Pat Jobe
Wednesday, January 15, 2025 10:47 am
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This column is about Tommy Hicks, born on January 16, the wide open publisher of The Amazin' Shopper, the paper that preceded this one. But before we get there, I ask you to consider something else.
We simply cannot know another human being totally. Thomas Wolfe talked about it in Look Homeward Angel. He wrote, "Which of us has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father's heart? Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent? Which of us is not forever a stranger lost and alone?"
It's grim and we like to live with the possibility that we do know those closest to us and understand what makes them tick. Maybe we do know to a large degree, but there is something in what Wolfe wrote that rings true. None of us really, totally know that other person.
A lot of us were lucky enough to get close with Tommy Hicks. As young kids we read comic books and talked about how Marvel was better than D.C. Why? I'm not sure, but we sure thought so. In junior high we began to face the awful truth that his muscular dystrophy was getting worse and it tore us up. In high school we got to sit on the same bench with Connie Mack Hamrick, Charles Simmons, Melvin Watkins, Keith Harrill, Danny Philbeck and the other stars of the 1972 state championship basketball team. Hicks and I weren't players. I kept the stats and Hicks served as manager, an emotional springboard for the guys who played the game.
And as adults we sold ads for this paper, only then it was called The Amazin' Shopper. I sometimes helped him into and out of his car. We laughed a lot with the woman who runs the show now, Jan Cook.
Right here I could say a lot about what made Hicks who he was and how he overcame the limitations of a debilitating disease. I even wrote a book about him and there is one copy left at Smith's Drug and two at Next Door Used Books on Thomas Street in Forest City. But I'm not going to try here again. It's too much. Who he was and how he overcame his challenges are simply beyond words as I remember him more than seven years after he passed into the arms of glory. That's a little frustrating because I am ambitious. One of my ambitions is to inspire readers with what a truly wonderful and amazin' guy he was. It may be beyond me or anybody who knew him, loved him, enjoyed his company. But with Christmas gone by, I want to say what Danny Philbeck said many times. Hicks was silly. He took intelligence, ambition, a healthy ego, a kind heart and used them sometimes to be unapologetically silly. He played pranks. He said hilarious things. He owned a two-foot high mechanical Santa Claus doll that would come to life any time you got near it. It would say "Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas," and wiggle and scare the blue blazes out of people who heard it for the first time. When we jumped, he would laugh and shake his head in amazement. He found life many times to be "amazin'."
We cannot all be as smart as he was with a masters degree and a successful counseling practice for part of his career. We cannot all be as good looking as many of his female admirers would attest. Few of us can succeed in business the way he did. But by jumpin' Santa dolls, we can all be silly. We can all realize that laughter is good medicine as the Good Book testifies, and we can stop taking ourselves so darn seriously. Hicks was silly, and, baby, was he ever a lot of fun.
A gathering of his friends will take place at Barley's Tavern In Spindale, January 18 at 3 in the afternoon. All are welcome including Van King who came last year because he read it here.
Contact Pat Jobe at patjobe13@gmail.com.