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Hello, friends.
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Welcome back to the Amazing Journey Podcast.
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This is Mike.
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I've missed you.
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It's been a been a bit since I posted a video.
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I took a little bit of a summer vacation as a tribute and a tip to the days of my youth when we got a summer vacation in between our years at school.
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It felt good to kind of clear the head, shake the cobwebs out, but we are back.
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We are back behind the microphone.
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And we're going to spend the next half hour together talking about my best friend, a gentleman who passed away.
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I cannot believe it's been so long.
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Almost 20 years ago, 17 years ago, is the fateful day I got that telephone call in July.
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The anniversary of his death is coming up.
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I've really never talked about what he meant to me fully.
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So that's what we're going to do on this podcast.
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I think one of the greatest gifts that we can give to people is to never forget them and to share their legacy.
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And my buddy Tommy was incredibly important to me.
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I found him to be a great man.
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And I'd like to tell you a little bit about them.
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Before we get into it, I'm going to start the podcast the way that I always start by thanking you for your time.
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Because that truly is the greatest gift that we can give to one another.
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And I'm very grateful that you're sharing your time with me.
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So thank you so much.
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And I think we should get started.
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We're going to start as we usually do with a quick trip to the College of Musical Knowledge.
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The first song that makes me think of my buddy Tommy is by the great Irish rock band out of Dublin, Thin Lizzy.
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The song is The Boys Are Back in Town from 1976 off of the Jailbreak album.
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Tommy always loved that song.
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He grew up in Jersey City.
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He was a Jersey boy right across the river from New York City.
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And he grew up, came of age at an amazing time in the history of the United States.
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The 1970s.
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The uh men and women were just back from the Vietnam War.
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Music was taking a whole new direction.
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Sports were taking a whole new direction.
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The New York Yankees were back winning World Series.
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And he was down just across the river from the Big Apple during all of this.
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And music was a critical part of his life.
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He enjoyed it very rarely.
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Could you call him or go visit him?
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And he not have his stereo on.
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When I first met him, he was having records and cassettes, and then he started replacing everything with CDs.
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And he was the first person I knew that had a multiple CD changer.
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He had a five CD changer at the time.
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And it was quite remarkable and extraordinary.
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But the boys were back in town by Thin Lizzie always kind of got his blood pumping.
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The second song I'd like to talk about today from our College of Musical Knowledge is Tom Sawyer by Rush, off of the Moving Pictures album in 1981.
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Faithful listeners to the podcast here know that Rush is one of my favorite bands, and I was introduced to them by Tommy.
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And the line of or from that song, Tom Sawyer is the modern day warrior.
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And I always kind of looked at Tommy as a modern day warrior for reasons that we'll get into shortly here in the podcast.
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And the last song, which if he were here, he would probably threaten certain violent acts, um, was Madonna Like a Prayer, off of the Like a Prayer album in 1989.
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He'll probably haunt me tonight in my dreams for admitting to people that he liked Madonna.
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But Tommy was a dancer and he loved the club version of Like a Prayer.
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And he would dance with any woman who would dance with him to that song.
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He enjoyed it.
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He would close his eyes, and you could tell he was in a discotheque far away, you know, in the 70s.
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It was one of his happy places.
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So today's trip to the College of Musical Knowledge is some songs that he liked and he enjoyed.
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And if you haven't listened to them, I encourage you to look them up on your music provider of choice and have a listen.
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Well, we'll get right into it.
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Um, I met Tommy in 1990.
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We were both active in the Boy Scouts.
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I was active here in upstate New York.
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He was active as a scout and then as a leader, and then as a council staff person down in his council in New Jersey.
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Uh, he was about a six-hour drive from where he and I would eventually end up meeting.
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A beautiful, beautiful, beautiful little city called Saratoga Springs.
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And the camp that Tommy eventually took a job at as the Camp Ranger, it no longer exists.
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The camp was shut down several years ago.
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The assets sold off, and it was a very, very sad day, a very uh very tragic.
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I don't want to say traumatic, but a very, very sad day in my life.
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Perhaps we'll do an episode on Camp Boy Haven in the future.
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But um it was a mainstay just out of just outside of Saratoga Springs, New York, which is a world-renowned city.
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And uh one of my favorite little towns in the world.
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When I was a little kid, I always used to say I was gonna was going to live there, I was gonna get a house there and live there when I grew up.
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It's called Rock City Falls.
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And uh boy, what a what a forceful sounding town.
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You know, where do you live?
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Rock City Falls, you know, boy, oh boy, exciting.
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But anyway, that's where I met him.
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Tommy came up and he had very, very big shoes to fill.
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The ranger who the gentleman who was the ranger at camp before Tommy was a war hero from the Korean War, a no-kidding war hero, you know, Joseph and Reservoir, all of those places.
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Gentleman's name was Clyde.
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And um, if you looked at Clyde, just a quick glance, you would think that he was a literature professor at Columbia University.
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He had the horn-rimmed glasses.
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You could almost picture him in the suits that they wore at the time with the leather patches on the elbows and you know, talking about Chaucer.
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Um, you know, he was a straight-up army gangster.
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He had seen some things and done some things, but in true gangster fashion, he you know, never bragged about it, never spoke about it.
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He just enjoyed the solitude of the woods.
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Everybody loved Clyde.
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And Clyde's name was synonymous with Camp Boyhaven, and Clyde got very sick with cancer and he passed.
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And for a while, there was no ranger, and then all of a sudden, this Jersey boy shows up, and he was his leadership style was not like Clyde.
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And it it reminded me of that episode of MASH where Colonel Potter has to have a sit-down with a very drunk Corporal Klinger and explain that it's not radar O'Reilly's office anymore, it's Max Klinger's, just as it wasn't Colonel Henry Blake's camp anymore, it's Colonel Sherman Potter.
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And one was not necessarily right, nor was the other necessarily wrong, but it's different, and things had to be done a certain way.
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You can't pretend to be somebody else or do things the way somebody else did things, you had to do things the way that you felt it correct to do things.
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And kind of a sneak preview.
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That's uh that's an additional bonus Easter egg lesson that I learned from Tommy.
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Uh, we'll get to the rest of them in a bit.
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So I I started thinking about you know, going back chronologically in my mind, I met Tommy just under four years after I started driving.
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Okay.
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I was a very, very young person.
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I'm I'm I'm 19 years old.
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And he and I got on like peanut butter and jelly.
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He was the same age as several of my older cousins that I looked up to growing up, and it kind of felt like I was a big brother.
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He was there for me when I started college.
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I was a fairly good student in high school.
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It came easy.
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I didn't have to study.
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I got to college and I needed to study, and I didn't know how to study, and things were going horribly tragically wrong.
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And it was Tommy's guidance and wisdom, and and in a lot of ways, brilliance of hey, you've got to buckle down, you can figure this out, you can do it.
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It was never judgmental.
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He was always a very positive friend.
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Um stayed that way up until the day he died.
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Um, I graduated from college, I became a commissioned officer in the United States Navy.
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There was nobody happier for me or more proud of me than Tommy.
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I'd been in the Navy for a few years.
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Um, back then, this is before we all had cell phones in our pockets and could call anybody at will.
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You know, Tommy and I used to try to figure out the best time to call each other when the rates were lowest.
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And no matter what time, day or night I called, he was always happy to hear from me.
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Happy to hear that I was okay.
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Wherever I was in the world, if I was gonna be there for a bit and I could actually get mail, you know, Tommy would send me uh the canned peaches and the canned fruit cocktail and and all the things that mean the world to a military person deployed overseas that you can't go into a town and just buy for yourself.
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He always looked after me that way.
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He was there when I got married, he was there when I had an instant family, he was there the day that uh my baby came into the world.
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He was there as I got promoted, always letters and emails of congratulations.
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When I would talk to people at his funeral, they they told me how proud he was of me.
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And that was a very humbling and a very warm feeling.
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Because at the time, being two men, you know, that was a time in in the history of the world, in the recent history of the world, where men did not discuss their feelings.
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If you you know, you told another man that you loved them, G-rated family program here, it just wasn't really as accepted as it is today.
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That's the the most polite way that I can say it.
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And so to hear that after the fact, it really meant the world to me.
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Tommy was there for me every time I went to a combat zone and came back from it.
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He was a man of his word.
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We a lot of us have people in our lives that say, if you need anything, say the word.
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I was in a pinch.
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I had two pretty good-sized dogs, and um nobody seemed to be able to take care of them for me.
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Tommy Rogered up and said, Bring him down.
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So took a trip down to Appomattox, Virginia, which was where he made his home, his last home before he passed away.
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And those two dogs stayed with him for the duration of my deployment.
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And he would not take a nickel for food or you know, or their treats or anything.
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And when I came back and my head was all mixed up, and I wasn't sure which way was north and which way was south, and what was real and what wasn't, and did what I went through just went through make any sense?
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Tommy gave me sanctuary.
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He said the spare room is yours.
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Take leave, come down here.
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You need to laugh, we'll laugh, you need to cry, we'll cry.
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You need to go out and break stuff, we'll we'll chop wood, we'll go to the rifle range, we'll do whatever you need to do to get your head right, so that when you go back and see your your wife and your kids, you're not a scary man.
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That's a friend, ladies and gentlemen.
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That's a friend.
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Tommy um got very sick.
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And the sickness started not long after I met him.
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He was the ranger up at camp, as I mentioned, and there was always something to do.
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There was always work to do at camp.
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But, you know, in between when you would take a break in between jobs or just finish up a meal, Tommy loved to throw the football.
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He loved to throw a frisbee.
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He loved to break out the the baseball softball gloves and just throw the ball back and forth and talk while you're doing it.
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And I noticed probably around the end of 91, beginning of 92, that when you would throw the ball or you would throw the frisbee, he dropped it a lot.
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His hands didn't quite seem to work the way that they did when I had first met him, and didn't think anything of it.
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I said, Well, it's you know, November, December, January, it's cold, none of our digits are working good.
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Turns out, you know, Tommy had diabetes, and his fingers and his toes would tingle, and and sometimes they wouldn't work really well.
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And I did not realize the extent to how badly he was suffering until I read an article he wrote for the school paper at Pensacola Junior College.
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When I was stationed down in Pensacola, Florida, Tommy had hit a spot in his life where he needed to get out of the Northeast.
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He um the Boy Scout Council changed leadership, they were going in a new direction.
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And uh a Jersey boy who was exceptionally blunt and didn't know better than to tell the truth when he was asked a question, you know, no longer fit in a structure that was going increasingly corporate.
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He, you know, he was he was like that unpolished family member at the holiday feast that nobody quite knows how to say we we really don't want you coming around here anymore.
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And his only flaw in that regard was that he was brutally honest, which we tell everybody we want in our lives that hey, I want you to be honest with me, right?
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But then there are times that people who are brutally honest get punished.
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So I started to see a decline, his vision got worse, and after he left Florida, he went back to New Jersey, he was hospitalized for a while, he got better and he came into some money and he bought himself a home in Appomattox, Virginia, where he had made a homemade, beautiful, professionally done sign.
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He named the place Quest's End, and he had a pineapple that he engraved with a router on there and made this beautiful sign.
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We put it up at the end of his driveway, and and for those who aren't familiar with it, the pineapple is a symbol of hospitality from way, way back in the days of wooden ships and iron men.
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And that was at the end of his driveway.
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And if you were lucky enough to be Tom's friend, you were always welcome there.
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And you didn't need an invitation.
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I remember very clearly the day that Tommy died.
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My daughter and I were visiting my parents, and the phone came, and the number on the caller ID was a 732 area code, and that was from New Jersey, and I knew it wasn't good news.
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It turns out it was Tommy's brother, and um his eldest brother, whose name also happens to be Michael, Tommy held him in very, very high regard, and rightfully so.
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Michael is a great man.
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Uh, he was a firefighter by trade, and he saved an awful lot of people's lives.
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Uh, Tommy's father passed when Tommy was fairly young, and in addition to being his older brother, Michael kind of stepped in and filled that role as a father figure.
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And I remember when Michael told me that he was gone.
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I can see my father sitting in his chair, I can see my mother sitting in her chair, I could see my daughter sitting in the chair she used to sit at when we would go to visit around the table.
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And I got off the phone and I tried extremely hard to keep it together.
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I certainly did not break down in front of people.
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Um, but I remember each of them, my mother and father knew how much Tommy had meant to me and how much he had helped me over the years, and they were trying to figure out something comforting to say.
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And I remember my daughter looking at me, and she got up and came over and gave me a big hug, and she started to cry, and she just whispered, I'm gonna miss my Uncle Tommy.
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It was a very, very, very powerful day.
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A very powerful day.
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You know, she and she and Tommy had a very unique relationship.
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They got on like peanut butter and jelly.
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And Tom had taught her things that well, some of which you weren't gonna learn in a classroom just well, because it was Tommy.
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But some things, you know, it just as a side note, there are certain things as a parent that you should not teach your children for a variety of reasons.
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One of them, for example, is driving.
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It's it's always better to pay a professional driving school or you know, because you tend to be much harder and much more nerved up because they're your children.
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One of the other things you should never teach your children how to do on your own, if if you can help it, is to shoot a gun.
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And Tommy was a certified instructor by the National Rifle Association.
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He used to teach the instructors to teach people how to shoot.
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And he was so kind and so gentle and so patient with my daughter.
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He took a young lady who was terrified of the pops and the bangs and the cracks and the booms, and within four hours had taught her how to put almost a thousand rounds of ammunition downrange safely and not be afraid of that rifle.
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And at the end of the day, he told her how proud he was of her, and he said, I'm teaching you something that I hope you never have to use.
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And if you get nothing else out of today, I want you to remember if you or your friends are in a park and you find a gun, it is not a toy.
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Don't touch it.
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Get your parents, call the police.
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Don't touch it.
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It's not a toy.
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It was an amazing gift.
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And it again, that was a day that I would certainly never forget either.
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So we're at a point in the program where we're going to give some shout outs, and we're going to give some shout-outs in honor of Tommy.
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The first shout-out we're going to give is to Appomattox, Virginia.
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I knew my friend for a long time.
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And in Appomattox, Virginia, he was truly happiest.
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It was it's a beautiful town.
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It gave him everything out of life that he wanted.
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He made some wonderful friends.
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You know, it has been said, half kidding, half seriously, that northerners and southerners can't truly be friends.
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But the Southerners down there never met anybody like Tommy.
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And um, they absolutely adored him, just like all of us who knew him did.
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The second shout out I'd like to give is to the New York Giants.
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That was Tommy's favorite professional sport team of all time, anywhere.
00:23:22.319 --> 00:23:24.319
He loved them when they were terrible.
00:23:24.480 --> 00:23:26.799
He loved them when they were world champions.
00:23:27.920 --> 00:23:33.279
Many of our conversations were how they went from bad to good and then good to great.
00:23:33.440 --> 00:23:35.359
And he was so proud of them.
00:23:35.680 --> 00:23:40.640
He was devastated when they lost a game, and he was ecstatic when they won.
00:23:40.960 --> 00:23:46.160
And a lot of great memories with Tommy because of the New York Giants.
00:23:46.400 --> 00:23:52.720
And the last shout out that I want to give is to the Polaris Corporation that make the all-terrain vehicles.
00:23:53.279 --> 00:23:59.200
When Tommy got sick and he had difficulty walking, he couldn't go outside and hike anymore.
00:23:59.519 --> 00:24:03.759
So his Polaris ATV was his legs.
00:24:04.640 --> 00:24:11.440
And he got around his 150 acres on that Polaris ATV for years.
00:24:11.759 --> 00:24:13.200
Never had a problem with it.
00:24:13.359 --> 00:24:14.400
It never failed him.
00:24:14.559 --> 00:24:16.000
It never broke down.
00:24:16.799 --> 00:24:19.839
Did everything he asked it to do.
00:24:20.240 --> 00:24:24.640
Getting from points A to B to clearing big trees that fell across the trail.
00:24:25.599 --> 00:24:28.640
Can't say enough good things about Polaris ATVs.
00:24:28.720 --> 00:24:42.079
So if you've never had the pleasure of driving one and you've decided that you're leaving the city and you're buying some land and you need something to get you from point A to point B on your land, go pick up a Polaris.
00:24:42.400 --> 00:24:45.119
And please think of a great man when you do.
00:24:49.359 --> 00:24:57.680
Coming up with a succinct list of the lessons that Tommy taught me is very, very, very difficult.
00:24:59.519 --> 00:25:02.640
But I've narrowed it down to five.
00:25:05.119 --> 00:25:10.960
And I'd like to share them with you so that you can incorporate them into your own lives.
00:25:11.440 --> 00:25:14.960
And maybe by doing so, Tommy lives on.
00:25:15.119 --> 00:25:17.680
He never married and he had no children.
00:25:18.400 --> 00:25:23.759
So as of right now, his legacy is in the hearts of those of us who loved him.
00:25:24.640 --> 00:25:28.160
So I'm going to share some of the things he taught me with you now.
00:25:28.559 --> 00:25:33.119
Number one was that people were more important than things.
00:25:34.400 --> 00:25:41.599
As I mentioned, wherever I was in the world, he would say, I don't care what time, call me.
00:25:42.240 --> 00:25:48.480
I would call him at one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning, Eastern Standard Time.
00:25:49.599 --> 00:25:54.559
Never angry, never growly, never snapping, never what the hell's the matter with you?
00:25:54.720 --> 00:26:00.079
You know, was always, hey bud, I'm awful glad to hear your voice.
00:26:00.400 --> 00:26:01.279
Give me a second.
00:26:01.359 --> 00:26:09.920
I'm gonna make a cup of coffee or I'm gonna get a diet coke and let me shake the cobwebs out and wake up and talk to you for a bit.
00:26:10.640 --> 00:26:16.160
People, i.e., me, was more important to Tommy than sleep.
00:26:17.839 --> 00:26:20.559
He would say, I can take a nap anytime.
00:26:20.880 --> 00:26:22.480
I can't talk to you anytime.
00:26:22.559 --> 00:26:24.480
You're halfway around the world.
00:26:25.119 --> 00:26:27.599
People are more important than things.
00:26:29.119 --> 00:26:37.599
The second thing that he showed me by living his example is no matter what you do, to do your best.
00:26:39.279 --> 00:26:42.240
Don't give anybody a half-hearted effort.
00:26:43.279 --> 00:26:50.720
If you're being paid to weld a canoe, then make sure that the welding job that you did looks good.
00:26:51.279 --> 00:26:53.599
It looks like a professional welder did it.
00:26:53.680 --> 00:26:55.759
Do it to the best of your ability.
00:26:56.480 --> 00:27:07.839
Don't just put the rod up next to it and strike the arc or you know, turn on the welding machine and make it look like little piles of bird poop everywhere.
00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:09.200
Make it look good.
00:27:09.599 --> 00:27:17.839
Take the time to grind it and sand it and paint it, and make it look like it was fixed by a professional.
00:27:19.359 --> 00:27:22.640
No matter what you do, do your best.
00:27:25.279 --> 00:27:26.640
Number three.
00:27:28.079 --> 00:27:33.200
No matter how bad it gets, always keep your sense of humor.
00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:47.200
Tommy had the most unique and warped sense of humor from anybody that I've met on the five continents that I've been on.
00:27:47.680 --> 00:27:51.200
But in retrospect, it was a beautiful sense of humor.
00:27:52.160 --> 00:27:56.000
And as his health deteriorated, his mind never failed him.
00:27:56.079 --> 00:27:59.519
He was always quick-witted, he was always sharp.
00:28:01.119 --> 00:28:18.079
But no matter how much pain he was in, no matter what trials and tribulations he had because of the complications of diabetes, he never got angry, he never got nasty, he never got mean, he never got bitter.
00:28:18.400 --> 00:28:21.599
He always found a way to put a funny face on it.
00:28:21.920 --> 00:28:27.359
When I would drive down to Virginia on a long weekend to see him and say, What do you feel like doing, buddy?
00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:33.680
He'd say, Well, I'm really not up for training for a triathlon today.
00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:53.440
And it took a lot of the awkwardness out because a lot of times when you talk about remember when's, it was, hey, remember when we hiked through Camp Boyhaven, or remember when we fixed the repelling tower and then we had to try it out by ourselves?
00:28:53.599 --> 00:28:55.759
Well, he couldn't do that stuff anymore.
00:28:56.240 --> 00:29:01.039
But he enjoyed talking about it because they were great memories for him, too.
00:29:01.359 --> 00:29:03.200
He always kept a sense of humor.
00:29:03.359 --> 00:29:17.119
When the diabetes progressed to the point where they started amputating toes and then half of a foot and then an entire foot and then legs below the knee, he never got angry.
00:29:18.799 --> 00:29:25.920
What he would do is talk to people who might just have been diagnosed with diabetes and said, Hey, don't do what I did.
00:29:26.240 --> 00:29:27.680
I ignored it.
00:29:28.559 --> 00:29:31.039
I pretended it wasn't a thing.
00:29:31.440 --> 00:29:34.079
And then my baby toe turned black.
00:29:34.319 --> 00:29:36.480
And then we were off to the races.
00:29:38.319 --> 00:29:43.279
But he always told his story with an amazing sense of humor.
00:29:45.519 --> 00:29:55.599
One of his favorite sayings was that commitments are easy when your bed is warm and your belly is full.
00:29:56.799 --> 00:30:06.480
And the first time I heard him say that, I'm 19 years old, and well, to be very honest, I didn't understand what it meant.
00:30:06.880 --> 00:30:43.359
But as you go through life and you hit your trials and your tribulations, I think what he was trying to tell us was that when you're going through a rough time, you know, if somebody else that's a friend of yours is well fed, they've got a safe place to stay, to sleep, to lay their head down, it's a lot easier for somebody like that to help you than it is from somebody who's going through their own struggle.
00:30:46.720 --> 00:30:55.200
And as the years went by and I analyzed that statement, I didn't necessarily want to agree with him that he was right.
00:30:56.079 --> 00:31:02.960
But cutting to the chase to where I am at this point in my own amazing journey, I find it to be very true.
00:31:03.039 --> 00:31:06.079
And I find it to be very true even for myself.
00:31:06.319 --> 00:31:13.519
It's a lot easier for me to be helpful to people when things are going well in my life.
00:31:14.079 --> 00:31:32.000
But the corollary to that message that Tommy was trying to pass along to me and the wisdom that goes with it is even when you're not at your menacing best, there's a pretty good chance that somebody you love is going to need help with something.
00:31:33.359 --> 00:31:36.880
And give them your best, even if you're not at your best.
00:31:39.440 --> 00:31:53.599
And the last and most important lesson that Tommy taught me was that your loyalty to people that you love and care about should be paramount above everything else.
00:31:54.160 --> 00:32:07.359
If you're with somebody, a friend, a romantic partner, a work acquaintance, you stand with them.
00:32:09.039 --> 00:32:14.400
If they're wrong, you tell them they're wrong in private, but you stand with them.
00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:18.960
And don't stab anybody in the back.
00:32:20.720 --> 00:32:24.319
Don't step on a workplace acquaintance to get a promotion.
00:32:24.559 --> 00:32:29.359
If you have to step on them to get that workplace promotion, they're already better than you.
00:32:29.519 --> 00:32:32.079
And they deserve the promotion and not you.
00:32:32.640 --> 00:32:39.759
Because if you were that good, nine out of ten times, you would have gotten the promotion by default because you were better.
00:32:41.759 --> 00:32:48.000
But regardless, be loyal and don't ever reward loyalty with abandonment.
00:32:51.359 --> 00:32:55.039
I've done an awful lot of eulogies in my life.
00:32:57.359 --> 00:33:01.839
I've buried a lot of people that have meant something to me.
00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:05.839
And that's part of our amazing journey in life, right?
00:33:08.240 --> 00:33:12.000
The older you get, if you're still here, you're going to lose people.
00:33:14.720 --> 00:33:19.680
Tommy was a loss that, quite frankly, I've never recovered from.
00:33:21.119 --> 00:33:27.759
Because a friend like Tommy is almost like a once-in-a-lifetime event.
00:33:27.920 --> 00:33:34.240
You do not get too many people of that caliber in your life.
00:33:35.359 --> 00:33:47.359
And and to lose my best friend at 38 years old and realize that I'm never gonna have a male friend like him again.
00:33:48.319 --> 00:33:51.440
That was that was an oui, as the little kids say.
00:33:51.599 --> 00:33:52.559
That was an owie.
00:33:54.799 --> 00:34:00.640
The good news is I think of him often.
00:34:01.759 --> 00:34:13.840
I remember our great times fondly, and I've never forgotten the lessons that he taught me, not only by his words, but more importantly by his deeds.
00:34:16.559 --> 00:34:31.599
So I've gotten to the point in my amazing journey where when the anniversary of his death comes around, it's about 30 seconds of sadness because I do miss him in this realm.
00:34:33.440 --> 00:34:39.599
Followed by several hours of oh my word, I can't believe he did that.
00:34:41.440 --> 00:34:49.599
As in most cases with The Amazing Journey, some of the best stories cannot be told on a family-friendly program such as this.
00:34:50.159 --> 00:34:51.840
But there were a lot of them.
00:34:54.639 --> 00:34:56.320
Rest in peace, Tommy.
00:34:56.559 --> 00:34:59.199
I know you're up in heaven holding court.
00:35:00.159 --> 00:35:04.400
I know heaven wasn't the same after you got there.
00:35:06.159 --> 00:35:13.039
I know the lives of the people that you touched here were never the same after you came into them.
00:35:14.880 --> 00:35:16.480
I miss you, buddy.
00:35:17.280 --> 00:35:18.559
And I love you.
00:35:18.800 --> 00:35:19.920
Always will.
00:35:21.280 --> 00:35:23.920
Friends, I can't believe our time is up already.
00:35:24.079 --> 00:35:25.840
I say it every week.
00:35:26.480 --> 00:35:34.559
Thank you again for taking the time to listen to me, to hear me out, to let me reminisce about my best friend.
00:35:35.039 --> 00:35:36.400
It means the world to me.
00:35:36.559 --> 00:35:42.400
I know you can spend a half an hour doing anything, and you're choosing to spend it with me.
00:35:42.800 --> 00:35:45.440
So once again, thank you.
00:35:46.719 --> 00:35:50.880
Drop me a note at AmazingJourneypodcast at PM.me.
00:35:51.280 --> 00:35:55.440
Once again, that's AmazingJourney Podcast at PM.me.
00:35:56.079 --> 00:35:58.079
I welcome your comments.
00:35:59.519 --> 00:36:05.519
Until we get together again, this is your friend Mike, and I'm signing off.
00:00:02.879 --> 00:00:04.080
Hello, friends.
00:00:04.320 --> 00:00:07.440
Welcome back to the Amazing Journey Podcast.
00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:09.279
This is Mike.
00:00:09.599 --> 00:00:11.039
I've missed you.
00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:15.199
It's been a been a bit since I posted a video.
00:00:15.439 --> 00:00:29.120
I took a little bit of a summer vacation as a tribute and a tip to the days of my youth when we got a summer vacation in between our years at school.
00:00:29.760 --> 00:00:35.600
It felt good to kind of clear the head, shake the cobwebs out, but we are back.
00:00:35.840 --> 00:00:38.320
We are back behind the microphone.
00:00:39.759 --> 00:00:49.439
And we're going to spend the next half hour together talking about my best friend, a gentleman who passed away.
00:00:49.679 --> 00:00:52.560
I cannot believe it's been so long.
00:00:55.119 --> 00:01:03.520
Almost 20 years ago, 17 years ago, is the fateful day I got that telephone call in July.
00:01:03.679 --> 00:01:06.000
The anniversary of his death is coming up.
00:01:09.359 --> 00:01:14.159
I've really never talked about what he meant to me fully.
00:01:14.879 --> 00:01:18.719
So that's what we're going to do on this podcast.
00:01:19.359 --> 00:01:29.120
I think one of the greatest gifts that we can give to people is to never forget them and to share their legacy.
00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:33.439
And my buddy Tommy was incredibly important to me.
00:01:33.599 --> 00:01:35.840
I found him to be a great man.
00:01:36.480 --> 00:01:39.040
And I'd like to tell you a little bit about them.
00:01:39.840 --> 00:01:47.680
Before we get into it, I'm going to start the podcast the way that I always start by thanking you for your time.
00:01:47.920 --> 00:01:52.400
Because that truly is the greatest gift that we can give to one another.
00:01:53.040 --> 00:01:57.840
And I'm very grateful that you're sharing your time with me.
00:01:58.719 --> 00:02:00.480
So thank you so much.
00:02:01.439 --> 00:02:03.840
And I think we should get started.
00:02:04.400 --> 00:02:10.240
We're going to start as we usually do with a quick trip to the College of Musical Knowledge.
00:02:10.639 --> 00:02:21.120
The first song that makes me think of my buddy Tommy is by the great Irish rock band out of Dublin, Thin Lizzy.
00:02:22.080 --> 00:02:28.639
The song is The Boys Are Back in Town from 1976 off of the Jailbreak album.
00:02:28.960 --> 00:02:31.280
Tommy always loved that song.
00:02:32.479 --> 00:02:35.599
He grew up in Jersey City.
00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:39.280
He was a Jersey boy right across the river from New York City.
00:02:39.599 --> 00:02:45.919
And he grew up, came of age at an amazing time in the history of the United States.
00:02:46.800 --> 00:02:48.719
The 1970s.
00:02:49.599 --> 00:02:54.159
The uh men and women were just back from the Vietnam War.
00:02:55.520 --> 00:02:58.159
Music was taking a whole new direction.
00:02:58.479 --> 00:03:01.280
Sports were taking a whole new direction.
00:03:01.599 --> 00:03:05.280
The New York Yankees were back winning World Series.
00:03:05.759 --> 00:03:11.120
And he was down just across the river from the Big Apple during all of this.
00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:16.800
And music was a critical part of his life.
00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:18.879
He enjoyed it very rarely.
00:03:19.039 --> 00:03:21.120
Could you call him or go visit him?
00:03:21.280 --> 00:03:23.599
And he not have his stereo on.
00:03:24.159 --> 00:03:32.800
When I first met him, he was having records and cassettes, and then he started replacing everything with CDs.
00:03:33.039 --> 00:03:37.120
And he was the first person I knew that had a multiple CD changer.
00:03:37.199 --> 00:03:39.759
He had a five CD changer at the time.
00:03:40.479 --> 00:03:42.960
And it was quite remarkable and extraordinary.
00:03:43.120 --> 00:03:48.560
But the boys were back in town by Thin Lizzie always kind of got his blood pumping.
00:03:48.960 --> 00:04:01.199
The second song I'd like to talk about today from our College of Musical Knowledge is Tom Sawyer by Rush, off of the Moving Pictures album in 1981.
00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:09.599
Faithful listeners to the podcast here know that Rush is one of my favorite bands, and I was introduced to them by Tommy.
00:04:10.719 --> 00:04:19.279
And the line of or from that song, Tom Sawyer is the modern day warrior.
00:04:19.360 --> 00:04:28.399
And I always kind of looked at Tommy as a modern day warrior for reasons that we'll get into shortly here in the podcast.
00:04:28.959 --> 00:04:40.720
And the last song, which if he were here, he would probably threaten certain violent acts, um, was Madonna Like a Prayer, off of the Like a Prayer album in 1989.
00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:46.160
He'll probably haunt me tonight in my dreams for admitting to people that he liked Madonna.
00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:53.759
But Tommy was a dancer and he loved the club version of Like a Prayer.
00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:59.360
And he would dance with any woman who would dance with him to that song.
00:04:59.519 --> 00:05:00.399
He enjoyed it.
00:05:00.639 --> 00:05:08.399
He would close his eyes, and you could tell he was in a discotheque far away, you know, in the 70s.
00:05:08.480 --> 00:05:10.160
It was one of his happy places.
00:05:10.319 --> 00:05:17.279
So today's trip to the College of Musical Knowledge is some songs that he liked and he enjoyed.
00:05:17.360 --> 00:05:25.600
And if you haven't listened to them, I encourage you to look them up on your music provider of choice and have a listen.
00:05:27.360 --> 00:05:29.120
Well, we'll get right into it.
00:05:29.279 --> 00:05:32.639
Um, I met Tommy in 1990.
00:05:33.120 --> 00:05:36.160
We were both active in the Boy Scouts.
00:05:36.240 --> 00:05:39.439
I was active here in upstate New York.
00:05:39.839 --> 00:05:50.319
He was active as a scout and then as a leader, and then as a council staff person down in his council in New Jersey.
00:05:50.800 --> 00:05:57.920
Uh, he was about a six-hour drive from where he and I would eventually end up meeting.
00:05:59.759 --> 00:06:06.079
A beautiful, beautiful, beautiful little city called Saratoga Springs.
00:06:06.879 --> 00:06:16.560
And the camp that Tommy eventually took a job at as the Camp Ranger, it no longer exists.
00:06:16.720 --> 00:06:18.639
The camp was shut down several years ago.
00:06:18.800 --> 00:06:24.959
The assets sold off, and it was a very, very sad day, a very uh very tragic.
00:06:25.120 --> 00:06:28.560
I don't want to say traumatic, but a very, very sad day in my life.
00:06:28.720 --> 00:06:32.000
Perhaps we'll do an episode on Camp Boy Haven in the future.
00:06:32.319 --> 00:06:43.439
But um it was a mainstay just out of just outside of Saratoga Springs, New York, which is a world-renowned city.
00:06:43.680 --> 00:06:46.079
And uh one of my favorite little towns in the world.
00:06:46.160 --> 00:06:52.160
When I was a little kid, I always used to say I was gonna was going to live there, I was gonna get a house there and live there when I grew up.
00:06:52.240 --> 00:06:53.839
It's called Rock City Falls.
00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:57.199
And uh boy, what a what a forceful sounding town.
00:06:57.279 --> 00:06:58.000
You know, where do you live?
00:06:58.160 --> 00:07:01.279
Rock City Falls, you know, boy, oh boy, exciting.
00:07:01.519 --> 00:07:03.519
But anyway, that's where I met him.
00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:08.399
Tommy came up and he had very, very big shoes to fill.
00:07:08.639 --> 00:07:23.199
The ranger who the gentleman who was the ranger at camp before Tommy was a war hero from the Korean War, a no-kidding war hero, you know, Joseph and Reservoir, all of those places.
00:07:23.519 --> 00:07:25.120
Gentleman's name was Clyde.
00:07:25.279 --> 00:07:36.079
And um, if you looked at Clyde, just a quick glance, you would think that he was a literature professor at Columbia University.
00:07:36.240 --> 00:07:38.240
He had the horn-rimmed glasses.
00:07:38.399 --> 00:07:46.480
You could almost picture him in the suits that they wore at the time with the leather patches on the elbows and you know, talking about Chaucer.
00:07:47.199 --> 00:07:53.439
Um, you know, he was a straight-up army gangster.
00:07:53.519 --> 00:08:02.720
He had seen some things and done some things, but in true gangster fashion, he you know, never bragged about it, never spoke about it.
00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:05.439
He just enjoyed the solitude of the woods.
00:08:05.680 --> 00:08:07.759
Everybody loved Clyde.
00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:15.199
And Clyde's name was synonymous with Camp Boyhaven, and Clyde got very sick with cancer and he passed.
00:08:15.360 --> 00:08:30.639
And for a while, there was no ranger, and then all of a sudden, this Jersey boy shows up, and he was his leadership style was not like Clyde.
00:08:31.040 --> 00:08:51.120
And it it reminded me of that episode of MASH where Colonel Potter has to have a sit-down with a very drunk Corporal Klinger and explain that it's not radar O'Reilly's office anymore, it's Max Klinger's, just as it wasn't Colonel Henry Blake's camp anymore, it's Colonel Sherman Potter.
00:08:51.279 --> 00:09:01.440
And one was not necessarily right, nor was the other necessarily wrong, but it's different, and things had to be done a certain way.
00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:14.639
You can't pretend to be somebody else or do things the way somebody else did things, you had to do things the way that you felt it correct to do things.
00:09:15.039 --> 00:09:17.840
And kind of a sneak preview.
00:09:17.919 --> 00:09:22.399
That's uh that's an additional bonus Easter egg lesson that I learned from Tommy.
00:09:22.559 --> 00:09:24.960
Uh, we'll get to the rest of them in a bit.
00:09:26.559 --> 00:09:37.519
So I I started thinking about you know, going back chronologically in my mind, I met Tommy just under four years after I started driving.
00:09:37.759 --> 00:09:38.080
Okay.
00:09:38.879 --> 00:09:42.720
I was a very, very young person.
00:09:42.960 --> 00:09:47.120
I'm I'm I'm 19 years old.
00:09:47.440 --> 00:09:51.759
And he and I got on like peanut butter and jelly.
00:09:51.919 --> 00:10:03.519
He was the same age as several of my older cousins that I looked up to growing up, and it kind of felt like I was a big brother.
00:10:03.840 --> 00:10:06.799
He was there for me when I started college.
00:10:08.159 --> 00:10:10.879
I was a fairly good student in high school.
00:10:10.960 --> 00:10:11.759
It came easy.
00:10:11.840 --> 00:10:13.039
I didn't have to study.
00:10:13.120 --> 00:10:20.720
I got to college and I needed to study, and I didn't know how to study, and things were going horribly tragically wrong.
00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:32.159
And it was Tommy's guidance and wisdom, and and in a lot of ways, brilliance of hey, you've got to buckle down, you can figure this out, you can do it.
00:10:32.240 --> 00:10:33.919
It was never judgmental.
00:10:34.240 --> 00:10:37.440
He was always a very positive friend.
00:10:39.120 --> 00:10:44.080
Um stayed that way up until the day he died.
00:10:44.240 --> 00:10:50.320
Um, I graduated from college, I became a commissioned officer in the United States Navy.
00:10:50.559 --> 00:10:56.000
There was nobody happier for me or more proud of me than Tommy.
00:10:57.360 --> 00:11:00.080
I'd been in the Navy for a few years.
00:11:00.240 --> 00:11:07.679
Um, back then, this is before we all had cell phones in our pockets and could call anybody at will.
00:11:07.759 --> 00:11:15.200
You know, Tommy and I used to try to figure out the best time to call each other when the rates were lowest.
00:11:16.399 --> 00:11:25.600
And no matter what time, day or night I called, he was always happy to hear from me.
00:11:25.840 --> 00:11:28.000
Happy to hear that I was okay.
00:11:29.200 --> 00:11:51.200
Wherever I was in the world, if I was gonna be there for a bit and I could actually get mail, you know, Tommy would send me uh the canned peaches and the canned fruit cocktail and and all the things that mean the world to a military person deployed overseas that you can't go into a town and just buy for yourself.
00:11:51.519 --> 00:11:53.759
He always looked after me that way.
00:11:54.559 --> 00:12:05.840
He was there when I got married, he was there when I had an instant family, he was there the day that uh my baby came into the world.
00:12:06.799 --> 00:12:12.879
He was there as I got promoted, always letters and emails of congratulations.
00:12:14.080 --> 00:12:21.360
When I would talk to people at his funeral, they they told me how proud he was of me.
00:12:21.600 --> 00:12:27.519
And that was a very humbling and a very warm feeling.
00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:41.440
Because at the time, being two men, you know, that was a time in in the history of the world, in the recent history of the world, where men did not discuss their feelings.
00:12:41.600 --> 00:12:50.960
If you you know, you told another man that you loved them, G-rated family program here, it just wasn't really as accepted as it is today.
00:12:51.039 --> 00:12:55.120
That's the the most polite way that I can say it.
00:12:56.559 --> 00:13:02.000
And so to hear that after the fact, it really meant the world to me.
00:13:02.879 --> 00:13:09.440
Tommy was there for me every time I went to a combat zone and came back from it.
00:13:10.720 --> 00:13:12.879
He was a man of his word.
00:13:13.039 --> 00:13:17.840
We a lot of us have people in our lives that say, if you need anything, say the word.
00:13:18.399 --> 00:13:19.679
I was in a pinch.
00:13:19.759 --> 00:13:27.679
I had two pretty good-sized dogs, and um nobody seemed to be able to take care of them for me.
00:13:29.600 --> 00:13:31.919
Tommy Rogered up and said, Bring him down.
00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:39.919
So took a trip down to Appomattox, Virginia, which was where he made his home, his last home before he passed away.
00:13:40.240 --> 00:13:45.919
And those two dogs stayed with him for the duration of my deployment.
00:13:47.519 --> 00:13:55.039
And he would not take a nickel for food or you know, or their treats or anything.
00:13:56.080 --> 00:14:11.039
And when I came back and my head was all mixed up, and I wasn't sure which way was north and which way was south, and what was real and what wasn't, and did what I went through just went through make any sense?
00:14:11.600 --> 00:14:13.360
Tommy gave me sanctuary.
00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:14.879
He said the spare room is yours.
00:14:15.039 --> 00:14:16.480
Take leave, come down here.
00:14:16.639 --> 00:14:19.360
You need to laugh, we'll laugh, you need to cry, we'll cry.
00:14:19.440 --> 00:14:35.039
You need to go out and break stuff, we'll we'll chop wood, we'll go to the rifle range, we'll do whatever you need to do to get your head right, so that when you go back and see your your wife and your kids, you're not a scary man.
00:14:36.159 --> 00:14:39.279
That's a friend, ladies and gentlemen.
00:14:39.600 --> 00:14:40.879
That's a friend.
00:14:43.759 --> 00:14:47.600
Tommy um got very sick.
00:14:49.840 --> 00:14:55.200
And the sickness started not long after I met him.
00:14:56.720 --> 00:15:02.639
He was the ranger up at camp, as I mentioned, and there was always something to do.
00:15:02.799 --> 00:15:04.639
There was always work to do at camp.
00:15:04.799 --> 00:15:13.200
But, you know, in between when you would take a break in between jobs or just finish up a meal, Tommy loved to throw the football.
00:15:13.279 --> 00:15:15.200
He loved to throw a frisbee.
00:15:15.440 --> 00:15:23.600
He loved to break out the the baseball softball gloves and just throw the ball back and forth and talk while you're doing it.
00:15:24.159 --> 00:15:36.240
And I noticed probably around the end of 91, beginning of 92, that when you would throw the ball or you would throw the frisbee, he dropped it a lot.
00:15:36.879 --> 00:15:44.879
His hands didn't quite seem to work the way that they did when I had first met him, and didn't think anything of it.
00:15:44.960 --> 00:15:50.559
I said, Well, it's you know, November, December, January, it's cold, none of our digits are working good.
00:15:51.519 --> 00:16:04.480
Turns out, you know, Tommy had diabetes, and his fingers and his toes would tingle, and and sometimes they wouldn't work really well.
00:16:05.840 --> 00:16:20.720
And I did not realize the extent to how badly he was suffering until I read an article he wrote for the school paper at Pensacola Junior College.
00:16:20.879 --> 00:16:28.720
When I was stationed down in Pensacola, Florida, Tommy had hit a spot in his life where he needed to get out of the Northeast.
00:16:28.960 --> 00:16:36.080
He um the Boy Scout Council changed leadership, they were going in a new direction.
00:16:37.200 --> 00:16:51.919
And uh a Jersey boy who was exceptionally blunt and didn't know better than to tell the truth when he was asked a question, you know, no longer fit in a structure that was going increasingly corporate.
00:16:52.320 --> 00:17:04.720
He, you know, he was he was like that unpolished family member at the holiday feast that nobody quite knows how to say we we really don't want you coming around here anymore.
00:17:04.880 --> 00:17:16.319
And his only flaw in that regard was that he was brutally honest, which we tell everybody we want in our lives that hey, I want you to be honest with me, right?
00:17:16.799 --> 00:17:21.599
But then there are times that people who are brutally honest get punished.
00:17:22.480 --> 00:17:50.559
So I started to see a decline, his vision got worse, and after he left Florida, he went back to New Jersey, he was hospitalized for a while, he got better and he came into some money and he bought himself a home in Appomattox, Virginia, where he had made a homemade, beautiful, professionally done sign.
00:17:51.039 --> 00:18:00.400
He named the place Quest's End, and he had a pineapple that he engraved with a router on there and made this beautiful sign.
00:18:00.799 --> 00:18:16.000
We put it up at the end of his driveway, and and for those who aren't familiar with it, the pineapple is a symbol of hospitality from way, way back in the days of wooden ships and iron men.
00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:20.160
And that was at the end of his driveway.
00:18:20.319 --> 00:18:25.200
And if you were lucky enough to be Tom's friend, you were always welcome there.
00:18:25.440 --> 00:18:28.640
And you didn't need an invitation.
00:18:30.640 --> 00:18:35.920
I remember very clearly the day that Tommy died.
00:18:36.559 --> 00:18:54.880
My daughter and I were visiting my parents, and the phone came, and the number on the caller ID was a 732 area code, and that was from New Jersey, and I knew it wasn't good news.
00:18:55.039 --> 00:19:07.519
It turns out it was Tommy's brother, and um his eldest brother, whose name also happens to be Michael, Tommy held him in very, very high regard, and rightfully so.
00:19:07.680 --> 00:19:09.200
Michael is a great man.
00:19:09.519 --> 00:19:15.759
Uh, he was a firefighter by trade, and he saved an awful lot of people's lives.
00:19:15.920 --> 00:19:27.039
Uh, Tommy's father passed when Tommy was fairly young, and in addition to being his older brother, Michael kind of stepped in and filled that role as a father figure.
00:19:27.279 --> 00:19:30.640
And I remember when Michael told me that he was gone.
00:19:30.799 --> 00:19:41.200
I can see my father sitting in his chair, I can see my mother sitting in her chair, I could see my daughter sitting in the chair she used to sit at when we would go to visit around the table.
00:19:41.680 --> 00:19:47.599
And I got off the phone and I tried extremely hard to keep it together.
00:19:47.839 --> 00:19:50.720
I certainly did not break down in front of people.
00:19:51.680 --> 00:20:07.920
Um, but I remember each of them, my mother and father knew how much Tommy had meant to me and how much he had helped me over the years, and they were trying to figure out something comforting to say.
00:20:08.640 --> 00:20:19.359
And I remember my daughter looking at me, and she got up and came over and gave me a big hug, and she started to cry, and she just whispered, I'm gonna miss my Uncle Tommy.
00:20:20.480 --> 00:20:23.759
It was a very, very, very powerful day.
00:20:24.799 --> 00:20:26.400
A very powerful day.
00:20:26.559 --> 00:20:30.720
You know, she and she and Tommy had a very unique relationship.
00:20:30.799 --> 00:20:33.519
They got on like peanut butter and jelly.
00:20:34.079 --> 00:20:43.680
And Tom had taught her things that well, some of which you weren't gonna learn in a classroom just well, because it was Tommy.
00:20:44.240 --> 00:20:57.759
But some things, you know, it just as a side note, there are certain things as a parent that you should not teach your children for a variety of reasons.
00:20:57.920 --> 00:20:59.599
One of them, for example, is driving.
00:20:59.680 --> 00:21:09.119
It's it's always better to pay a professional driving school or you know, because you tend to be much harder and much more nerved up because they're your children.
00:21:09.359 --> 00:21:17.759
One of the other things you should never teach your children how to do on your own, if if you can help it, is to shoot a gun.
00:21:18.319 --> 00:21:24.160
And Tommy was a certified instructor by the National Rifle Association.
00:21:24.240 --> 00:21:27.440
He used to teach the instructors to teach people how to shoot.
00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:32.559
And he was so kind and so gentle and so patient with my daughter.
00:21:32.880 --> 00:21:50.240
He took a young lady who was terrified of the pops and the bangs and the cracks and the booms, and within four hours had taught her how to put almost a thousand rounds of ammunition downrange safely and not be afraid of that rifle.
00:21:50.799 --> 00:21:59.599
And at the end of the day, he told her how proud he was of her, and he said, I'm teaching you something that I hope you never have to use.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:09.440
And if you get nothing else out of today, I want you to remember if you or your friends are in a park and you find a gun, it is not a toy.
00:22:09.680 --> 00:22:11.119
Don't touch it.
00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:13.920
Get your parents, call the police.
00:22:14.079 --> 00:22:14.799
Don't touch it.
00:22:14.960 --> 00:22:16.319
It's not a toy.
00:22:16.799 --> 00:22:20.160
It was an amazing gift.
00:22:20.240 --> 00:22:24.559
And it again, that was a day that I would certainly never forget either.
00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:33.519
So we're at a point in the program where we're going to give some shout outs, and we're going to give some shout-outs in honor of Tommy.
00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:38.880
The first shout-out we're going to give is to Appomattox, Virginia.
00:22:39.119 --> 00:22:42.400
I knew my friend for a long time.
00:22:43.359 --> 00:22:47.680
And in Appomattox, Virginia, he was truly happiest.
00:22:47.839 --> 00:22:50.000
It was it's a beautiful town.
00:22:50.240 --> 00:22:53.359
It gave him everything out of life that he wanted.
00:22:53.599 --> 00:22:55.920
He made some wonderful friends.
00:22:56.160 --> 00:23:02.799
You know, it has been said, half kidding, half seriously, that northerners and southerners can't truly be friends.
00:23:03.039 --> 00:23:06.319
But the Southerners down there never met anybody like Tommy.
00:23:06.480 --> 00:23:10.799
And um, they absolutely adored him, just like all of us who knew him did.
00:23:12.400 --> 00:23:16.160
The second shout out I'd like to give is to the New York Giants.
00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:22.000
That was Tommy's favorite professional sport team of all time, anywhere.
00:23:22.319 --> 00:23:24.319
He loved them when they were terrible.
00:23:24.480 --> 00:23:26.799
He loved them when they were world champions.
00:23:27.920 --> 00:23:33.279
Many of our conversations were how they went from bad to good and then good to great.
00:23:33.440 --> 00:23:35.359
And he was so proud of them.
00:23:35.680 --> 00:23:40.640
He was devastated when they lost a game, and he was ecstatic when they won.
00:23:40.960 --> 00:23:46.160
And a lot of great memories with Tommy because of the New York Giants.
00:23:46.400 --> 00:23:52.720
And the last shout out that I want to give is to the Polaris Corporation that make the all-terrain vehicles.
00:23:53.279 --> 00:23:59.200
When Tommy got sick and he had difficulty walking, he couldn't go outside and hike anymore.
00:23:59.519 --> 00:24:03.759
So his Polaris ATV was his legs.
00:24:04.640 --> 00:24:11.440
And he got around his 150 acres on that Polaris ATV for years.
00:24:11.759 --> 00:24:13.200
Never had a problem with it.
00:24:13.359 --> 00:24:14.400
It never failed him.
00:24:14.559 --> 00:24:16.000
It never broke down.
00:24:16.799 --> 00:24:19.839
Did everything he asked it to do.
00:24:20.240 --> 00:24:24.640
Getting from points A to B to clearing big trees that fell across the trail.
00:24:25.599 --> 00:24:28.640
Can't say enough good things about Polaris ATVs.
00:24:28.720 --> 00:24:42.079
So if you've never had the pleasure of driving one and you've decided that you're leaving the city and you're buying some land and you need something to get you from point A to point B on your land, go pick up a Polaris.
00:24:42.400 --> 00:24:45.119
And please think of a great man when you do.
00:24:49.359 --> 00:24:57.680
Coming up with a succinct list of the lessons that Tommy taught me is very, very, very difficult.
00:24:59.519 --> 00:25:02.640
But I've narrowed it down to five.
00:25:05.119 --> 00:25:10.960
And I'd like to share them with you so that you can incorporate them into your own lives.
00:25:11.440 --> 00:25:14.960
And maybe by doing so, Tommy lives on.
00:25:15.119 --> 00:25:17.680
He never married and he had no children.
00:25:18.400 --> 00:25:23.759
So as of right now, his legacy is in the hearts of those of us who loved him.
00:25:24.640 --> 00:25:28.160
So I'm going to share some of the things he taught me with you now.
00:25:28.559 --> 00:25:33.119
Number one was that people were more important than things.
00:25:34.400 --> 00:25:41.599
As I mentioned, wherever I was in the world, he would say, I don't care what time, call me.
00:25:42.240 --> 00:25:48.480
I would call him at one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning, Eastern Standard Time.
00:25:49.599 --> 00:25:54.559
Never angry, never growly, never snapping, never what the hell's the matter with you?
00:25:54.720 --> 00:26:00.079
You know, was always, hey bud, I'm awful glad to hear your voice.
00:26:00.400 --> 00:26:01.279
Give me a second.
00:26:01.359 --> 00:26:09.920
I'm gonna make a cup of coffee or I'm gonna get a diet coke and let me shake the cobwebs out and wake up and talk to you for a bit.
00:26:10.640 --> 00:26:16.160
People, i.e., me, was more important to Tommy than sleep.
00:26:17.839 --> 00:26:20.559
He would say, I can take a nap anytime.
00:26:20.880 --> 00:26:22.480
I can't talk to you anytime.
00:26:22.559 --> 00:26:24.480
You're halfway around the world.
00:26:25.119 --> 00:26:27.599
People are more important than things.
00:26:29.119 --> 00:26:37.599
The second thing that he showed me by living his example is no matter what you do, to do your best.
00:26:39.279 --> 00:26:42.240
Don't give anybody a half-hearted effort.
00:26:43.279 --> 00:26:50.720
If you're being paid to weld a canoe, then make sure that the welding job that you did looks good.
00:26:51.279 --> 00:26:53.599
It looks like a professional welder did it.
00:26:53.680 --> 00:26:55.759
Do it to the best of your ability.
00:26:56.480 --> 00:27:07.839
Don't just put the rod up next to it and strike the arc or you know, turn on the welding machine and make it look like little piles of bird poop everywhere.
00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:09.200
Make it look good.
00:27:09.599 --> 00:27:17.839
Take the time to grind it and sand it and paint it, and make it look like it was fixed by a professional.
00:27:19.359 --> 00:27:22.640
No matter what you do, do your best.
00:27:25.279 --> 00:27:26.640
Number three.
00:27:28.079 --> 00:27:33.200
No matter how bad it gets, always keep your sense of humor.
00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:47.200
Tommy had the most unique and warped sense of humor from anybody that I've met on the five continents that I've been on.
00:27:47.680 --> 00:27:51.200
But in retrospect, it was a beautiful sense of humor.
00:27:52.160 --> 00:27:56.000
And as his health deteriorated, his mind never failed him.
00:27:56.079 --> 00:27:59.519
He was always quick-witted, he was always sharp.
00:28:01.119 --> 00:28:18.079
But no matter how much pain he was in, no matter what trials and tribulations he had because of the complications of diabetes, he never got angry, he never got nasty, he never got mean, he never got bitter.
00:28:18.400 --> 00:28:21.599
He always found a way to put a funny face on it.
00:28:21.920 --> 00:28:27.359
When I would drive down to Virginia on a long weekend to see him and say, What do you feel like doing, buddy?
00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:33.680
He'd say, Well, I'm really not up for training for a triathlon today.
00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:53.440
And it took a lot of the awkwardness out because a lot of times when you talk about remember when's, it was, hey, remember when we hiked through Camp Boyhaven, or remember when we fixed the repelling tower and then we had to try it out by ourselves?
00:28:53.599 --> 00:28:55.759
Well, he couldn't do that stuff anymore.
00:28:56.240 --> 00:29:01.039
But he enjoyed talking about it because they were great memories for him, too.
00:29:01.359 --> 00:29:03.200
He always kept a sense of humor.
00:29:03.359 --> 00:29:17.119
When the diabetes progressed to the point where they started amputating toes and then half of a foot and then an entire foot and then legs below the knee, he never got angry.
00:29:18.799 --> 00:29:25.920
What he would do is talk to people who might just have been diagnosed with diabetes and said, Hey, don't do what I did.
00:29:26.240 --> 00:29:27.680
I ignored it.
00:29:28.559 --> 00:29:31.039
I pretended it wasn't a thing.
00:29:31.440 --> 00:29:34.079
And then my baby toe turned black.
00:29:34.319 --> 00:29:36.480
And then we were off to the races.
00:29:38.319 --> 00:29:43.279
But he always told his story with an amazing sense of humor.
00:29:45.519 --> 00:29:55.599
One of his favorite sayings was that commitments are easy when your bed is warm and your belly is full.
00:29:56.799 --> 00:30:06.480
And the first time I heard him say that, I'm 19 years old, and well, to be very honest, I didn't understand what it meant.
00:30:06.880 --> 00:30:43.359
But as you go through life and you hit your trials and your tribulations, I think what he was trying to tell us was that when you're going through a rough time, you know, if somebody else that's a friend of yours is well fed, they've got a safe place to stay, to sleep, to lay their head down, it's a lot easier for somebody like that to help you than it is from somebody who's going through their own struggle.
00:30:46.720 --> 00:30:55.200
And as the years went by and I analyzed that statement, I didn't necessarily want to agree with him that he was right.
00:30:56.079 --> 00:31:02.960
But cutting to the chase to where I am at this point in my own amazing journey, I find it to be very true.
00:31:03.039 --> 00:31:06.079
And I find it to be very true even for myself.
00:31:06.319 --> 00:31:13.519
It's a lot easier for me to be helpful to people when things are going well in my life.
00:31:14.079 --> 00:31:32.000
But the corollary to that message that Tommy was trying to pass along to me and the wisdom that goes with it is even when you're not at your menacing best, there's a pretty good chance that somebody you love is going to need help with something.
00:31:33.359 --> 00:31:36.880
And give them your best, even if you're not at your best.
00:31:39.440 --> 00:31:53.599
And the last and most important lesson that Tommy taught me was that your loyalty to people that you love and care about should be paramount above everything else.
00:31:54.160 --> 00:32:07.359
If you're with somebody, a friend, a romantic partner, a work acquaintance, you stand with them.
00:32:09.039 --> 00:32:14.400
If they're wrong, you tell them they're wrong in private, but you stand with them.
00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:18.960
And don't stab anybody in the back.
00:32:20.720 --> 00:32:24.319
Don't step on a workplace acquaintance to get a promotion.
00:32:24.559 --> 00:32:29.359
If you have to step on them to get that workplace promotion, they're already better than you.
00:32:29.519 --> 00:32:32.079
And they deserve the promotion and not you.
00:32:32.640 --> 00:32:39.759
Because if you were that good, nine out of ten times, you would have gotten the promotion by default because you were better.
00:32:41.759 --> 00:32:48.000
But regardless, be loyal and don't ever reward loyalty with abandonment.
00:32:51.359 --> 00:32:55.039
I've done an awful lot of eulogies in my life.
00:32:57.359 --> 00:33:01.839
I've buried a lot of people that have meant something to me.
00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:05.839
And that's part of our amazing journey in life, right?
00:33:08.240 --> 00:33:12.000
The older you get, if you're still here, you're going to lose people.
00:33:14.720 --> 00:33:19.680
Tommy was a loss that, quite frankly, I've never recovered from.
00:33:21.119 --> 00:33:27.759
Because a friend like Tommy is almost like a once-in-a-lifetime event.
00:33:27.920 --> 00:33:34.240
You do not get too many people of that caliber in your life.
00:33:35.359 --> 00:33:47.359
And and to lose my best friend at 38 years old and realize that I'm never gonna have a male friend like him again.
00:33:48.319 --> 00:33:51.440
That was that was an oui, as the little kids say.
00:33:51.599 --> 00:33:52.559
That was an owie.
00:33:54.799 --> 00:34:00.640
The good news is I think of him often.
00:34:01.759 --> 00:34:13.840
I remember our great times fondly, and I've never forgotten the lessons that he taught me, not only by his words, but more importantly by his deeds.
00:34:16.559 --> 00:34:31.599
So I've gotten to the point in my amazing journey where when the anniversary of his death comes around, it's about 30 seconds of sadness because I do miss him in this realm.
00:34:33.440 --> 00:34:39.599
Followed by several hours of oh my word, I can't believe he did that.
00:34:41.440 --> 00:34:49.599
As in most cases with The Amazing Journey, some of the best stories cannot be told on a family-friendly program such as this.
00:34:50.159 --> 00:34:51.840
But there were a lot of them.
00:34:54.639 --> 00:34:56.320
Rest in peace, Tommy.
00:34:56.559 --> 00:34:59.199
I know you're up in heaven holding court.
00:35:00.159 --> 00:35:04.400
I know heaven wasn't the same after you got there.
00:35:06.159 --> 00:35:13.039
I know the lives of the people that you touched here were never the same after you came into them.
00:35:14.880 --> 00:35:16.480
I miss you, buddy.
00:35:17.280 --> 00:35:18.559
And I love you.
00:35:18.800 --> 00:35:19.920
Always will.
00:35:21.280 --> 00:35:23.920
Friends, I can't believe our time is up already.
00:35:24.079 --> 00:35:25.840
I say it every week.
00:35:26.480 --> 00:35:34.559
Thank you again for taking the time to listen to me, to hear me out, to let me reminisce about my best friend.
00:35:35.039 --> 00:35:36.400
It means the world to me.
00:35:36.559 --> 00:35:42.400
I know you can spend a half an hour doing anything, and you're choosing to spend it with me.
00:35:42.800 --> 00:35:45.440
So once again, thank you.
00:35:46.719 --> 00:35:50.880
Drop me a note at AmazingJourneypodcast at PM.me.
00:35:51.280 --> 00:35:55.440
Once again, that's AmazingJourney Podcast at PM.me.
00:35:56.079 --> 00:35:58.079
I welcome your comments.
00:35:59.519 --> 00:36:05.519
Until we get together again, this is your friend Mike, and I'm signing off.
