Thomas Grissom died on March 3rd, 2017 in Red Bank, NJ surrounded by his children. Though unconfirmed, it is rumored that shortly after his death he rose from his bed with a start and declared,”I never die, so you know this is pretty serious.”
He was born to the late George and Agnes Toner Grissom in Wilmington, Delaware and it is said that after Tom’s birth doctors from around the world met in secret and seriously considered stopping births altogether on account of how well he did. Tom dropped out of school in 8th grade to care for his younger siblings, but would return years later and complete four years of high school in two, or 20 minutes depending on how Tom was feeling at the time he recounted the tale. He would go on to graduate Temple University in Philadelphia.
Tom was a larger than life figure. His presence was so large, in fact, that it was said that he looked like the back of two buses with the doors open. Explorer, scientist, and strong man; tales of the young Tom were legend. He’d hop freight trains and travel to faraway cities. He lived in a Boys Home. Some say that an adolescent Tom may have even been involved in a gas station burglary or that he ran errands for organized crime, but they do so in hushed tones. For from that moment on, Tom lived the straight and narrow.
He unloaded trailer trucks for the ACME food corporation, where on at least one occasion, he thwarted a robbery. After meeting the wrong side of a leather wrapped pipe, Tom showed the attacker why he had earned the nickname “Concrete” and threw the assailant hundreds of feet into a nearby brick wall. They say on certain nights, if you listen close enough, you can still hear that man weeping. When he wasn’t fighting crime, Tom might be seen lifting cars, climbing alleyway walls, or jumping over broomstick handles to the delight of the neighborhood children.
Tom spent time on a steam train as a locomotive fireman before serving with the Air Force during the Korean War. After his service, he worked for the Boroughs Corporation on massive supercomputers at the dawn of the computer age. His intellect made him an ideal candidate for the Intelligence Community and Tom was hired by the US government where he became a director of Intelligence and Counterintelligence at Fort Monmouth Army Base in Monmouth County, NJ. His work, always shrouded in mystery, took him all over the country and he received numerous commendations. Air Force One may or may not have a Fax Machine anymore, but if it does, Tom was the man who approved its installation. He retired in 1996 after serving more than 32 years.
Tom’s interests did not lay solely with spies and technology, for he loved art, poetry, and the outdoors. A gifted artist, Tom spent much of his time drawing pictures. Napkins were a favorite medium of his before he moved onto envelopes in his later years. His work, signed in many cases with his nom de plume “Tomas”, did not hang in stuffy museum halls however. Instead, it can be found taped to the cold steel of industrial sized milk dispensers in the great diners of America. Parting gifts for exemplary service handed to whatever kind waitress served him his coffee.
Tom was an avid mountain climber. His crowning achievement came when a co-worker made the mistake of telling him he was too old to climb Mt. Everest. Tom won that argument in 1977 when he, at the age of 46, climbed to the highest point possible without supplemental oxygen. One year later, Messner and Habeler would undo this when they became the first people to reach the summit unaided. Some believe they did this specifically to try and wreck Tom’s story.
Tom is survived by sisters Anne, Dee, and Gerri, his brother Richard, two children, Dawn and Eric and his five grandchildren Emily, Avery, Ava, Reilly, and Cooper.
A celebration of Tom’s life will be held in May. More details to follow. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to The Friends of the Monmouth County Parks.