Tom was one of the most passionate people I’ve ever met, in a sport where passion (and a negative brain scan) is the basic entry requirement. Often it was difficult to distinguish whether Tom was exhibiting passion or something closer to rage, but it was something one got used to over time.

Just ask David Blaikie, with whom Tom had a long standing feud about the acceptability of historic ultramarathon records, and a number of other issues. It was exciting to watch the battles as they would unfold over the months, as everything was done by print medium in those early days.

It was exciting and fun, until, of course, one became the target oneself, which happened fairly frequently to myself.

The Queen and Ganaraska

The trick was to learn what turned Tom’s crank and avoid it. Of course, ultimately this was impossible. Tom wrote a report on my first Wiarton race in which he nailed me for finishing practically last, and made some snide remarks about the prayer I offered.

When I mentioned my outrage at these latter comments to Norm Patenaude, he said, “Then it’s a good thing you didn’t mention the Queen!” Norm was not immune, as years later he (and the Ontario Ultra Series) got threatened with a lawsuit for daring to name his race the Ganaraska, since Tom had already used that name for a race that had ceased to exist several years earlier. Tom had recently graduated from law school, you see…

While I ran in a couple of Tom’s races (1993 Sagamok 60 km, 1990 Ganaraska 55 km, and Valley 24 hr 1989) and he ran in a few of mine (Slough, Golden Horseshoe 50 miler), and we ran against each other at opposite ends of the field many times (Meaford, Halfway Lake, High Falls 100 km, Georgian Bay 50/50 to name but a few), most of what I knew about Tom was more hearsay, about the early days of ultrarunning in Ontario up in the Sudbury area.

The sport really started its modern reincarnation in Ontario in that area, and Tom, Norm, Doug Barber, Rolly Portelance and Wayne Witt were the founding fathers. I met Tom, Doug and Rolly for the first time at the first meeting of ultra directors of what would become the Ontario Ultra Series at Doug’s home in Owen Sound in 1988.

God as we understand Him

We scheduled our next meeting at Norm’s house in Massey the day before the Voyageur Marathon the following year, and Tom was the only one who showed up. I made a few subsequent attempts to have meetings, to which no one ever showed up, so Tom was actually the last person to show up at an OUS meeting until recent times. Later e-mail was invented…

My last conversations with Tom were just wonderful. While they started out with the usual polemics, we came to a remarkable understanding and mutual respect. I think perhaps the turning point came when I responded to Tom’s diatribe about religion and God by mentioning that whatever the truth of what he said, I had personally experienced a God who was able to rescue me from alcoholism in 1976.

Tom was silent for a moment, but I could tell that the wheels were turning. This was a God that Tom could accept – a God that made people better, not worse.

I know that Tom suffered greatly from debilitating arthritis which eventually ended his running, but we never spoke of this. One might have thought that God might have shown more grace to someone like Tom, but I note that Tom’s funeral was from a United Church, so perhaps He did, perhaps He did.

Tom, I will miss you very much. Rest eternal grant unto him, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon him.

 9 March 2004