, the supreme sacrifices of their comrades, the personal losses they endured and the miserable plight they found themselves in. They were reduced to eking out a living as janitors and dishwashers on the lower Eastside of NY City. Some simply gave up and withdrew, walking aimlessly among us; others went crazy, their families victims of “the cause”.

Many of our heroes virtually walked among us anonymously. Borovets‟ was one of those who quietly walked about the city with their memories of fleeting glory, of heroic deeds and unspeakable horrors and with persistent agonizing memories of countless comrades lost and buried anonymously in the fields and forests of their beloved Ukraine. It was the inverse of the theme in the movie “The Sixth Sense”, where the main character (Bruce Willis) walks around New York City, seemingly leading a normal life, but not realizing that he‟s dead. It must have been unbearable to be constantly reminded of the innocent families they left behind, who ultimately perished as slave laborers in a Nazi factory or in some God-forsaken gulag. Our unsung heroes walked the streets of New York with tortured memories of their dead comrades, but we barely knew they were among us. At least Vykhor left us with a vision and a purpose, and many of us have continued to fulfill his goals, albeit imperfectly. And, thankfully, we have the “Druids of Euxeinos Pontos” to keep the flame flickering.

It‟s hard to tell, in advance, who has the courage to be a real hero – to throw yourself on a hand grenade to save your friends; to walk into a collapsing building to save a child; to take up arms in a hopeless cause - only circumstances evoke that unique quality which only a few have. We can tell, more easily, who is a leader and who has the charisma to influence people to follow them. „Borovets‟ didn‟t exhibit any charisma that evening in 1965 when Roman Kupchinsky introduced him, yet he organized thousands of men and women who followed him to their deaths in the forests of Polissia. He started the Polisska Sich in 1941(with German help) to fight the Soviets even before it was officially organized under Shukhevych‟s leadership. When UPA officially took over his group in 1943 to fight both the Germans and Soviets, it was said that „Borovets‟ continued working with the Germans. The word was that he was an “otaman”, and would rather switch sides than be an underling to a bunch of people whose ideology he didn‟t comprehend. Maybe he had socialist sympathies, and the nationalist rhetoric of Bandera didn‟t appeal to him. We never found out that day, but I did realize that each cause and nation has its own panoply of leaders and traitors, and of the millions who die for a cause, only a few are remembered and elevated as heroes. During the course of history, tens of millions died on the territory of Ukraine, either as invaders or the defenders of their lands. Who were the ancient heroes, about whom songs were sung and odes composed? Where is the record of the triumphs and heroes of countless civilizations on the lands of Ukraine - the ancient Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Avars or the slavic Polovtsi and Siveriany? Who will remember „Bul‟ba” Borovets ten years from now, and how will he be remembered – as partisan hero or just another „otaman‟ in the footsteps of Nestor Makhno? Whether you‟re on the winning side or losing one, a hero has to leave behind a positive legacy – a hero has to help build the foundation for a nation. Fortunately, Slavko was not one of the countless walking casualties of war, though he and his family suffered and struggled during the war. But he accomplished as much as anyone in making Plast one of the building blocks of the foundation for our nation.

There isn‟t much that we can do to honor our worthy colleagues on a sustained basis, other than continuing the work that they began and committing ourselves to furthering the goals that we all shared, so fervently. And ever so often, we get together in a somewhat surrealistic setting, like characters in a Salvador Dali painting, to commemorate and recall that which will forever elude our grasp – the fleeting glimpses of what we once were. So here we were, just 5 years ago, mostly a bunch of old guys running around in shorts that were too tight and on feet that were once fleet, trying in our odd way to commemorate the solemn 25th anniversary of Slavko‟s fatal accident by playing a tennis tournament in his memory, in an indoor tennis club in New Jersey. Vykhor was a good sportsman, and he renewed the Chornomorskiy tradition of sports involvement, but he never played tennis. There were flashes of past brilliance by many of the players, some of whom were his close fiends, while others were acolytes - but for most, it was a sheer plodding determination to avoid last place in the standings. The "usual suspects" gathered once again for their annual Plast "Chomomortsi" doubles tennis tournament in Hanover, NJ, commemorating their old friend and mentor, Yaroslav "Slavko" Luchkan. After the matches there was the usual get- together at Orest Fedash's Ramada Hotel to savor the victories, create new myths, nurse tennis elbows and to reminisce. Those who knew Slavko well reflected on how different their lives might have been had Slavko not died tragically on that fateful day, Sept. 22, 1973. He was determined, as was his nature, to fly his single engine plane alone in horrendous stormy weather from Hartford to Detroit, to attend a Chomomorska Rada. He never made it, and at the age of 37, left behind his wife, Valya and his two small children, Slavko and Roksolyana, profoundly altering their lives as well.

Slavko was the kind of guy who changed the direction and pace of the lives of everyone around him, simply by the force of his character, presence, his ideals and noble goals and his optimistic dynamism and leadership. We toasted Slavko and his place in our lives and committed his deeds to our hearts. Since it's mostly plastuny who show up at this annual event, just about everyone joined in with anecdotes about Plast; about Slavko's youthful pranks with his old buddy, Erko Palydowicz during the "good old days"; about Slavko's daring flying escapades at sea scout camps; and the continuous string of projects that he'd get us involved in to help Plast, "Bobrivka" (scout camp in Connecticut), the Ukrainian community and ultimately his goal of a free Ukraine. One of the sad ironies of his untimely death is that he never got to experience the joy and pride that we all felt on that glorious day of Ukraine's declaration of independence on 24 Aug., 1991. Slavko never realized his dream of sailing the Black Sea.

A tennis tournament is an inadequate way to commemorate the importance of his accomplishments, but it brought us together to renew our bonds and remind us that, aside from the fun and games, there is still work to be done in fulfillment of Slavko's goals and aspirations. Oleh Kolodiy pulled out a 1965 issue of "Yunak", the Plast scout magazine, which had an article about Slavko's accomplishments, and we recalled why he was named "Vykhor" by his Chornomortsi brothers. Slavko was a whirlwind, a dynamo of activity, who swept everyone into his vortex. Unlike a tornado that leaves behind wreckage and chaos, Slavko's energy cleared the way for the rest of us to fruitfully use our talents and energy on useful projects that were of value to the Ukrainian community. That's what leadership is all about -a combination of inspiration, energy, vision and a firm belief in ideals directed towards noble purposes.

He was so involved with and committed to Plast and the Ukrainian community that we hardly knew he had a profession, much less a job. It seemed that Plast encompassed his entire being. His trademark was an expandable file crammed with papers defining various projects, in an extra large attache case which he carried with him everywhere, even at the summer camps, in the midst of our sports activities. And yet, during the most active years that we knew him, from 1962-1973, he worked as an aeronautical engineer for United Technologies, ultimately ending up on the Apollo space program. Here, he had an experience that demonstrated, in stark realistic terms, the pure nature of his character. He didn't talk much about his job then, and we didn't pry. Most of us were still enjoying the freedom of college, and didn't want to think or talk about work. We didn't know, until recently, that he had been assigned to a secret project involved with the testing and quality control of various components of the Apollo rocket that was destined to take our astronauts to the moon in 1969. One of his inspections suggested a major flaw, and he demanded further testing before he was going to certify the launch. This delayed the planned launch by several weeks, and upset the hierarchy, but he wouldn't budge. The tests were conducted, confirming a potentially fatal design flaw, and Slavko went from being a pariah to hero. He was tough and persistent, and almost always right. He had the "right stuff”. Slavko was a perfectionist, not in a pedantic, petty manner, but in demanding excellence when it counted. The people around him responded because they respected him, his goals and his accomplishments. He delivered when others failed despite obstacles and disappointments, and he compensated for our weaknesses. Although "Vykhor" was a pragmatist, he had his big dream- to recreate Plast and Chornomortsi in Ukraine and organize the first canoe trip down the Dniester River to the Black Sea, just as his hero, Roman Shukhevych, also a Chornomorets, had done in the late 1920' s. Alas, "Vykhor" didn't get to realize his dream, but his friends made sure it happened in 1995, when Nestor Kolcio and Oleh Kolodiy joined with Oles' Kryshkiv, a newly "christened" Chornomorets from Lviv, to reignite the Plast kurin' which served as the training ground for so many of the leaders of UP A and OUN. "Vykhor's" spirit had, at last, joined that of "Hamalia" on the Black Sea.

Had he lived 50 years earlier, there's no doubt that "Vykhor" would have been standing at "Taras Chuprinka's" (Shukhevych) side, as did more than 20 other Chornomortsi. We all recognized Slavko's dedication to the cause, and how deeply he felt about Ukraine, and that he would respond to the call of duty and sacrifice, if needed. He served his adopted country in the U.S. Army, and right after completing his tour of duty in 1961, he resumed his Plast career and quickly rose through the ranks to be elected as the U.S. head of Plast in 1965. It seemed as if every other weekend we were traveling about the East Coast, working, demonstrating, organizing or preparing for the next event. He pushed us until it seemed that we'd never have any fun, little realizing then, that it was his form of enjoyment.

He showed up one evening in September, 1963 with ten nice new uniforms, and proclaimed that he had registered us in the USCAK volleyball tournament to be held the following week at Soyuzivka. We took last place in that tournament, but that was to be the beginning of a very long and fruitful sports tradition among the Chornomortsi, and we went on to win that tournament 5 years in a row, and numerous others, since. In one bold move, Slavko recreated our sports tradition, following in the footsteps of Shukhevych 35 years earlier. So maybe the tennis tournament is, in some small way, a fitting tribute to Slavko, a tempestuous athlete and fierce competitor who never understood the meaning of the word "quit". But most remember him as a leader, mentor, our conscience and inspiration. With those unique attributes it is likely that, in a prior era, he would have been remembered as a national hero.

It's ironic that so many of us knew Slavko for a longer time than his children, Roxolana and Slavko. Regrettably, they didn't get much of a chance to share his time as a father, or to appreciate his talents and many accomplishments as a community leader. His many friends were indeed fortunate to share a decade of intense activity, creativity and personal fulfillment with a very special and unique person. He made us all better human beings as he set new standards for us and Plast. As long as we're able to move, we'll play tennis, remember Slavko and continue his work. When that fails, we've trained some younger Chornomortsi in Ukraine to carry on his legacy. Of all of us émigrés in the US, Vykhor, perhaps best exemplified the Chornomorske motto – “navigare necesse est, vivere non” to its fullest.