I think everybody loved Tom Cuthbert, and he loved a lot of people back. Just take a look at the expressions on Tom and Rita's face in that picture. I get the impression he really enjoyed being a Dad. They also had a unique Christmas "tree."

One reason I loved him was that, if I asked him, he'd take of his shoe and sock and show me what was left of one of his feet. Most of it had been lost - was it in World War I or in some accident? I can't remember. Anyway, his shin just ended in this perfect, intact heel, but the rest of the foot was gone. My little mind was fascinated by that.

Another Cuthbert story that alternately horrified and intrigued me was of some relative of theirs - some aunt or sister, possibly Rita's - who was walking behind a parked Greyhound bus at the station when it backed up and killed her. Well, I was still learning how the world worked, remember. The idea of one of those big friendly vehicles which took Mother and me on shopping expeditions to San Rafael - and even more exciting, The City! - actually killing someone was at odds with my worldview.

I still remember the day Tom died. I can't remember the year, but it can't have been too long after that picture with Rita was taken. I wasn't more than ten or so. It was a weekend, probably a Sunday. Plans had been made for all of us to go up to Calpella to visit Grandma and Grandpa Penna. Tom loved going up there. I, of course, would have been all agog over the trip anyway, but it would be even better with the Cuthberts along.

We'd just gotten up and were starting to make preparations for the trip when the phone rang. Mother answered, and listenened quietly. Her responses were subdued. She began dabbing at her eyes with a hankie. When she hung up, she told me that Tom had had a heart attack and had died. I'm sure I asked a lot of questions, and I'm sure she answered them, but I'm also sure I didn't really understand. I knew the trip wasn't going to happen, and I tried to comprehend the fact that a trip like that never was going to happen again. And that I'd never see Tom again. How did something like that work? I knew there was this thing called death, and that it meant people who once were here, now somehow weren't. But those weren't real people; real people were the ones whose being alive was part of my being alive, like Tom. This was the first time it it happened to one of them.