A Complete Gentleman

     When the movie ended and the credits rolled, I stood up from my theater seat to scan all the attendees in the movie theater.  I knew the chance was slim that Tommy was there, but it wouldn't have surprised me if he were.  I thought how it was similar to that time my good friend Doug texted me hours before the Springsteen concert in Albany last year.  I hadn't heard from Doug in years and hadn't seen him in twelve since he moved to upstate New York. But he was going to the show, and he knew the chance of me taking the road trip to see Bruce was pretty good.  He was right.  We met after the concert and talked up old times.  This morning, if Tommy were in the theater, it would make perfect sense.

     The movie was A Complete Unknown, a new biopic about the early years of Bob Dylan's musical career.  Tommy was the only true die-hard Dylan fan that I knew.  And him being in the theater, the first showing the morning after its Christmas day release, was a decent possibility.  Then again, I thought, he probably went to the first showing the day before - not wanting to wait - the birthday of our Lord and Savior notwithstanding.  Or maybe he had gone to a special VIP pre-release premiere.  With his connections to the music world and its artists, that wouldn't be unheard of.  Like Doug, I hadn't seen Tommy in a lot of years, but while watching the movie, he was forefront in my mind. 

     As well as a journalism professor, Tommy was a longtime columnist for our regional newspaper, The Springfield Republican, which later changed its name to The Union News.  During his tenure there, he worked in several departments over three-plus decades, prolifically writing about everything from sports, to politics, to current events.  On all levels: local, national, and global.  His love of sports and music seemed to be his two biggest passions.  His book, Dingers - the 101 Most Memorable Homeruns in Baseball History, is one example of his love for baseball.  He also wrote regular reviews on local and big-name musical artists, critiquing albums as well as concert performances.  His last few years, he took to writing a thrice-weekly column about everyday people of the neighborhood community.  A sort of "ordinary folk/unsung hero" type of feature.  That's how we met.