The epitome of self-sufficiency. His name was Thom Foulks. It’s my name too. Thom Jr., which is certainly something less than the whole. Those of you who share the same name as your Dad know there are a few benefits to the honor. It is an honor, right? Thinking about it now, from a different perspective, I wonder... How often do you hear of a Mom passing on her name to a daughter? Moms don’t often do things like that to any of their children. Moms treasure their children as individuals. This name-passing thing seems reserved for the vanity of men. However, being one without my own name, I must admit that it probably afforded me as many benefits as consequences. And, that is because my Dad was quite an accomplished person in our community. He was very well known. He had a great reputation and a lot of respect. He was very smart. He was very well-read. He served our town; he served our community; served our state… and he served himself.
He earned a great reputation. He came to the town of Colorado Springs and decided he wanted to make it his home. He wanted it to be home for him and his family. And really, that’s what we were – His Family. He was so committed and determined to make this new place his home (our home) that he put his heart, soul, mind, and determination into the task. I remember his voracious consumption of all there was to learn about the history of Colorado Springs and Colorado in general. He was, in fact, so adept and skilled at amassing Colorado history he soon became known as a local expert. It was very odd, as the oldest son and being with my Dad in hundreds of situations and scenarios when people would talk with him as if he had lived in what was, at the time our small town of Colorado Springs. That, of course, was not the case at all. In fact, my Dad, Thom Foulks, had a wide array of experiences, much of it full of pain, challenge, and sadness. His youth, for instance, was something he rarely spoke of. And, when he did it was usually in regard to the things he learned about self-sufficiency in the woods of Indiana with His Dad. It always seemed when something prompted him to share something from those experiences that he caught himself and changed the subject. However, we (kids) did pick up glimpses of Dad’s colored past in snippets. Relatives talked quietly; skirting the issue as though they didn’t want to remember. It is obvious to me now that no one wanted to talk about Dad’s beginnings in life because he so successfully overcame those trials and made himself a new Man… despite the molding his childhood tried to make for him. He has in fact gone to the grave with the secrets we will never know – and, even though I regret not knowing the extent of his trials I honor his success at erasing them.
We do know that he lived through an ugly break-up of his Mom and Dad. He found himself un-wanted by either. The destruction of husband and wife meant his Mom and Dad left a red-headed, wandering-eyed teenager completely on his own to fend for himself. Dad slipped up once… we were on a camping, and fishing trip on our own… sitting around the campfire, he drifted into a story where he described himself as the only red-haired kid in the school and how he found himself in fist fights daily defending himself for the unbridled teasing because the red-hair was compounded by a wandering right eye that didn’t focus in the same place as the left eye. It left him permanently scared and dependent on only one person because his Mom and Dad were not there. That one person was himself.
Ugly experiences such as these reveal themselves in many different ways, especially during the formative teenage years. Sometimes in powerful and positive ways. Sometimes, the incarnation is invisible to everyone except the closest of family. For my Dad, the failures of his childhood left him with a powerful determination to be self-sufficient in ALL things. He did, in reality, depend on no one for anything… whatever HE needed, he provided himself.
The following is a long-winded example. It started in Colorado Springs when we first moved to town. Dad was still in the US Air Force. He was a proud and accomplished newscaster with AFRTS (Air Force Radio and Television Service). It was part of his grand plan. He had pulled some overseas duties post-Korea and pre-Vietnam conflicts that had earned him the assignment to Colorado Springs – because he had every intention of settling in the Springs. All was going well. Colorado Springs was a heavily militarized town with Air Force and Army all around. He was on TV and Radio – for the Air Force. A horrible highway accident took the life of the young wife of a local service member. Dad was to do the story. There was a horrific photograph of the young woman – he was told to use the photograph. He refused. He was told to do it anyway. He had no choice. The local community was repulsed and blamed him. He publicly identified the source of the irresponsible, inhumane decision and turned in his notice to NOT re-enlist, thereby terminating his 13 years of successful service in the military. That experience was the adult encounter that pushed him over the edge… nevermore would he allow himself to be in a position where someone else could decide his fate…
As a young, almost adult child, this was an unforgettable event. On the one hand, I was shocked that my Dad could quit his job and leave our family in turmoil. I will always remember my Mom’s fear, “What will you do, Thom?” “How will you support our family?” (She rarely opposed him openly). “I will need to get a job! To support our kids.” Mom was always – and I do mean in ALL ways his backbone, supporting his decision to be self-sufficient. And, I knew that… and one of my enduring regrets is that he rarely gave her credit for supporting him. Because without her (my Mom), Dad’s determination to be self-sufficient would not have been successful.
However, it would be very wrong if I failed to recognize that his determination afforded me most, if not all, the traits and skills in me that make me what I am – without a doubt, I have a long list of flaws, but, I also lay claim to a many skills and capabilities – most of which came from him. When Dad wanted a color television but couldn’t afford it, he set out to build it. He could afford a radio shack kit, so he bought the kit, and we built it together… I will always remember that as a monumental learning experience of organization and following instructions. It took us a couple of months of weekends, to lay our resistors, capacitors, inductors, tubes, and circuit boards. I laid them out per his instructions and the step-by-step radio shack booklet. He soldered every connection, every joint. We checked and double-checked every step of the process. And, in the end, it worked when he turned on the switch. He couldn’t afford to buy it if someone else built it – but, he could if he built it.
The large console, Color TV, was one example – we had it for many years. And it was always a source of pride. But, it was only one of hundreds of examples. I was the teenager who always wanted to be outside playing with friends – I wanted to be up in the hills searching for rattlesnakes… but I was his slave working on whatever self-sufficient project was on the weekend’s agenda. When we moved into the new house on La Cresta Dr.,we needed beds and rooms for four kids. Dad couldn’t afford to buy beds, so WE built them – I say we because I held the hammer, the nails, and the saws. He read the books at night and built during the day. When he needed a paint job for the family camping Van, he didn’t pay someone else to do it. He read the books and did it himself – I sanded, filled, and followed his instructions. When Dad decided he couldn’t afford to buy the wine he wanted for the evening Star Trek viewing, he bought the book and made the wine himself. When he wanted to enhance his photography contribution to the local television station where he worked, he converted our downstairs bathroom into a darkroom. And he did his own development. When the transmission on the rambler station wagon bit the dust he didn’t take it to the dealer – he bought the book, and we dropped the transmission and rebuilt it ourselves… imagine that – a non-mechanic rebuilding a transmission. A couple hundred discrete pieces laid out on the floor all going back together and working for many years thereafter.
My obvious point is that I was the recipient of his teaching and his examples. It is beyond my ability to express or quantify everything my Dad gave me and taught me… but, even with all I am thankful to him for, I will go to the grave wishing he had found it within himself to hug us and tell us he loved us many more times than he did. Why? Because that would make at least feel it was not all about him.
Even though I intended to conclude this memoir with that last paragraph, there is one more important thing I am compelled to put on paper… because this is an exceptionally personal recollection. One of the fundamental challenges Dad had to overcome was a flaw in his body and appearance. It was something that was with him every minute of his life, and he could never let his guard down… frankly I have no idea how he managed it. Dad had a wandering eye… and what I mean is that his right eye did not focus in the same direction as his left eye. As a television news anchor on TV every night, this was a huge impediment that he somehow taught himself to overcome – he learned, and I cannot imagine how if he looked slightly to the right of something, it appeared to everyone else that he was looking at them… this is subtle but important – that means that for his entire adult life he would force himself to look slightly to the left of you so you thought he was looking at you. I watched him on TV for years… I recall always watching to see if he faltered; watching his eyes. I knew he wasn’t actually looking at the camera… he was looking at something else. You know I never saw him fail… and I understand why he was so determined and successful… because his Dad abandoned him because of his wandering eye and red hair. This is a part of Dad’s terrible childhood because his Dad literally disowned him when he decided to marry my Mom. My Grandfather (his Dad), said, “Thom you cannot marry… you cannot have children – you cannot bring into the world another child like yourself”. It shocks me, really shocks me, that my Grandfather could be so cold-hearted and unloving to his own son – and to me. And my Dad, Thom, was vindicated when I was born without the wandering eye… and I suppose that also explains my namesake as a Thom Jr. because my Dad was sending a message to his Dad… You were wrong, DAD… and in conclusion, my very existence is full of appreciation of my Dad’s ability to be self-sufficient and overcome the challenges of his Dad.
Thanks, Dad. I love you, and I miss you.
