la familia

i haven't posted anything on this site for a while, and with all that is going on in the world right now, it could be easy to get all environmental on some asses. instead, i have chosen to highlight a great person who has recently left us in order to be with his sweetheart once again. this man is named tom hart. even though he was not an actual part of my immediate family, he was family. i remember as a child, growing up with tom and his with dot at family functions, summer outings in the poconos, jersey, and at the shore. they were staples in the family. dot left us some time ago, and then it was good'ol tom with his thick "jersey" accent. one of my favorite words he used was "bakels." the word was really bagels, but who cares, that's what we loved. even with his thick jersey lingo, tom would mingle with the best of the coal region, saying that everybody else talked funny. he once said that i was the only person he had ever met from northeastern pa that did not have the coal region way of communication, and that he enjoyed our conversations. tom stood strong and lived young until last week when he moved onto the next life, and he will be missed, but never forgotten.