Eulogy For Tom Thoms, Nov 6th 2017

I met Tom in a faculty-reading group in the late 1990’s at Pearl River Community College.  I was a young, new faculty member and was more than a little in awe of Tom.  Tom was a cool, veteran teacher whose classes immediately filled up when open registration began.  Tom was the old-school guy with the stacks of big yellow legal pads.  He was the guy who used chalk and hand wrote his notes long hand every day on the board for his classes.  Tom was the larger than life guy with a mustache that gave Tom Selleck a run for the money.  He was the guy with an infectious grin who loved talking about politics, the stock market, and Mississippi State football.  Tom was the guy everyone wanted to hang out with at lunch.  Tom had a lunch posse that was legendary; they were so cool, they ate lunch off campus on Fridays.   I was not a part of that lunch posse early on, but through the faculty reading group, Tom became my friend.  

For almost two decades, we worked together and played together; we celebrated happy times with and for each other; we shared some tough and even sad times with each other, both professionally and personally.  I’d like to think that I’ve become a better person from having a friend like Tom.  I know I’ve become a better football fan through discussing the highs and lows of Mississippi State and Auburn football with my friend Tom.   I am grateful that Tom was a part of my life.

I’m an English teacher, so I like metaphors.  I’d like to tell you a bit about my friend and colleague, Tom, through a sports metaphor.  Early on in our friendship, one of the ways our relationship developed was through the game of golf.  Neither of us was very good at golf.  In fact, most folks would probably consider us duffers.  But we were graceful duffers.  And I’m not talking about “graceful” in the physical sense.  I’m talking about being “graceful” in the spiritual sense.  We had graceful rules like, “You can take two tee shots off the first hole,” and “A bad lie is your own fault.”  Between us both there were so many foot wedges and hand mashies, and mulligans and “do overs” that I’m convinced the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ was right there in the midst of every single round that Tom and I ever played together.

Tom and I were both convinced that life was a lot like golf.  Life, like golf takes place somewhere between the ridiculous and the sublime.  When my golf game was not going well and things on the course were at their most absurd, my friend Tom was right there beside me, a witness to my shortcomings and my plights, always the listener, ever the encourager, ready with advice and positive feedback.  One of his favorite sayings when a round was going poorly was, “Well, Eric, sometimes you just gotta grind through it.”  In the classroom, Tom was the same way with his students.  No matter what a student was going though, he was right there beside them, encouraging them to grind through the challenges of both their academic and their personal lives.  Tom’s office was next to mine.  When he was in his office, the door was always wide open.  When he wasn’t there, his door was rarely locked.  Over the years I have heard Tom counsel, tutor, and mentor students semester after semester, year after year.   There are reasons Tom was one of the most popular instructors on campus.  He was one of the best in the classroom, making the world of psychology come to life for his students.  If you want proof go to YOUTUBE and type in “Tom Thoms and His Elephant Impression.”  You are in for a 15 second treat of what life in class with Mr. Thoms was all about.   

Tom had the ability to connect with the individual student both in and out of the classroom and help them through the tough parts of life both on and off campus.  The highlight of my academic year was getting to team teach the Leadership Honors Forum each spring with my friend, Tom.  I got to work with Tom week in and week out, preparing and then teaching with him in the same classroom.  I got to witness the joy he brought to students’ lives as he taught.  I got to learn how to be a better teacher and a better person by watching Tom in front of the students.  I got to see first hand why Tom was an excellent choice for the Pearl River Community College Mississippi Humanities Counsel Teacher of the Year award.  The words of our colleague Genny Kemp sum it up best, “Tom was a difference maker.”

On the rare occasions when my golf game actually went well, my friend Tom was right there in those few sublime moments, celebrating joyously my successes and achievements, with high fives, fist bumps, and his unmistakable and infectious million dollar grin that we all know and love.  Tom brought this same enthusiasm and joy to my life off the course.  I will never forget the day Kate, my daughter, was born.  I got to introduce her to my friend, Tom Thoms.  That ranked right up there with getting to show Kate off to my own dad.   I’ve seen Tom celebrate just as enthusiastically with students as they succeeded on assignments, barely passed exams, or came back to campus to let him know what had been going on in their lives after they left Pearl River.  

M. Scott Peck says that love is an activity, an investment.  And I think this is what made Tom a true friend and a great teacher.  Tom had a special connection to people because he took an active role in our lives and invested in us as individuals.  One quick golf story about Tom precisely illustrates what Peck was getting at.  Tom loved new golf clubs.  He always chased the illusive “new” club that would immediately take three strokes off his score.  For Christmas one year, Linda gave Tom a very nice fairway wood.  Tom was so excited about this club he could hardly stand it.  The problem was that after several rounds of playing with this new club, Tom figured out he couldn’t hit it a lick.  So – for the next several rounds it just sat in his bag.  At some point, Tom offered to let me swing the club.  And I did.  And it was AWESOME!  It took three strokes off MY score.  The next time we played, I asked to borrow the club and Tom said without any hesitation, “Sure.”  It worked so well for me that I kept borrowing it out of his bag until one day he said, “Eric, why don’t you just keep it in your bag awhile.”  That club is still in my bag. 

Since Tom was a chemical engineer before he became a psychologist and later a teacher of psychology, I thought it almost a necessity to invoke Carl Jung’s quote about relationships.  Jung said, “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances:  if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”  If you were a part of Tom’s life – a family member, a student, a colleague, a friend – you know what kind of a reaction and transformation Tom had on your life.   I am confident that Tom’s ability to touch our lives in the ways that he did was largely due to the love and grace he had for each of us.  I am also confident that Tom’s love and grace flowed from the transforming relationship he had with his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.   And I am confident that because of the transforming power of grace, fellow believers in Jesus will one day sit down at the Lord’s lunch table.  And at that lunch table will be our friend Tom, grinning ear to ear.  And we will celebrate together Christ’s victory over death. 

Halloween 2017

Halloween 2016

                                            

                                                      Captain Spaulding, Rey, and Paul Finebaum

Happy Halloween 2015

Never Forget . . .

He that dwells in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.  Psalms 91:1

Go USA Women's Soccer!

Special K getting ready for USA vs Sweden with home-made Bangers and Mash!

hamlet's plight

the world wobbles on its axis
as atlas stumbles.
the stars' light hurtles through the universe
already extinct,
evidence that the center of this galactic machine
will not hold.

though the rough beast's deafening roar
creates chaos and the weak lose their way,
against all odds, i shout above the noise
the words of denmark's sweet prince,

"never doubt my love!
i love thee best, most best!
thine, evermore!"

a news clip for my daughter . . .

. . . and for all the others who are being force-fed the hoax of man-made global warming.

HYSA U-8 Girls Champions

A huge thank you to Coach Casey and Keg and Barrel for a fun spring on the pitch!  Congratulations Girls!

USA, USA, USA!!!!

Sadly and paradoxically, put out by a bailed out company that was too big to fail.  Still - we need more of this sort of pride in and verbalization of these bedrock principles of our country.

Alfonzo Rachel . . . Wow.

I may be late to the party here, but today I stumbled upon a true patriot, Alfonzo Rachel.  This video is an awesome 20 minute rebuttal of the drivel that is passed off as history these days from K12 on up to IHL.  Thank you Mr. Rachel and keep up the good work.

Rare Snow Day in South MS

per the request of my favorite aunt . . . more peeks at Elizabeth Ave

Two of my favorite things . . . Christmas and Auburn Football

Special K's Eighth B-Day at the Beach!

   

Cousins on the Sand Couch


   

December at the Gulf


   

Sand Castle Cake


   

Cowboys win!  Auburn wins!  Pie all around!


   

Fishin' with Pop-Pop


 

Happy Birthday, Girl!  We love you!  Mommy and Papa.

These are two of my favorite things: Cellos and Star Wars

Go to this link so you can see the full screen version on youtube. Four of the best minutes of your life The Piano Guys

Four Poems

 When prepping for a poetry unit in an English 102 class, certain poems always halt me in my tracks.  Here are four of my favorites.

Oranges, by Gary Soto

The first time I walked
With a girl, I was twelve,
Cold, and weighted down
With two oranges in my jacket.
December. Frost cracking
Beneath my steps, my breath
Before me, then gone,
As I walked toward
Her house, the one whose
Porch light burned yellow
Night and day, in any weather.
A dog barked at me, until
She came out pulling
At her gloves, face bright
With rouge. I smiled,
Touched her shoulder, and led
Her down the street, across
A used car lot and a line
Of newly planted trees,
Until we were breathing
Before a drugstore. We
Entered, the tiny bell
Bringing a saleslady
Down a narrow aisle of goods.
I turned to the candies
Tiered like bleachers,
And asked what she wanted -
Light in her eyes, a smile
Starting at the corners
Of her mouth. I fingered
A nickel in my pocket,
And when she lifted a chocolate
That cost a dime,
I didn’t say anything.
I took the nickel from
My pocket, then an orange,
And set them quietly on
The counter. When I looked up,
The lady’s eyes met mine,
And held them, knowing
Very well what it was all
About.

Outside,
A few cars hissing past,
Fog hanging like old
Coats between the trees.
I took my girl’s hand
In mine for two blocks,
Then released it to let
Her unwrap the chocolate.
I peeled my orange
That was so bright against
The gray of December
That, from some distance,
Someone might have thought
I was making a fire in my hands.

Snapping Beans, by Lisa Parker

I snapped beans into the silver bowl

that sat on the splintering slats

of the porchswing between my grandma and me.

I was home for the weekend,

from school, from the North,

Grandma hummed “What A Friend We Have in Jesus”

as the sun rose, pushing its pink spikes

through the slant of cornstalks,

through the fly-eyed mesh of the screen.

We didn’t speak until the sun overcame

the feathered tips of the cornfield

and Grandma stopped humming. I could feel

the soft gray of her stare

against the side of my face

when she asked, How’s school a-goin’?

I wanted to tell her about my classes,

the revelations by book and lecture,

as real as any shout of faith

and potent as a swig of strychnine.

She reached the leather of her hand

over the bowl and cupped

my quivering chin; the slick smooth of her palm

held my face the way she held tomatoes

under the spigot, careful not to drop them,

and I wanted to tell her

about the nights I cried into the familiar

heartsick panels of the quilt she made me,

wishing myself home on the evening star.

I wanted to tell her

the evening star was a planet,

that my friends wore noserings and wrote poetry

about sex, about alcoholism, about Buddha.

I wanted to tell her how my stomach burned

acidic holes at the thought of speaking in class,

speaking in an accent, speaking out of turn,

how I was tearing, splitting myself apart

with the slow-simmering guilt of being happy

despite it all.

I said, School’s fine.

We snapped beans into the silver bowl between us

and when a hickory leaf, still summer green,

skidded onto the porchfront,

Grandma said,

It’s funny how things blow loose like that.

First Thanksgiving, by Sharon Olds

     When she comes back, from college, I will see

     the skin of her upper arms, cool,

     matte, glossy. She will hug me, my old

     soupy chest against her breasts,

     I will smell her hair! She will sleep in this apartment,

     her sleep like an untamed, good object,

     like a soul in a body. She came into my life the

     second great arrival, after him, fresh

     from the other world—which lay, from within him,

     within me. Those nights, I fed her to sleep,

     week after week, the moon rising,

     and setting, and waxing—whirling, over the months,

     in a slow blur, around our planet.

     Now she doesn’t need love like that, she has

     had it. She will walk in glowing, we will talk,

     and then, when she’s fast asleep, I’ll exult

     to have her in that room again,

     behind that door! As a child, I caught

     bees, by the wings, and held them, some seconds,

     looked into their wild faces,

     listened to them sing, then tossed them back

     into the air—I remember the moment the

     arc of my toss swerved, and they entered

     the corrected curve of their departure.

Directly, by R. T. Smith

"I'll get it directly," she'd say, meaning

soon, meaning, when I can, meaning, not

yet, be patient, the world don't turn upon

your every need and whim. Or "the dogs

will be back home directly, I reckon," 

"the preacher will be finished," "your daddy

will see to you," "supper will be laid out"--

all "directly," which never meant the straight

line between two surveyor's points or

an arrow's flight, but rather, by the curve,

the indirect, the arc of life and breath,

and she was right, and when she passed 

or was passing, I could not say which,

in a patchwork quilt, the makeshift room,

the sweet hymn notes sung neighborly

across the hall, she whispered, "Learn to tell

what needs doing quick as a bluesnake

and what will take the slow way, full

of care and mulling, be fair in every

dealing with beasts and people and all

else alive, and surely, my dear, He will

come for you in His good time, the way

He comes for all of us, directly."

Halloween 2013

Pumpkin Shine

Swing Kids

What does the fox say?

Poltergeist, anyone?

Si and Phil

Is that Hal Wilkerson?

October Fun at Mitchell Farms

Never Forget