Remembering Tommy

I didn't know Thomas Faron Johnson all that well, but if you're reading this, there's a chance you might have.

You would probably know him best at Tommy DeWolf. For the purposes of this column, I'll just call him Tommy.

If you've been keeping up with the local arts and entertainment news lately, then you're probably aware that Tommy's guitar will no longer wail over the pummeling, old-school hard rock that is Drivin' Rain. Tommy was found dead in his home earlier this week. As of this writing (5 p.m. Thursday afternoon, to be precise), we still don't know what caused Tommy's death, other than foul play is not suspected.

As you're reading this, depending on the time of day, Tommy's many friends and family are getting ready to put his physical shell in the ground, or are in the act of doing so, or have already done so. That shell was a damaged vessel, wracked by a birth defect that left him limping and a near-fatal car wreck a few years back that left him suffering ill health ever since, according to his friends. Now he's free from that pain.

Getting weepy and preachy is not really my style, but if I do so here, forgive me. For one, I didn't know Tommy all that well. Also, death is something I try to shy away from as much as possible. Someone close to me took his own life a few years back, and since that time the thought of the end of life for any human being shakes me to my core.

When it's someone I actually had the pleasure of talking to, no matter how brief, I'm shaken even more.

I talked to Tommy on only two or three occasions. So when I read the news, sent to me from Drivin' Rain's members via e-mail, that Tommy had died, I never expected it to bother me. A lot of bad things happen in the world, and people die all the time. Many of the people I've met in my short life are now gone forever. You'd think after 26 years I'd be used to death, that I'd grow a little numb to the whole nasty, ugly prospect we all face. Not the case.

In the past few days I've found myself thinking about Tommy a lot. Finding the words to illustrate those thoughts is tough. I'll be honest -- I've wondered what it was that finally did Tommy in, and what it was like for him in those final moments. These are the thoughts we all have about death that we just don't really talk about. We humans, we're all morbid creatures.

I'm not Tommy's friend -- I just didn't know him well enough to claim that title. I did know him, and he immediately made a big impression on me, from the time I saw him drunk in Broussard's heckling Doom in the A.M. based on something a band member said about Rain in OFF Magazine. From my outsider's perspective, Tommy looked like some violent idiot, trying to pick a fight. I ripped him in a column for it, but later I found out the events I had seen in the bar that night were not what I thought they were. From what I hear, Tommy hung out with the band members later that night.

A short while later I saw Tommy perform for the first time when Rain opened for Skid Row at the Hushpuppy. His skills ranked him right there at the top with local rock guitarists I'd seen. After the show, I introduced myself to Tommy and apologized for my lapse of judgment in writing the column about him and Doom, and he was the epitome of politeness, one of the nicest people I'd ever met.

Tommy had every right to rake me over the coals, curse me out and punch me in the nose. He didn't. He knew we all screw up sometimes.

Why do I say all of this? Well, I guess this is my little tribute to Tommy.

As I said earlier, Tommy was almost a stranger to me, with as little as I actually talked to him. Just another source on my beat, another rock guitarist in a place where the rock 'n' roll dreamers and puffed-up egos are everywhere, though he was one with an ego smaller than most.

Here's the best testament I can give as to Tommy's power over people, from my limited perspective -- even though I barely knew the guy, I was shocked to hear the news and, I won't lie, very, very saddened. I didn't think the death of someone I barely knew could affect me so much, but Tommy's death did. Maybe I was even a little disappointed in my own lack of emotional strength. I don't know.

The day I heard, Wednesday, Tommy dominated my thoughts, as I worked to put some kind of article together that would maybe start to convey what kind of person he was, what he was all about. I hope I didn't fail. If I did, maybe this will start to make up for it.

No, Tommy, I didn't know you well, but I'm thinking about you all the same.

Matt Sanders is the Arts & Leisure editor for the Southeast Missourian and the editor of OFF Magazine.