Memories of Tom To: Ellen, Rebecca, Elizabeth and Tom’s family. As I was taking my daily walk, which I usually use to meditate, I found my mind flooded with memories of Tom. I couldn’t shake them and decided to share them with you. I’ll attempt to keep things in chronological order. As you may know, Tom and I go WAY back! I’m referring to preschool days. I can remember playing with him in our back yards on Union St., in Enfield, CT. We lived in the same 4 family house; Tom lived with his mother and other relatives on the top floor and I lived with my mother, father, and brothers on the first floor. One weird episode I remember was when Tom and I where making believe we were eating sugar. Actually we both ate some fine sand; neither became ill, but possibly our digestion improved. I think Tom was the instigator of that activity. Another time he and I accidently ignited a shed formerly housing chickens. Fortunately there were some young adults around that helped us put out the fire! We did not have any nonsense with fire after that experience. Tom used to love to play with drumsticks and bang out a rhythm on wood or tin cans and eventually had a set of drums. I couldn’t even come close to matching him! Later of course his musical talents were expressed with the accordion; he was an accomplished musician with this instrument and even as a very young person, performed for audiences. Tom and I got a bit separated when we entered school. The kindergarten class was very large, so the administration decided to advance the older children to 1st grade. I am about 3 months older than Tom, so I was sent to 1st grade while Tom remained in kindergarten. From that time on I was one class year ahead of Tom all the way up to and including our College years. We were roommates at UConn for a couple of years and both joined the same Fraternity later on. Once I graduated from UConn our academic life and career paths separated us for a very long time. When we were kids, the Little League had just started in Enfield. The first group of teams formed; Al Frey and I were excluded because of our age. You couldn’t be 12 years old before Aug 1. Guess who was qualified, a guy named Tom O’Bram who happened to be born on Aug. 1. For me he became known as the luckiest 12-year-old guy in Enfield. Whenever I called him to wish him a happy birthday (well into our later years), I would begin with the phrase - “Happy Birthday to the luckiest kid in Enfield” Tom is probably known as a diehard Red Sox fan, but as a kid, he was a Yankee fan through and through! He used to calculate the batting averages of the entire Yankee team daily (caring out the calculation to the 4th decimal point)! He frequently complained to me that the newspapers had failed to the calculation accurately, because they didn’t correctly round off from the 4th decimal point. By the way his gift for figures was clearly evident even at a very young age. He would do many calculations in his head without the aid of a calculator or writing down the figures. He frequently would make up fantasy baseball leagues and of course the leading hitters were Mickey Mantle and/or Joe Dimaggio and the champion team was the New York Yankees. Everyone must all be aware of his competitiveness! Well he, a guy named Jimmy Viola, and myself were a working team on the Tobacco fields of Connecticut. Jimmy and Tom were the pickers (picking the tobacco leaves) and I was the hauler (the guy that would pick up the leaves, place them in the basket, and haul the baskets out of the row). We frequently were paid as pieceworkers, (we were paid by how many rows etc. we picked per hr/day etc.) Therefore speed was of the essence. Most of the time I couldn’t keep up with these guys! Frequently I wouldn’t see them until the end of the day. Besides making money we (particularly Tom) always wanted to beat the other teams, i.e., who made the most money that day; which team picked the most tobacco. This competition was intense! As you probably may know, Tom could be very persuasive. He talked me into many things that I had no intention of doing. Most of these activities though worked out quite well. When we were in the CYO, he talked me into being part of a song and routine for a benefit variety show. He enjoyed the honky-tonk piano player and the fact that we all dressed up with our Top Hats, Tuxedos, and canes and were the first ones on stage; I still remember all of the lyrics. In fact the girls had a portion of the song to learn and had some difficulty with it, so Tom and I learned their part as well and could queue them, if necessary. I knew that I should get my part down or answer to Tom. Another time he was a cast member of an Operetta (Mikado) being put on by the High School. I had attended several of the rehearsals, but was there merely as an observer. On the day of production, one of the members of Tom’s “Gentlemen of Japan” decides that he doesn’t want to do the show for the afternoon matinee. Tom then asks me to fill in for the matinee that was to be presented to the grammar school kids (I had not a single rehearsal, but Tom convinced me that all I had to do was watch him and go up and down as he did and merely mouth the lyrics). I had to do this without the benefit of my glasses (I was legally blind without them). At least I wouldn’t be intimidated by the audience, which I couldn’t see! So the matinee went OK, but then the fellow decided that he wasn’t going to do the regular performance! Tom assured me that since I had one run through, I had it down pat. Everything turned out well. If fact at my graduation I received a special award as an “Unsung Hero”. While in High School we both were participating in the Intramural Basketball League. The use of the term “participating” is very loose; the name of our team was the Remnants and so we played as our team name would aptly described our performance. While at UConn, Tom talked me into participating in an Intramural Track Meet, representing our Fraternity. Neither of us had done any practice/training or any running at all. Fortunately it was pretty easy for me as I was part of a 4-man relay team. I wasn’t particularly super speed, but I knew the other guys were really very fast. We won either 2nd or 3rd place. Poor Tom volunteered to run in grueling race that no one else would run. He didn’t win, but boy did he put out the effort; he didn’t win, but he finished! That was somewhat of a theme for Tom. No matter what the challenge, he was going to give his very best effort and finish what he had set out to accomplish. One final example of persuasion in sports. I could kick field goals pretty well and Tom convinced me that he and I should enter the Intramural Field Goal Kicking Contest at UConn, representing our fraternity. Again neither of us had done any practicing nor training for this contest. Well we procrastinated for a very long time and on the last day of the competition (in fact the very last hour of the last day) we entered the contest without any warm up or practice. Tom missed most of the attempts and was out at about the 10-yard line. My kicking angel must have been with me that day (probably persuaded by Tom) and I ended up by winning the contest and setting a new record. Later Tom would tell the story how I (like Paul Bunyan) kicked the ball so high and true that the clouds would practically burst with showers. Anyway, if it hadn’t been for Tom, I wouldn’t have even given it a try! Tom and I both played baseball in High School, but neither played football or basketball. We weren’t good enough to play basketball. I was essentially blind without my glasses so couldn’t play football and Tom’s mother preferred that he not play football because of the possibility of injuring his hands and thus hurt his accordion playing. Therefore both of us were managers of the football and basketball teams. Tom handled the statistics and interaction with reporting to the press, while I handled the general activities of the team. Later when the football team was inducted into the Enfield High School Hall of Fame, the members of the team and we, as managers, were invited back to participate in the ceremony. It was humorous to me that both Tom and I remembered many of the details of the games to include individual plays made by the players. Tom had a phenomenal memory almost to an embarrassing extent in that he remembered much more than any of the players. Since we had to keep track of many of the details, they were kept locked in our memory banks. Tom was a very good friend! Whenever I had some really tough things to deal with, Tom was there to listen and offer a shoulder to lean on. He did this without hesitation and gave liberally of his time. In later years, although separated from interaction with him, I learned of his activities with the Meals on Wheels program and how he warmly treated the people he served. I also learned of his piano playing for the elderly and his activities with his “Senior Circuit”, as he phrased it to me. I can still see him on a gondola with his beloved accordion playing “Lady of Spain”. Tom ran the good race and those that had the privilege of being part of his relay team are better for it. He ran the race with all its hurdles, knocking over a few, and leaping over most, but always headed for the finish line. He has now completed the journey and begins anew. Art Girard