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Good
morning. I want to first thank all of
you for being here. I know many of you
took time off from work and some flew out from the east coast. It is heartwarming to know that so many
individuals cared for Thom.
For
those
that do not know me, I am Thom’s older brother Lynn.
We are separated in age by 18 months.
Tony
mentioned Thom’s unique way of spelling his name. This
just reminded me of one story about Thom
that I had not included. Thom did not
always spell his name “T-H-O-M”.
Originally it was just “T-O-M”.
Thom took some teasing from the family when he did decide to
change the
spelling of his name. For instance, during
one family Christmas Thom received a gift with the tag
TO: THOM, FROM: MHOM.
My
earliest
memory of Thom goes back to when we lived in Florida.
We had moved there from Michigan in the early
60’s. We were a year apart in
school. We both attended the
Kindergarten only ½ block from our house.
I still remember our Kindergarten teacher’s name, who could
forget a
name like “Mrs. Cannonball”. Later we
moved on to Ocean Breeze Elementary and Herbert Hoover Junior High.
The
first
few years in Florida Thom and I got to experience our first hurricane. My dad had boarded up all the windows and
secured anything that could possibly move.
My dad was prepared and so were Thom and I.
At the peak of the storm Thom and I were in
the front yard trying to see who could lean into the raging wind the
furthest
before falling to the ground, face first.
I believe Thom won that first competition between brothers,
achieving in
excess of 45 degrees while at the same time ducking flying lawn chairs,
tree
branches and air-born pets.
Florida
had
and still has a big bug problem; mosquitos, gnats and no-see-ums that
come out
in force on warm summer nights. To
combat the bugs City trucks were a constant sight after sun set,
dispensing a
huge white cloud of insecticide. As
kids,dozens
of uswould line up on the curb waiting for the large white plume to
envelope us. How cool it was to run behind
the truck down
the middle of the busy street following the truckand breathing in who
knows
what. But it was Thom’s smart idea to
don our swim masks and snorkels to better enable us to see and breathe
as we
stumbled along behind the bug truck. Wow
I thought to myself, Thom is one bright brother, and always looking out
for
others.
Thom
and I
both began Little League on the Bears, a Farm league team coached by my
dad. The goal of every player on the
Farm team was to advance to the Minor leagues and eventually the
Majorswhere
there were real pitchers and not a pitching machine.
We eagerly awaited the results of the Little
League draft. Surprisingly Thom was
drafted by the Minor league Pirates while I had to spend another year
in the
Farm League before eventually moving onto the Major league.
The
exposure
to the insecticide in our early developmental years apparently did not
impede
our scholastic progress later on in life.
In preparing for college we both took the SAT tests like many
other
college bound kids. Being the son of two
Science college majors, Thom and I both excelled at Math…. English was
another
matter. I was first to take the SAT and
really proud of my 790 Math score out of a possible 800 meaning I had
probably
missed just one question. However, Thom went on to score a perfect 800
on his
first try. Thom wins again.
Thom and I both went on to Cal Poly SLO
majoring in Mechanical Engineering and eventually both working for a
large
California utility.
Following
college
Thom and I continued to have similar interests.
Racing and home remodeling were two of those interests. I focused on triathlons and mountain biking
with limited success but Thom went on to become an elite runner. I still continue to brag aboutsome of Thom’s
race times. A marathon averaging under 6
minutes/mile amazing in my mind...the one and only time I ran one mile
under
six minutes was in college. Home
remodeling was the one area I thought I held a competitive advantage
over Thom, but only because I had more powertools
than him. My latest project, a rainwater
tank, was
inspired by Thom. Of course I had to
install a 500 gallon tank in order to outdo Thom’s400 gallon tank.
Our
competitive streak continued into our later years.
Lately we both have been into homebrewing. I
bragged to Thom recently that I had brewed
up a Pliny the Elder IPA, a local beer that is world renowned. On December 31 Thom sent me an email
containing a picture of a homemade pizza he had made on the new pizza
stone Mary
got him for Christmas. Next to the pizza
was Thom’s home brewed Pliny the Elder Double IPA.Tom wins
again.
Thom
was my
friend, my competitor, and a fellow brewer as well as my brother. I’ll miss you Thom and I hope they have Pliny
the Elder where ever you are.