What can you say about a beautiful guyWhat can you say about a beautiful guy who died? Wow! Is there any doubt Tom would barf at that? But that's what I think: Tom was a beautiful guy, inside and out. Maybe I could sell it to him through humor - you know, say it's a takeoff on "Love Story" - and maybe tweak him a little bit about that book being another one of Al Gore's many "extensions" of the truth. For if there was one way to connect with Tom it was through humor. He had such a great sense of humor, with a laugh and smile that would light a room. That's how I'll always remember him. Not the causes, not his looks, not his politics: his sense of humor. Tom did a great imitation of Ernie Kovacs' effete poet, Percy Dovetonsils. Percy, while reading aloud to his audience, was given to disappearing behind his book while his hand would reach out to grasp a martini. The hand then would also disappear behind the book. When Percy reappeared, Tom was a master at duplicating Kovacs' self-satisfied pursing of the lips that told the audience that Percy thought he had pulled one over on them. He also loved imitating Jonathan Winters and his quasi-Grandma Moses' Ma Frickert. Tom as Ma would put another unintelligible scribble on an imaginary canvas and say "Well, there's another $100 to the price." My most recent fun memory of Tom occurred within the last year. Tom was recalling when a Villanova classmate unintentionally messed up some machine in the materials testing lab. When the unsuspecting instructor came over to examine it, he turned some pressure valve. Was he surprised to see a large stream of oil spurt out onto his white shirt and sports coat! What a joyous memory: seeing Tom laugh, and laughing with him, until the tears ran down our cheeks. I could fill pages of funny times at Villanova, in the Navy, single spots like Drexelbrook and Margate, a ludicrous spell of dance sessions at Arthur Murray, disastrous double-dates. At the top of the list, there would be our great times down the shore at his place with the gang that his brother Jack generously calls the "Big Five": Mike McCormick, Dave McDevitt, Ed McMerty, Larry Moy, and Tom. (That's a thesis for some arts major: Does alphabetic seating determine your life-long friends?) But, I think you had to be there. It's only now that he's gone that we're beginning to realize (to borrow a line from Father John Powell): those times of laughter and friendship were when we were closest to being fully human, fully alive. Bye, Tom, and God bless. We love you and we'll miss you. Ed McMerty |