the time when Tom Tried to show us how easy it was to jump of our second story roof of our house in Ann Arbor. He somehow made an arc and fell through the picture window below.
I am not sure who was there, but between some yelling at him, and some laughing at him, he got mad and took off for the hospital on his motorcycle, with his broken bloody leg hanging out to the side. I think this happened when our parents, Lisa and Steve were on a road trip through Mexico. The picture of him on his bike I do remember well. He had to have his cast put back on twice, because he couldn't take it and sawed it off himself. If I not mistaken, I think Janet Galardi was working at the hospital at that time and was instrumental in making him get the cast put back on . Are you still reading this Janet? Can you confirm or deny? Or add anything to this story?
Regardless of the celebratory nature one alludes to. I wasn’t accidentally coming across this though. Weird to hear of Tom’s longevity / disappearance. But others noticed this already. He often got out rapidly if incompletely. Though these disappearances of people keep occurring / one sees. We discussed and even started practicing for it in the late sixties / he’d probably have been happier playing all the instruments himself. For lack of focus or verve I can't say which. But at this point his drumming outweighed his harmonica playing and I don’t think he knew any guitar. So the shortest duration possible for a band -about two hours and like many instrumental endeavors it seemed really inconclusive. His father enters / noise filtering up – glowering I’d say in retrospect though interpreting faces. Like he did Martha and I in seventh grade. I’d brought my flea sized fender amp and Tom’s drumming / while his father negotiated an early ending simply by pretending to be an audience as he occasionally did with brick walls. Tom played well and savagely all flourish. No regard for sound levels or anything else going on in the house / those long highly co-coordinated arms. We held several meetings afterward to determine personnel in his top front side of the house. Which is sparsely furnished like the rest but already contains the signature object. This house appearance I thought desired / to be sculpture with few utensils imposing constraints / metal ring around your finger useless and unnaturally evident. The peacock feather in its curved glass frame. The piano on the first floor they stripped down to its metal harp still posed on skinny legs / the artifact is promoted outside itself tendency / denial of the domicile-family thing was overshadowed by. I remember passing through (Paula’s or Lisa’s) room on the way to another and finding only some clothes and plastic objects strewn around they might have had a mange-disk / like a hallway leading somewhere else with large drawings-paintings on paper taped on the walls. And a rice paper lamp intimacy. This room was by default perhaps the best possible version of a kid’s room I’ve seen. Although at this point the accuracy of that memory is fragile. Tom produced a pint of whiskey and an hour later I staggered ‘home’ and passed out in the shower. When the water reached the floor someone demanded my name again and again until to get rid of them I said “…five.” Ok, five they said / where are you? At the time drinking seemed strangely radical more than smoking as an inebriation it was so rearguard. Earlier I took Tom down to Clint’s club once. I was 15 or 16 I could never tell how old he was exactly / they’d been serving me before when I came in with the band or loaded amps onstage. Osteberg was playing drums but hadn’t yet mastered the double shuffle there is an exact date it’s history now so what. The waitress took one look at Tom and shook her head but smiling as she did subject to his charm she came back with two shots… “Once...” she said / finality of gesture head turned away as she placed it. Then she returned and shooed us out because the regulars couples and single men at the bar the Ann Street scene was tough then were staring at us. Though I never saw him add gravity, or elaborate anything beyond what’s necessary to get at the sense intended. It seemed he put the tacks on the board just before starting and began low key haphazardly. Had only to align them these points / flowed had few footnotes. Tom had a weird élan and protean sense of body space integral to gymnastics + impromptu speaking talent. Mercurial evanescent or refusal to settle in anywhere. This is more difficult to put your finger on than skepticism. It’s more typical of youth than age of course so I wonder if it was later so apparent.
ReplyDeleteIt was later so apparent. Todd?
ReplyDeleteHey Paula....I now remember the recasting episode. Thomas had a real claustrophobic reaction to the cast. I think the promise of not having to wait in the E.R. where I was a clerk helped get him back in the hospital-but I do recall him doing wheelies with those old big wooden wheel chairs in the hallway on the way to the cast room and I got yelled at for my friends behavior!!!
ReplyDeleteI wish I could be there with you all this weekend. Feel my love, and play some Otis Redding for old time sake.
♥
janet galardi popper
I remember the wheelies into Pioneer parking lot as well! Here comes Tom in a cloud of dust... :-)
ReplyDeleteSo nice to finally meet Tom's sisters/family through this wonderful blog. If I had as cool a brother as Tom Wehrer I would want to make one as well.
I'll be thinking of you all on Sunday.
Best,
Jean
Tom never stopped doing wheelies. In the months before leaving for Mexico, Tom was euphoric, having come upon a small gas engine that he jury-rigged as only Tom can conceive and execute to power a bicycle. Though weird in the extreme, Tom was eager to impress his 12-step buddies. When next I saw Tom he was hobbled with pain and explained that when he arrived at the meeting waved at the assembled crew and pulled a wheelie forgetting that he had added weight to the rear with the motor and muffler assembly which resulted in flipping over backwards to the astonishment of the friends he was trying to impress.
ReplyDelete