TOMMY NORMAN, a Capricorn, was born 1/08/1956, and has left us on May 28, 2026
After a storm of monumental proportions, a Category 5 on the Mobile Home Scale, I awoke to see a tall man followed by a minion of Mexican construction workers. A huge limb had been downed by the storm and lay inches from my bedroom window. They were too far away for me to pick up the words, but like a rat terrier, I got the tone, they were saying how lucky I was.
Yes, I was lucky, that’s when I met Tommy Norman, aka “South Bosque” Tommy. He was still working back then and I loved how he would speak to the Mexicans in “Spanglish”, and they would say, “Jes, Meester Tommy”, no matter what he said.
He came by and volunteered some Neem oil to kill the beetles in my Ash and Oak trees and taught me about wood borers and other horrors and when to kill them with what.
After he retired he’d come by for coffee and tell me about each and every car he ever bought for his wife, Karen, what color it was and whether or not she liked it cause “sometimes she just didn’t”, about their live together with their boys and how the boys would have parties in the woods by his house and he’d “sneak down there” to check on them. He made all those car stories come to life for me and all that detailing, that special shade of blue, “do you like it”, he died a man in love with Kare right there.
He could fix anything and did. He was amazing.
Sabrina was his daughter in law and Tommy did not shy away from strong women. He liked them, he celebrated strong women and loved to laugh about all the things Sabrina could do. Tommy picked the right woman with Karen too, she withstood Academy Super Surplus and retail until her retirement. He was right, she makes the best coffee in the world.
I’m just lost.
The only consolation is that the vending machine in the Courthouse is “marked safe” from Tommy Norman, whose leadership and skills in repairing it (after it took his money and “too much at that”) inconvenienced a long line of people that October day in ’24, and no one said one word either, as he studied it’s neon workings and slammed it just in the right place evoking the sound of the enTrance of an empty cup.
He was just something else.
We will remember you all the days of our lives.
Bern
