Judy, Kate, and Susi (not pictured) visited Tomie not many days after he fell in the early morning hours of October 30, 2019, and spent nearly five hours on a concrete floor until I found him when I arrived for work. Judy, Kate, and Susi had been students at Newton (MA) College of the Sacred Heart when Tomie taught there. Judy had bought an Alexa device for Tomie and insisted that I set it up in her presence. I made Judy happy and got Alexa operational, but Tomie and I were well aware of the stories of Amazon Alexa researchers/eavesdroppers. As they drove out of the driveway, I unplugged Alexa and put “her” back into the box.
After the second fall, I thought we needed to put eavesdropping concerns aside and put Alexa to use. I programmed it so Tomie could tell Alexa to “call Bob” to make my cell phone ring.
I’ve kept Alexa “alive” in the barn as I am usually the only one here and “she” might be helpful in the event of a future emergency. Yesterday morning I hoped the Amazon “researchers” were eavesdropping so that there was proof that I roared when I read the first sentence in Delli’s email. Delli (pictured) was Tomie’s friend at Pratt. She was the one who told Tomie about a new monastery in Vermont called Weston Priory. Delli’s note was in reaction to the story Tomie told me that he left the priory because of psychosomatic headaches.
Delli’s email-
“Subject: Addendum to ‘history’”
Note-
“Psychosomatic headaches, my a$$.
“He had a hard time with discipline, not being able to draw, paint whenever he wanted. Got his panic call in NYC - he was afraid to call Flossie about leaving - to escort him out of the Priory.
“I took a train, arriving in Weston in below zero temperatures. Dressed the ‘fallen woman’ part - wearing a snug blue Bloomingdale’s knit dress, matching shoes, hair swept up, dangling sculptural earrings. They were most gracious, serving me the absolute best homemade bread and butter with coffee.”
Tomie tried the priory two more times. One of the times, I think he was only there on weekends. After the failed third attempt, his friend Gene Youngken - who called people “Duck” or “Dearie” so that he didn’t need to remember first names - said to Tomie, “Duck, next time, just phone it in.”
Tomie used many subtle techniques to discount me over the decades. The one he used during the last year or two was to cite the film “Rashomon” whenever I shared a story involving us both. (“Rashomon” is a film in which characters give contradictory versions of the same incident.) That is, his version was always correct, and mine was always incorrect. I don’t doubt that “Rashomon” would have been mentioned in reaction to Delli’s recollection. (Bob)
Pray for Peace, Justice, and Equality
