That WAS the life!

His friends said goodbye to Tom Beesley yesterday. It was a sad affair because funerals usually are that way; you might celebrate the life of someone, but you also know, in your heart, that he or she won’t be with you, or among you, anymore.
For almost five years, Tom was part of the Cedar Hill, Texas, scene as the editor of the Cedar Hill Today newspaper (while I served as editor of Lancaster Today), and often, conscience. He was ever-present with his camera, his smile, his wit and his energy. If something important was happening in Cedar Hill, from football to council sessions to features on ordinary citizens doing extraordinary things, he was there.
He was there when the television tower tragically and fatally crumbled on the morning of Country Day on the Hill. He was present when the Lady Longhorns made back-to-back trips to Austin in their quest for a Class 4A state basketball crown.
Because that was the man he was – he always wanted to be the one who was in the middle of the action; the person you could count upon to get the job done and the right photo at the right moment. That was his talent and that was his gift to us. It hurt him NOT to be asked to go somewhere – regardless of what he had to do. He would juggle it all anyway to be there where people needed him.
When he and I were like the Batman and Robin (or often the Abbott and Costello) of Today Newspapers (and later for the Frisco Enterprise and DFW Community Newspapers in Frisco, Allen and Plano), we expended our work to all the papers in the Today family.
We could be found in the Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Day (including one game so cold and foggy that we couldn’t see the other sideline from the press box), at Reunion Arena to report on a Best Southwest legend in the pros, or at Floyd Casey Stadium in Waco to watch Cedar Hill alum Derrius Thompson in action. The 1996 season of Football Saturday publications proved to be an ill-fated experiment in business terms, but it was an opportunity to practice our craft on a serious deadline basis. Once deadlines were met, we would sit and shoot the breeze, like old soldiers exchanging war stories.
Tom also loved music, he played the bass when he found the time and his choices were almost as eclectic as mine. We would see a Czechoslovakian bluegrass group (Druha Trava) one night in Mineola, and then rock out to the trumpet of Bill Tillman at the gazebo in Lancaster for Musicfest the following week.
He loved cars – fast cars – and he loved racing, having covered the California motorcycle circuit for a magazine years before. He was one of the best auto reviewers in Texas and whenever he drove a new vehicle, it, and he, usually drew attention. One night, at a Longhorn baseball game, Tom parked the new VW Beetle, previously unseen to the general public, and almost everyone in the stands forgot the game and drifted to see this blast from the past. Even the coaches and umpires wanted a peek after the game.
He kind of hated modern technology, being an old school as I was, especially when his computer inevitably crashed in the middle of deadline work. His “reactions” were often headshakers, but that was Tom. He wanted to do the best job possible, despite any gremlins that got in his path.
“I think I’ve still got the eye and the desire and some good photos are still coming out of the old man,” he told me about a year ago.
Most of all, he loved his family, notably his wife, Sylvia and his son, Jared. Nothing brought a quicker tear to his eye than to watch Jared, a gifted musician in his own right, on a stage, or on a bicycle in his short-track cycling career. They were not tears of sorrow, but tears of tremendous pride.
As I said, he was someone a person who count upon to help; which was the reason I called him on Nov. 4, 1997, at the ungodly hour of 6 a.m., lying in the ICU section of Charlton Methodist Hospital in South Dallas suffering from a heart attack. I trusted no one else to make sure that the right people were informed and that all other aspects would not be interrupted. He groused initially but was the first one at the hospital and the person who cared more than anyone else.
In the last few years, Tom found another passion – sailing. It gave him an inner peace that might have been missing, despite all that he was involved with. In an e-mail, he told me how he felt:

“Fortunately for me, the sailboats are saving the day. I endure going to work so I can take off to go sailing, whereas, when we worked together, I worked because that’s what I did. I was a desperation workaholic. Now I see there are other things in life besides news photos and believe it or not, in recent months, I’ve actually gone somewhere and just forgot to take a camera along. When my blood pressure is way up and I think I feel it squishing through my brain, I get concerned and worried. So I go sailing instead of going to work.
“And strangely, I have not written a word about sailing.”

When I close my eyes and think of my friend, I go back to the Cotton Bowl on July 4, 1995, where we were covering the inaugural season of the MLS’ Dallas Burn. It was the first holiday match and was held in conjunction with the annual Freedom Festival at the old Starplex (perhaps a Huey Lewis and the News concert). The contest ended with a Burn victory and then all the fans, more than 20,000, stayed for a huge fireworks show.
Among the ones waiting for the fireworks were the Burn players and anyone else who wanted this unique vantage point – the perfect pitch (field) that was the Cotton Bowl. The field was lush green and felt like the finest carpet imaginable. Among us was Burn goalie Mark Dodd and his toddler daughter, simply playing as a father and child would. Tom took some photos and struck up a friendship.
So as two grown men, lying on the soft stadium turf, watching with childlike amazement at the color bursts high in the Dallas night, we just looked at each other, and almost simultaneously said, “Man, this IS the life!”
Tom Beesley will now forever be looking at the sun and the stars, having fulfilled that statement.