The Pumpkin Card

There were huge flowerbeds on our farm, which we called Addison Hill - Tom was Thomas Addison Gutherie -  and an enormous vegetable garden that fed a lot of people pretty much year round (there was also a 60' greenhouse). One year Tom decided to grow pumpkins.   Tom's first grandchild, Ella, was 10 months old that October and I took a picture of the two of them with Ella sitting on the largest of the crop.  Proud Grampa/Proud Pumpkin-grower decided we should send copies of the photo to some of his friends.  We put about 35 photos on postcard backs and a tradition was born.  Over the 15 years he sent cards, technology made them easier to produce and his list grew to over 100 - people he cared about, people he didn't want to lose touch with.

For many of those years, Sara and Ellen and their children lived in California, so Tom would take a road trip out there in late September, in time to get the photo taken and in the mail before Halloween.  Sometimes I went with him and sometimes I drove with him one way and flew the other.

In 2005, for Tom's 70th birthday in late August, we took a three week road trip - meandering along back roads, stopping for small town rodeos, taking pictures (this is the trip where I got my sunflower photo) and ending up in California for the birthday celebration and the punkin picture, which, that year, actually was taken on a big rock.

The last couple of years three of the grandchildren were back in Georgia, so we had to do some creative photoshopping.  One regret he did have was that Shelley's children were not in the yearly photos - in the beginning photo shop was not an option and these children who were so precious to him were in Tennessee when the photo was taken in California.  Then as time went by, it was simply a tradition that wasn't easily changed.
If you were on Tom's punkin card list, you had a spot in his heart

Croquet is OK

Tom and I spent two years planning and then two years building our home on 360 acres near the sawmill in small town Greensboro, Georgia. We ended up with a big ole beautiful place that played background to an astonishing mix of good and evil. Shelley and Donny were engaged there and Sara and Eric lived the early part of their marriage in our guest house. Kathryn and David announced their engagement on our front steps. Two weddings and numerous receptions, fund raisers, family gatherings, high teas and croquet tournaments were hosted the 10+ years we lived there. A big barn and beautiful thoroughbred horses. Labradors and Jack Russells, cows, chickens, pigs for a while. The evil part - well that’s another story. It will be about the power plant.

We were nearly finished with the house and were standing on the sun porch looking at a huge, Grand Canyon gulley in what would be our back yard. “I think I’ll build a croquet court”, Tom said. I had learned by now that Tom was an out of the box thinker and I was passive about it - okay, sure honey. Also, I didn’t have any better ideas.

“Croquet courts,” Tom explained, “have to be level like a tennis court with grass like a putting green.” Soon dump truck after dump truck load of fill dirt arrived - I think there were about 40 a day for a full week. And it still sagged. And was lumpy.  So the dirt kept on coming, big efforts and machinery tried to level it, bent Bermuda sod was brought in and by the time the house was finished, in the spring of 1982, so was the court.

By now we had been contacted by someone from the United States Croquet Association, saying they had heard we were building “courts” and would like to send someone to see “them”. We had one ¾ size rolling court, but were excited to have an introduction to the Croquet Big Time.

It was pouring rain the Sunday they came - two carloads. Out tumbled several men and one woman all dressed in white, even their rain gear was white. They wanted to play. Tom was worried about anyone setting foot on his new court which was standing in several inches of water. They didn’t care and so we had our first little match. During play on a noticeable bump, Tom commented, “well, I’ve learned a lot - my next court will be full size and level.”

So he built not one, but two more courts, one of them lighted. And they were full size and level. They made a beautiful back yard and Tom loved tending to them. Out of all the parties we had, we only allowed dancing on the middle court twice...once for Tom's 50th birthday and again for Shelley and Donny's wedding reception.  Otherwise dancing, and a lot of it, was done on our big brick patio.

Our area of Georgia, only 80 miles from Atlanta, was changing. Georgia Power dammed up the Oconee river and developers swarmed in. Timber land was suddenly lakefront property or a golf course - I think there are 12 golfcourses, centered around the championship Reynolds Plantation complex. Tom convinced two of the resorts to install croquet courts, so we had five in the area - unheard of in the croquet world except at Palm Beach or Newport.

Our last big croquet tournament was “the Masters of Croquet” held the Saturday before the 1988 Masters and boasting a $35,000 first prize. I think some of the old timers were not happy that we had reduced their elite sport to playing for prize money, but they came anyway. A team from Australia won it. Southern Living Magazine was there and ESPN and a local Atlanta station. ESPN did a feature on Peter, who was the youngest champion in the country. Heady stuff.

We were invited to tournaments in Palm Beach, Scottsdale Arizona, Palm Springs, Newport and Hilton Head, but we mostly enjoyed playing in our back yard. After we had to leave it (yes, another story, and a long one) we talked about staying on the circuit, but Tom was very competitive and did not want to play with no place to practice.

During this time, mid to late 80s, we partied hard; smoked and drank too often and too much. Before the clubhouses at the lake were completed, our house was the gathering place for a core group of six or seven young, unmarried adults - who always felt free to bring friends and who always, it seemed, stayed for whatever meal it was time for. Some of these played key roles in the power plant story.

Tom stopped drinking liquor around 1992 and gave up beer (he was the Miller Lite king) a year or so later. He said, often and to anyone who would listen, that he wished he had never touched the first drop of alcohol.

Tools and Seeds

I'm having a hard time writing about Tom's building projects.  Likely that's because, to me, the most important things he built were relationships.

Soon after we began attending New City, we decided to join a mission team to serve the village of Savannah Bight, on the island of Guanaja, Honduras in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch.
In February of 1999 our team made a treacherous journey to the tiny island with a huge generator, medical supplies, lumber, plywood and other building supplies plus food and water for our team of 15 to last 10 days. Tom had an extra backpack full of vegetable seeds donated by NK.

On the island, Tom chose three young men, Lee Marvin, Rapido and Clyde, who were spending their time playing soccer or just hanging out on the field where our tent was pitched, to be his "crew".   He bullied and charmed them into helping him with his share of the construction work, teaching them as they went how to use the tools. Together the four planted vegetable gardens all over the village.  Some of the seeds had already sprouted before we left.  On his second trip down, six weeks later, Tom's "crew" was overjoyed to see and help him again and he ate a tomato from one of the gardens (small and green, but still...) . Fruits of his labors.

Before our team left, Tom gave Lee Marvin his personal toolbox.  He prayed that Lee Marvin would use the tools and his 9 day apprenticeship to establish himself in a trade.  Lee Marvin was so touched that he went running home, returning with a gift for Tom. It was a hand carved mahogany plaque that Lee Marvin said had been in his family as long as he could remember.  It was the only thing they took with them when they evacuated their home during Mitch.

Five years later, Tom received a letter from Clyde.  Hello Mr. Thomas..... he wrote about our camping on the soccer field and a few other things, then said,.... I am writing to tell you that I have accepted Christ as my personal savior and attend services at the Church of God. 

TITANIC revisited  Honduras 1999

Talk to Tom

One thing of many I learned from Tom is how to talk to just about anyone. We were at a craft fair in Florida with our friends Joe and Sandy Martin and Sandy said we should put up a booth "Talk to Tom" - he stopped frequently and interviewed people.  It was usually a good thing, only occasionally did anyone hesitate to respond to him.  I realized it  was because he was genuinely interested in them.  Also, I think all this influenced his ability to develop such interesting characters in his books

On the last leg of last month's Michigan trip with Shelley and Peter, a NWA flight from Memphis to Chattanooga, I sat next to a nice man and automatically encouraged him to talk about himself.  He and his wife are newly moved to Chattanooga, here to do an internship in his field for a year. Before the short flight was over, I invited them to come to my house for coffee.  "I guess you're pretty sure I'm not a serial killer, huh?" he said.  I responded that my limited knowledge of serial killers told me they don't bring along their wives.

I introduced him to Shelley after we disembarked and he asked her if I always invited my seatmates over for coffee?  She told him, joking, that I had met all my best friends on airplanes.

Happy Endings from meeting people on airplanes
Tom and I were flying to Saratoga, New York.  Tom noticed a man with a New York paper and saw an opportunity to start a conversation.  A friendship was born and a couple of years later, that man's son married my sister!  They've been married 27 years and have two amazing children.  Yea Talk to Tom!

Tom's Last Deal

Tom's love of travel included pressing his senior citizen status to the limit. Free cup of coffee, 10% discount, Grampa's rate into a ballgame - he was like a kid getting away with something!    When he turned 62, 11 years ago, he purchased a Golden Age Passport -  Lifetime Admission Permit  to the National Park system.  I think it cost around $40.  He just loved it!  We visited and sometimes camped in the Parks many times over the next 6 or 7 years.

Sometime during those years he decided he would like to have his ashes scattered at Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes National Lakeshore.  We tent camped in the area in August 2006, 2007 and 2008  - Tom pushed his evermore fragile body into Lake Michigan no matter how frigid and usually was able to coax me in too.  Pete and Luanne went in the summer they camped with us, but I think they prefer the tropics.

So Sleeping Bear was his long term wish, then only a few days before he died, he asked me if I would see if it was possible distribute his ashes at Albion College.  Albion's president, Donna Randall, said they were honored and we found a perfect spot near the football field to honor Tom and lay him to rest. Photos of Tom at the Lakeshore and at Albion will help you understand his love for both.

But the story everybody says "write down!" is this:

Shelley and Peter and I drove our rented car from the Detroit airport to Glen Arbor, Michigan on Thursday night  so that we would be close to the park the next day and have plenty of time there before continuing on to Albion.  We planned to leave ashes in both places. We had a nice breakfast, then set out for the park.  There was a Ranger station at the entrance and a $10 admission.  Peter was driving and I leaned over him to flash Tom's Golden Age Passport at the lady Ranger.  She smiled sweetly, said "You're good!", and waved us through. We drove on into the parking lot, chortling.  Don't you know Tom is proud??

So we climbed the dunes as far as I would agree to go - still one big dune between us and the lake - took some photos, talked about being here before with Tom, then got back in the car to find a place to fulfill our mission. A little further south, there is a Scenic Drive into the dunes.  You turn off the highway onto it and there is another Ranger station.  Another $10.

This Ranger was eager to be good at his job.  He asked to actually see the pass I was waving at him. He looked at it then leaned out the window to peer at us.

"Whose pass is this?" he asked, 

I said "Oh, he's with us, you see......"

"I don't see him," he interrupted. Obviously there was no senior citizen Tom Gutherie in the car. 

I told him why we were there and why we felt it appropriate that we be able to use the pass.  He looked at me blankly - long enough for Peter to start to bring out his wallet.  Then he handed Peter back the pass and waved us on.

"Thanks," we all said.

"You know you can't do this again, now, don't you?" the young man said as we pulled away.

Grin

Photos of our trip to honor Tom are here

Thanks for asking!  Next time I'll tell about all the things Tom built - power plant, shipping port, croquet court..... Tom the Builder.