Month: November 2017

Contributed by: Mary Evans

Does anyone remember Tommy’s love for Jan Hooks?

He knew every one of her line’s in The Alamo scene in the movie “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure”. Tommy’s imitation of Jan Hook’s accent in that scene was hilarious. He would exaggerate the accent even more, so that when she said “paint and glaze”, for example, he really stretched out the word “glaaaaaze”. He used to lower his voice more too as he said that word. Watch this scene and just imagine Tommy’s voice doing all of Jan Hooks’ lines. He particularly loved to say “Well, buenas dias!” in a more exaggerated accent too.

Hopefully it brings you a laugh or warm inner smile today.

While bringing up Tommy’s love of Jan Hooks, I also have to mention her performances as one of “The Sweeney Sisters” on Saturday Night Live (which YouTube doesn’t have). Tommy LOVED The Sweeney Sisters! Does anyone else remember him singing, “Clang clang clang went the trolley… Ding ding ding went the bells…”

Speaking of bells, I’ll end this with beautiful bells, since Tommy had such a passion for the sound of big, beautiful cathedral bells.

Every time a bell rings, think of Tommy running over to listen to every ding. 🙂

View / Add Comments

Contributed by: Mary Evans

I woke up to the song “The Tide is High” playing in my mind this morning and I instantly felt like it was a sign from Tommy. We used to sing / play that song together in the early years, and I remember us laughing together while we changed lyrics.

Blondie – The Tide is High:

There was another Blondie song that he seemed to love more than “The Tide is High” though. It was called 11:59. I had never heard 11:59 before he kept talking about, so I finally listened to it and learned the lyrics so I could sing it with him because he loved it so much.

I remember over the years if people were singing along to “The Tide is High” or any other Blondie song, Tommy would sometimes ask them, “Do you know 11:59?” It was always kind of disappointing to him that people didn’t know it, because he loved it so much.

So, here’s 11:59:

View / Add Comments