What can I say. Tom and I were friends. Shared an apartment for a few years. Watched tough guy movies and enjoyed the savage pleasure of inhabiting a male space in defiance of these narrow feminized times.
Sam Peckinpah’s Wild Bunch was a favorite movie. I remember that as blood and thunder burst from the screen, Tom sat calmly before a giant magnifying glass and made fishing lures. Like the rough and tumble characters of the movie, Tom was not a religious person but he was ironically a terrific fisherman.
My best memory of Tom is when Peckinpah visited Houston. One day he turned up at the SWAMP offices, where Tom handed him a bullet inscribed with Peckinpah’s name. “This bullet has your name on it”, he proudly announced much to the amusement of old Sam.
Thinking of Tom now I’m reminded of a line from Larry McMurtry where a dead cowboy is eulogized. “Served in seven campaigns against the Comanches and Kiowas. Cheerful in all weathers. Splendid behavior.”
Adios, Tom.
