In an earlier post, I described a bike ride Tommy took as part of his PE class during the spring of his senior year in high school. At the time, he drew me a map of his planned route, which took him from the gym at Santa Monica High School north to Will Rogers […]
Category Archives: bikes
I found some pictures of my son Tommy in an old cigar box recently, and I’m posting a few of them here. The cigar box actually belonged to my Aunt Vivian years ago and dates back to her childhood in Los Angeles in the 1930s. Vivian’s father (my step-grandfather), Ernie Voigt, was a California […]
If there is one thing that symbolizes the joy, the enthusiasm, the gusto, of Tommy’s early childhood, it would have to be his Big Wheel. Later, this feeling evolved and matured, of course, became more subtle and at the same time kaleidoscopic in its variety and intensity as Tommy’s interests expanded. But at age 5, […]
I’ve been going through some of my old letters, documents, and keepsakes of Tom, and found some artifacts/documents that relate to previous posts. These include a program from the Stairway of the Stars performance in 1981, in which Tommy performed a fiddle solo; also a hand-drawn map that Tom sent me showing the route of […]
Here is a map of the final part of Tom’s bike ride to Will Rogers (see previous post). It shows Carlyle Ave., 26th Street and where it crosses San Vicente and then turns into Allenford, then Sunset Blvd., and finally Will Rogers Park. (Click on the map to enlarge it.) […]
Tom was an avid bike rider from an early age. At age 14 he owned a Miyata mountain bike, which he rode around town extensively, in the mountains, offroad, in the mud, and in places you wouldn’t think a bike could go. He not only rode bikes, but he fixed them, disassembled and reassembled them, […]
Tom wrote the following letter in February of 1991. He would soon celebrate his 22nd birthday. At that point, he was still living at his mom’s place in Santa Monica. He was going to college in the Valley, and in May of that year he would graduate with his bachelor’s degree. Dear Dad, Since I […]
When Tom was a child, he and I wrote each other a lot of letters. Unfortunately, the two of us were apart a lot. During his infancy and early childhood, I was often at sea, and later, when Tom was four years old, his mom and I separated. Tom lived with his mom in southern […]
One of my favorite memories of Tom is a bike ride I took with him and G a few years ago in the Elwood area, not far from Goleta. That area includes a large reserve for hiking and biking, and some scenic trails along the Elwood Bluffs overlooking the Pacific. We had a great ride […]
The Marin headlands are located in Marin County across the Golden Gate from San Francisco, at the entrance to the bay. Tom loved this area, and he returned to it repeatedly, not just with me, but with his own family. Tom and I spent a lot of time there hiking when he was a youngster, […]
