An Old Friend Missed

Chasing a Catharsis

Back in Ohio after an absence of over 30 years.  I was there to do some work for a client in Columbus.  The job required a couple of weekend layovers. I took advantage of that chance to look up some junior high and high school friends in Huron, a small town on Lake Erie about 120 miles north of Columbus.  Huron is a town of around 7,000 in the winter.  In the summer it used to swell to twice that size, filling with inland folks who wanted to spend time on the lake.

The roads between Columbus and Lake Erie are remarkable in the spring.  They are filled with beautiful rolling hills, picturesque farms and dense forests. It was wonderful to see them again and great to be on my way to a town where I had spent many of my formative years. We moved around a lot when I was a kid but to me Huron was my hometown so you can imagine I was pretty fired up about the trip.   The fact that I got to be dazzled by the countryside while on my way was just frosting on the proverbial cake.

One friend I would not see on this trip however was Tom Cook.  Tom was a classmate of mine in the ninth and tenth grades.  At that time we both lived in Laylin’s Court just outside of Huron. Laylin’s was a blue-collar combination of cottages and house trailers right on the beach of Lake Erie.  Some folks lived there year ‘round and that’s what we did in one of the rental cottages.  Others, the ones with a few extra bucks, owned most of the trailers and would come in mainly from the Cleveland area to spend summer weekends.

Tom Cook, George Walbeck, TC, Jim Cunningham,
(Dick Haley not pictured)
Franklin's Flat Camping

Tom was a couple of years older than me and was behind a couple of years of school.  That put us in the same grade.  He was sure smart enough so I think he had flunked because school was never important to him.  He had worked part time and had received a little financial help from his Mom so he could have a car. It was a ’38 Plymouth I think, bone stock and in fairly decrepit condition.  It was beautiful to me though because it represented a certain freedom I did not yet have.

The summer before my freshman year I was working toward attending the Maryknoll missionary high school in Syracuse, New York in preparation for the seminary.  I don’t think I had any particular calling.  I was just thirteen and it sounded like a cool thing to do.  It just seemed to be a logical next step from my experience at Huron’s Saint Peter’s Catholic elementary school.  I had interviewed with a couple of traveling Maryknoll priests and was an active candidate for the school.  

But then one day I was swimming in Lake Erie just off the beach where our cottages were and I met a girl named Patty. 

Her folks were Irish or Scottish immigrants and they had just moved up from the South as so many did during that time to work in the auto factories.  Patty was a beauty with a killer smile.  We swapped some insults and in the process I noticed she had this beguiling way of talking with a combined Scottish and southern accent.  It was love at first sight, or so I thought, so I immediately dumped the missionary idea in favor of more basic instincts.  When high school started Patty took the place by storm and had all kinds of guys chasing her so my time in her life was limited. 

Eventually a guy named Dick took center stage with Patty.  I guess he was a little jealous of me though because he started rattling my cage.  For example, once I was standing by my locker in between classes with a load of books tucked under my arm when he came up behind me and tipped them out of my arm to the floor.  I just stood there thinking; “What was that?”  I didn’t know whether it was a simple joke or an act of aggression but I had my suspicions. 

Now Dick was over six feet tall and I was probably five and a half feet tall at the time.  One day I headed into the bathroom in our school cafeteria.  Tom Cook was behind me.  As I entered, Tom pinned my arms behind me and Dick, who was standing in front of me, shoved a fruit pie in my face.  Just as he did that, Tom released my arms and I caught most of the fruit pie as it fell.  Instinctively, I shoved the pie right back in Dick’s face. 

Dick grabbed my shirt and punched me in the chin.  It wasn’t very hard though.  I think we were both pretty surprised by the events that had just occurred.  He stood there looking shocked and that was pretty much the end of the incident.  Except…from that point Dick and Tom were my friends.

Dick and I would later sign on to work in Cedar Point's Hotel Breakers - on the clipper and busing tables.  It was a daily summer commute we often punctuated by stopping at the A&W for chili dogs and an orange soda. It’s funny how these things go when you are a kid…how friendships can arise out of conflict.

Tom had a real ironic outlook on things and, in my completely uninformed naive opinion, a ton of common sense. He had a tendency to curl his lip and smile in good times and bad. So you always thought he maybe knew something (About life? About the situation?) that no one else did.  He also smoked, drank and knew all the standard cuss words.  This gave him that grown up and worldly aura that impressed our whole crowd.

I was just learning things like how to cuss and, in fact, would often engage in conversations where I would find myself using completely unfamiliar words.  What I mean is I didn’t know what part of the anatomy or what sort of activity they were referring to.  I was clueless in a very "ignorance is bliss" sort of way.

Tom also had this combination flat top and duck tail hairstyle with a curl centered in front. I think the Italians from the “Little Italy” section of Huron referred to the curl as a “pachuco.” I believe “pachuco” had some vague reference to being a gang member or something.  I didn’t know how he got his hair to do that but I knew I wanted mine to do the same thing and it wouldn’t quite work, no matter how heavy I loaded it down with whatever greasy substance was at hand. 

Tom would do 50 pushups and 50 sit ups at the start of his day, every day that I knew him which was at least a couple of years.  I don’t know where he got the motivation– maybe he wanted to stay in shape for football.  I was in awe and to this day wish I had thought to imitate him.  Also, he had that car which to me was a symbol of complete independence. 

I was just coming out of eighth grade and a very sheltered existence as a student at Saint Peter’s so you can see that Tom was the coolest person I had ever met up to that point.  He was a classic teen angel and bad looking dude and my first hero.  I was the “wannabe” but I learned fast. 

Tom always treated me pretty square.  Since we were neighbors, I hung around bugging him a lot and he would give me rides to school.  We also hung out together from time to time– attending area school dances, beer parties (!), camping and so on. I appreciated that a lot.  After all, I am sure I was just a naïve broke kid in his eyes. I didn’t have much to contribute to the relationship but for some unknown reason, Tom put up with me.

I lost touch with Tom after moving from Ohio to Seattle, Washington in 1962 in the middle of my junior year.  I never forgot him though.  Then, sometime in the Eighties I was on the phone talking to another old friend from those days who was still living in Huron, Dave Sprankel. 

He told me in the late 70's Tom had been on his motorcycle and had a fatal encounter with a billboard.  He also told me Tom had always been the first in the area to get the newest machine, things like snowmobiles, bikes and so on.  I don’t know why I wasn’t surprised, about the machines that is.  It sort of sounded like Tom I guess.  Tom had only made it to his late 30’s.  If I could spend five minutes talking to him right now today I’ll bet we would both be rolling on the floor in laughter over those amazing high school days.  We would certainly share a common love for motorcycles.

A Jog in the Rain

And so, while I was in Huron I decided to try and find Tom and pay my last respects even though I was twenty years late.  My old friend Dave did a little investigating and handed me a slip of paper with Tom’s plot information on it.  I found out the cemetery was a couple of miles from town and decided to jog out there to see him on an early morning visit.

It was a little cloudy but very pleasant when I left Captain Montague's B&B where I was staying. I took off at an easy jogging pace looking forward to the visit and not worrying about the weather at all.  I had received directions and took the turns I thought I was supposed to be taking but there was a lot of farmland out there and I was getting a little concerned about getting lost.  Then, it started raining. 

It was a fairly heavy but warm rain and was comfortable enough so I decided to press on with the jogging.  Just when I was getting pretty soaked and thinking I would turn around, I saw the cemetery ahead.  I went in and began looking for Tom.  It took me a while to figure out how the plots were laid out.  At the very moment I did find him though, it stopped raining. 

I know it was just a coincidence but it doesn’t take too much imagination to think it could have been Tom’s way of saying, “Hey, glad you could visit!  What?  Are you just stopping by so you can bum a ride to school?” 

I hadn’t figured out what to say when I got there.  So, I just said, “Tom.  We had some great times together.  I loved you like a brother, I have missed you and I will never forget you.  I will see you again.”

*****

Note: This story would later be a dedication to Tom in my book about riding Harley Davidson's; "Badass."  A few years ago I tracked down Tom's son through an old pal in Ohio.  I called him to mention I was an old friend and ask if I could send him a copy of my book dedicated to his father, free of course.  I thought he might like a story about his Dad.  Must have caught him in a bad moment as he declined. I still don't don't know why and I still don't know his Mother's (Tom's wife?) name.