Thom

I’m using three photos this time to capture some memories of Thom or, as he was known then, Tommy.  He’s got to be under a year old in the first photo.  We’re in the backyard—a hot summer day.  

Thom was like a toy to us.  I was 6 years old when he was born, Butch was around 8, and Bill was 9.  The age gap was fun for the big kids; Thom was cute and always happy to be around us. (Ya gotta love those curls.)  Bill and Frank liked to use Thom as if he were a puppet.  They took turns holding him on their lap and covering him with a big shirt put on backwards.  They’d slip their arms through the shirt sleeves so it looked like their arms were Thom’s arms.  Then they’d gesture and talk as if Thom was their ventriloquist dummy. I think they did this mostly for my entertainment.  It always cracked me up. But Thom enjoyed it too.

The second photo is one of my dad and Thom.  (Check out the hideous living room wallpaper.) One Christmas, Thom received a doctor’s kit from Santa Claus.  Here he is checking out my dad with the toy stethoscope.  Which brings me to the main memory associated with this photo, that is, how close Thom and my father were.  My mom went to work when I was age 11, so Thom was just 5 years old.  He and my dad (sometimes I tagged along) drove my mom to her job at City Hall every afternoon at 4 o’clock.  After that they came home and hung out.  (This was when my dad worked the midnight to 8 a.m. shift in the police department.)  

I remember Thom and my dad would sit on the glider on the front porch, just chatting or playing cards or games.  They especially loved to play a quiz game they made up. They situated a rotating world globe between them on the glider and took turns spinning it and then placing a finger on the globe to stop it.  They’d form a question about the place it stopped and quiz each other.  For example, What’s the capital of Australia? Or Name the river that flows through London.  They entertained each other for hours with this game.

What I think about now as I remember watching them is what a big charge my dad got out of seeing how smart Thom was even as a little kid.  It wasn’t that Thom knew the answers to all the questions; instead, it was that he enjoyed the game so much and seemed to have unlimited curiosity about the world. My mom was at work and we missed her, but my dad and Thom clearly enjoyed each other’s company.  A very mutual feeling.  Thom was only 10 years old when my father died, and it hurts to think about what he missed without my dad there and what my dad missed by not being there to see his Tommy grow up.

But moving on to the third photo.  This is one of my mother’s attempts at a Christmas card picture of us kids. She would hang a white bed sheet up over the living room window and arrange us in front of it. Note Bill and Butch wearing one of their identical outfits.  I remember vividly the blouse I’m wearing (one of my favorites for some reason—mustard-colored of all things). Thom is looking dapper.  We’re all smiling (sort of).  At least, we’re all looking at the camera. (Obviously, the shadow over my shoulder confirms that this photo was not taken by a professional photographer.)  But what really grabs our attention is the Elvis-like pompadour (credit to Vaseline Hair Tonic) that Butch created standing in front of the medicine cabinet mirror in the only bathroom in the house while the rest of us waited not-so-patiently for him to exit. 

Those were the days.

~ Maryellen Thirolf, August 2023