Goddammit!

Tom Moore passed away.

Those who worked with Tom Moore understand why that is a tribute to Tom. You could tell what kind of day Tom was having at the BJ by the number of goddammits he shouted out.

Richmond, Virginia native Tom Moore, BJ newsroom retiree who shared a history with John S. Knight that few of us had, went into home-based hospice earlier this week.

Heart and kidney failure got him.

His wife for 69 years has been Dot Moore.

Their daughters are Kathy, Amy and Carol, all former BJ copygirls. Their son, Tom, Jr., predeceased Tom.

Caroline Jean Moore Krack is a retired teacher’s aide living in Minnesota. She married John Krack. Caroline survived a coma years ago.

Katherine Ann Moore, who lives in Cuyahoga Falls, retired from the Environmental Protection Agency after 34 years.

Tom and Minnesotan Dot were married 69 years ago in the naval communications chapel in Washington, D.C. Tom was in the Air Force at Bolling Air Force Base in D.C. and editor of the base newspaper.

Tom was adopted as a child by Spotswood and Virgina Moore in Tazewell, Virginia, which is just across the border from Bluefield, West Virginia. “I didn’t know I was adopted till I was 21,” Tom once told me.

Doris Day once sang to Tom, Sr. and his Air Force buddies. Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff, Doris Day’s birth name, will greet Tom again personally with “Sentimental Journey.” Doris passed away last year.

Tom’s connection to JSK that few of us had? He worked at the Bluefield Daily Telegraph in West Virginia. John Knight was born in Bluefield but left that as a toddler when his family came to Akron where his father ran a newspaper that became the Akron Beacon Journal.

Tom's 41-year newspaper career was on the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Zanesville News (now defunct), Lorain Journal, Columbus Citizen-Columbus Citizen Journal (both defunct) and the BJ. Plus four years part-time in the Ohio State Patrol headquarters in Columbus, editing the patrol's magazine,The Flying Wheel.

He got his GED degree in journalism while in the Air Force.

Retired BJ reporter Charlene Nevada recalled how Tom set up her primitive computer, by today’s standards, so that she could transmit her article from her home to the BJ. It seemed like a miracle way back then.

Tom also worked for years with former BJ sports editor Tom Giffen’s Roy wintertime Hobbs baseball tournament for seniors in Florida, beginning in 2003, and was a conductor on the Cuyahoga Valley National Park scenic railway. Dot would put together treats for Tom to hand out to the passengers. One of Tom’s co-railway volunteers was Steve Feldstein, brother of former BJ business reporter Stu Feldstein.

Giffen in 1990 formed a four-team league of adult men playing out of Akron. The next year the league grew to 11 teams and joined Roy Hobbs Baseball, which was owned by Ron Monks of California. In 1992 Monks sold Roy Hobbs Baseball to Giffen and his wife, Ellen.

For several years, Giffen ran Roy Hobbs Baseball out of his basement and continued to work at the Beacon Journal. In the mid-1990s, as the organization brought in more and more teams, Giffen resigned from the BJ to work full-time at his business.

Roy Hobbs is the fictional hero of Bernard Malamud's novel, “The Natural,” and the movie starring Robert Redford as Hobbs.

Tom and BJ Advertising Department retiree Mike Williams, who helped Johnny Grimm lay out the ads during the Ol’ Blue Walls days for both, had a long and close relationship.

Here’s the post from Mike, who tipped me off about Tom’s situation before he passed away:

“John,

“I know you'd want to know.  Tom went into home-based hospice about 4
days ago and his daughter Kathy messaged me this morning that he's near
death.  His heart and kidneys are failing. Daughter Carol was in from
Minnesota to see him last week, and daughters Kathy and Amy are close by
with his wife Dot.

“He has been a good friend to me above and beyond our mutual interest in
home computing.  He has served as an open window into the past, from his
hardscrabble childhood in the Southern mountains through his long
newspaper career. 

“Two years running, we shared a motel room for five weeks during the Roy Hobbs World Series of Baseball in Fort Myers FL. 
He had so many stories about the people he worked with and reported on
over the years as he knocked about from one paper to another.

“I will miss him.”

So will I, Mike. Particularly if I hear someone say “Goddammit!” I figure it will be Tom speaking through them.

Saint Peter better get used to hearing "Goddammit!" rattling off the Pearly Gates.