As I start to write my bio a flood of memories race through my mind. It has been over 55 years since we graduated from Cathedral Latin School. Wow! So if you are reading this you realize we are classmates that have lived a long time! If the idiom “a picture is worth a thousand words” is accurate I believe the pictures I have posted will qualify. I will describe them later. The starting point will be my arrival at CLS on E107th Street with 10 other boys from St. Margaret Mary grade school in the Fall of 1958. The next four years would turn boys into young men. It was a time of awakening to new ideas by exposure to classmates from all over the Cleveland area including Painesville. We were blessed to have so many dedicated teachers who provided a strong academic foundation, with leadership that instilled strong Christian values and a sense of responsibility to community. I was blessed to have so many great classmates I call friends today. There are too many “stories” to include here but I am sure we will share a lot of them at our 55th class reunion in September and have shared them at the Muldoon’s get-togethers. The next phase of my life took place at the University of Notre Dame, home of the “Fighting Irish.” CLS classmates Jim Halas and Bob Sheahen joined me in the journey to South Bend. My world was again opened up to new ideas from classmates and others from states all over the U.S. and many foreign countries. The academic base provided by my experience at CLS prepared me for the rigor of academic life at ND. It was an exciting time to be at ND but the arrival of Ara Parseghian as Head Football Coach was the highlight. In the last game of 1964 the Irish were within one minute and thirty seconds of being undefeated and winning a National Championship with players who were 2-7 in 1963. I was enrolled in Army R.O.T.C. and in the second semester of my sophomore year the Army conducted physical exams. The doctor’s observations of my varicose veins and damaged left elbow eventually, long story short, led to my being classified 4-F. I was lucky to miss Viet Nam as so many of my classmates were not so lucky. Every time Viet Nam comes up I think about George Bodnar R.I.P. During this four-year period at ND I worked at the Interhall Sports Department running the residence hall football, basketball and softball team competition, in addition to providing support for the Bengal Bouts boxing tournament. I worked summers as a construction laborer and a pari-mutuel clerk at Thistledown and Northfield Park. It was during my fourth year of study in the Mendoza School of Business that an elective business law course began my interest in the study of the law. Following graduation in 1966 I enrolled in the Case-Western Reserve Law School with CLS classmate Bob Sheahen. A difficult year working and attending classes produced poor results. So I dropped out of law school and went back to work full time at the race tracks, clerking for a downtown law firm in the mornings and in the off-track season substitute teaching mentally retarded children and driving a meat delivery truck. In August of 1969 my life made a significant turn. I met Shirley Spear who had just graduated from St. Vincent Charity School of Nursing. This was an attraction that has lasted for 48 years. In the best decision of my life I asked her to marry me and she said “yes”! We were married on September 30, 1972 and we have been life partners and best friends. Shirley is the beautiful woman you see in the photos.
In 1970 I went back to the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. The most fulfilling experiences in law school were the interaction with outstanding professors and my participation in the Moot Court program. It formed an interest in practicing appellate law. Following graduation and passing the Ohio Bar exam in 1973 I began a private law practice focused on business transactions.
It was at this time that something I had wanted to do for many years became a possibility when one of my best friends from ND suggested travel together as couples to see some of the world. This was another opportunity to expand horizons and gain an understanding of the world we live in. After some intense planning we flew to Mexico City on March 17, 1975. This was the start for Shirley and me of a three-year journey around the world: Central America, South America, Africa (West, South and East), India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong and back to the states at Honolulu in March, 1978.
The travel photos are of our time in India traveling in the VW van we purchased in Kathmandu, Nepal. The warm weather shots are in Goa, India and the cold weather shots show us trekking to the glacier below Mt. Everest in the Nepalese Himalayas.
Of special mention was our visit with Bro. George Dury, in Karonga, in the country of Malawi, Africa in 1976. Bro George was my junior year homeroom teacher and religion instructor at CLS. The first class he ever taught in the 1930s at CLS was a class attended by my father. I guess you could say I was a legacy student at CLS like many others including classmate Don Schwarber. The photo of Bro. George and me (the long and the short of it) was taken at Chaminade Boys Secondary School which he helped establish in 1963 after leaving CLS. Before getting to Karonga we visited the Malawi Tourist office in Blantyre. A young lady staffing the office asked us why we had come to Malawi. I told her to visit a former high school teacher. When I told her it was Bro. George she responded by calling him “a clever little man.” She knew of Bro George’s prowess because both her brothers went to school at Chaminade which had the best boys secondary school academics and soccer team in Malawi. Sound familiar?
Settling in after being out of country for three year took some getting used to for Shirley and me. My interest in becoming an appellate attorney or even practicing law had dimmed. So from 1978 to the present I have been a “serial entrepreneur.” At various times I was involved in real estate development, hospitality management, consulting to non-profits, mental health business development, wholesale office machine marketing, motorsports sponsorship marketing, motorsport event development (SCCA Pro Racing and CART Grands Prix street race franchises in St. Petersburg, FL), executive search, construction product marketing, solar panel installation marketing, and most recently securing funding for a PHLX options trading entity.
After our travels Shirley returned to her nursing career and worked as a Director of Nurses, Director of Community Education, then focused on holistic and integrative healthcare. She developed her own organization to teach and mentor healthcare professionals in holistic and integrative nursing philosophy, methods and practice. She lectures in seminars and conferences across the country. Most recently she retired after a ten-year devotion to Suncoast Hospice where she helped develop a highly successful integrative healthcare clinic to deal with pain and symptom management utilizing integrative methods for Hospice patients facing life-limiting illnesses.
After our return to the U.S. we lived briefly on property we own in Chardon Township before moving to Santa Cruz, CA. In 1991 we relocated to beautiful St. Petersburg, FL. After 22 moves it is the longest time we have lived in one place since August 1969. We have no children but greatly enjoy our nieces and nephews and their children. Like grandparents we are free to leave when it is time to go!!
One of my life’s recent pleasures has been reconnecting with many of my Latin classmates and other friends.
GO LIONS!!! (Aug. 12, 2017)
Shirley and Tom's Wedding 9-30-1972
Tom and Bro. George Dury
Karonga, Malawi, Africa 1976