A Don McCormack column: Tommy & Shirley...

A love story... A life story... With a bit of sports sprinkled in

DON McCORMACK

The thing about fairy tales is, they tend to focus more on the happy endings than the journeys that were taken to reach those points.

For Tommy and Shirley, the ending is not the important thing.

Far from it, in fact.

For theirs is a compelling story of a love, mutual sacrifice, building a life, raising a family and living out their golden years the way both of them always dreamed — together.

With some Friday night football and what proved to be a magic-carpetlike journey to Columbus and back for an unforgettable trip to the state basketball tournament sprinkled in, Tommy and Shirley had their trail of a shared lifetime blazed.

Theirs is the kind of saga of which songs, books, movies or, in this case, stories, are written.



‘Vim, vigor, vitality’

The young man sped up and down the home sideline at Bula Field as coach George Guarnieri, for whom the field would later be renamed, led his Ashtabula Panthers to win after win against the opposition.

For young Tommy, who could not play football because he had suffered an injury in the summer time and was determined to keep it a secret from his father, racing up and down the field following the action and describing it into a microphone and whose accounts were blasted over the public-address system was about as close to the action as he could get.

Having been dubbed with the tagline “vim, vigor and vitality” (it even appeared below his senior picture in the school yearbook, The Dart) for his constant, never-an-empty tank energy, Tommy loved being involved in the Friday night activities.

For a kid who raced home after school every day to work at his father’s sandwich shop, called “Pete’s Lunch,” on Center Street, just as his four older brothers had done, life was pretty simple.

“We served the best hot dogs in the world!” he said.

Then, one day, life as Tommy knew it all changed.

And he would thank God every day for the rest of his days that it did.



... at first sight

During ceremonies held at Bula Field in May 1945, Tommy and Shirley were graduating from separate ninth-grade buildings in the city into high school.

As soon as he set his eyes on her, Tommy fell... hard.

“As soon as I set my eyes on her, that was it,” he said. “There was this adorable little blonde with the softest blue eyes.

“I had never felt what I felt that day before.”

After they both entered high school at Ashtabula High, Tommy sat in front of Shirley in home room.

But even with her at his back, he could see her in the warmest living color in the most special place of all.

In his heart.

“I knew I loved her and there was no turning back,” Tommy said. “I had known from that day the summer before I had met the girl of my dreams.”



Waiting game

Despite his feelings, Tommy couldn’t express them through their sophomore year at Ashtabula.

The following winter. Bob Ball’s Panther basketball squad went on a remarkable run, winning game after game in the postseason to become the first Ashtabula County team to qualify for the state tournament.

“What was pretty much the entire town boarded trains and headed to Columbus,” Tommy said.

WICA (now WFUN), was broadcasting the Panthers — who featured the likes of future Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Famers Ramon Peet and Gene Gephart as their star players — to the few county denizens who had not headed south to the state capitol and Tommy was asked to aid the broadcast as a spotter.

Which meant he was supposed to feed information, facts and tidbits to the broadcasters during the game.

There was one big problem, though.

A certain Ashtabula cheerleader wearing soft, fuzzy sweater.

“I don’t think I did much of a job as a spotter that night,” Tommy said. “I was too busy watching Shirley.

“I did get her name mentioned on the radio a couple of times, though, and I thought she would like hearing about that.”



Making his move

It was on the train ride home from that basketball tournament in Columbus that Tommy finally mustered the courage to approach Shirley.

But there was another big problem, though.

She was seated next to her parents on the train.

“I was scared to death!” he said. “My knees were literally shaking as I made my way down the aisle toward where Shirley and her parents were sitting.”

His fear was twofold.

“One, it was very difficult to ask a young lady for a date with her parents sitting right there,” he said with a laugh. “But more so, I feared being rejected.

“I was — in a word — terrified.”

Turns out, his fears were unfounded.

Shirley said yes.

And in Tommy’s chest, his heart pitter-pattered with that same pang it had first done on that May day almost two years before at Bula Field.

“I’m not sure I have the words to describe how I felt when Shirley said yes on that train,” he said. “I can’t imagine what my life would have been like if she had said no instead of yes.

“In fact, I can’t even begin to imagine.”



At the movies

As is the case even today, Tommy and Shirley’s first date was to see a movie.

“We went to the Harbor Theater,” he said. “There was a Laurel and Hardy movie playing that night.”

Without hesitation, he recalls the exact date.

“April 1, 1947... I remember it like it was yesterday,” he said.

That night was their first official night as a “couple” and now, more than 62 years later, nothing has changed.

Tommy and Shirley are still together, having never left each other for another.



Moving on

But as soon as they graduated in 1948, Shirley went to work as a secretary to the superintendent of the Illuminating Company while Tommy went off to college.

Literally, the next day.

“I had an uncle in West Virginia, so I had a place to live so I headed to Fairmont State College,” he said. “I didn’t have to pay any room and board, which made things much easier.”

Tommy flew through his courses at Fairmont State and didn’t waste any time in the summer, either. He knew what he wanted to do.

“While working the counter at my dad’s sandwich shop, I would always wait on judges, lawyers, etc. at the counter,” he said. “They’d put their brief cases on the counter and I’d hear them talk about things and make conversation with them.

“I knew I wanted to go into law.”

Tommy finished at Fairmont State and got into law school at Cleveland Marshall. He spent the summer of 1950 at Ohio State law school and the summer of 1951 at Case-Western law school.

He was on the fast track.

“I became a lawyer at age 22,” he said.

Tommy’s trail had been blazed by the inspiration to follow in the footsteps his older brother, Peter.

“His plan for life, if he survived (World War II), was to become a lawyer and then go into politics,” Tommy said.

But it didn’t work out that way. While flying his 30th bombing mission over Austria, his plane went down and he was killed in 1945.

“He was a great guy,” Tommy said. “He graduated from Ashtabula in 1941 and he was a true patriot.”

Peter is buried in Arlington.

Tommy followed Peter’s lead to the Army in 1952, being stationed in Fort Sill, Okla. during the Korean War.

“I was a staff sergeant,” he said. “I was in the judge advocate office, the legal component of the Army.”



Together, at last

In 1953, Tommy and Shirley made official what had started eight years ago on a sunny spring day at Bula Field when he first spotted her — then magnified at Friday night football games as he tried to keep one eye on the action on the field so he could relay the accounts to those in the stands and the other focused on Shirley on the sideline as a cheerleader — they were married.

With her delightful blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes and exceptional smile, Shirley came to be known as the gleeful cheerleader and her boyfriend and (future) husband to be known as the terror on the sidelines.

Tommy’s sprints up and down the Panther sideline added another dimension to the entertainment of the home fans.

“As I charged with the microphone from one end of the field to the to other with overwhelming excitement, I became a threatening menace to head linesmen, chain-gang members and football players on the sidelines,” he said with a laugh. “I ran through anything and anyone in my way to announcing the play, but with always an eye on Shirley as we exchanged glances in a romance that blossomed on the football field on Friday nights... forever.”

The couple raised two children — daughter Lesley and son Todd, who followed their parents as graduates of Ashtabula in 1974 and 1980, respectively, who have blessed them with six grandchildren: Carly, Kyley and Christi by Lesley and her husband, Chris, who reside in Austinburg; and Mandy, Jewels and Alex from Todd and his wife, Becky, who reside in Tulsa, Okla.



Partners forever

Though he’s had plenty of opportunities to pull up stakes and head for supposed greener pastures, Tommy long ago chose to hang his hat here — and he’s never regretted it.

“We had every opportunity to move elsewhere,” he said. “But Shirley’s family was here... my family was here.

“Ashtabula County has always been so good to us, I can’t imagine us leaving, and I thank the Lord we never did.

“This is where our hearts are.”

Not to mention where there hearts met more than half a century ago at a high school football field.

Life has changed some for Tommy, who will turn 80 in February, and for Shirley, who will celebrate her 79th birthday in November.

Two and a half years ago, a string of strokes made it difficult for Shirley to get around and to communicate.

But Tommy hasn’t missed a beat.

“That’s my little girl,” he said. “I’m going to take care of her... always.”

And he doesn’t want anyone feeling sorry for him and his wife.

“We have lived a life together I could only dream about,” he said. “I wish more young kids in school today could have the beautiful life Shirley and I have had. We started dating 62 years ago and were married 56 years ago when we were ready for marriage following college and law school.”

Through it all, for Tommy, there’s always been Shirley.

As author Chuck Klosterman penned, Shirley had somehow triggered that unique neurological mechanism each and every human possesses. Tommy had pushed the button on the cerebral switch that makes someone simply decide they are going to be in love with a specific individual, simply because that is the person they are going to be in love with.

There is no feeling that can duplicate the emotional intensity that is the byproduct of an attraction that simply cannot be explained.

“She has been my inspiration and my energy,” Tommy said. “That May day at Bula Field in 1945 was about a month and a half after my brother, Peter, was killed and I had been feeling so empty.

“Then, that day, God brought my to Shirley to me. She is without a doubt the best thing that’s ever happened to me and we’ve gone through this life together, arm and arm, shoulder and shoulder and heart and heart.”

Picture 2004’s “The Notebook,” only with a better ending.

“If I could, I would wish for and then grant the life we’ve had for everyone,” Tommy said. “For it truly is almost a fairy-tale story.”

Only better, Tommy.

Only better.



Epilogue

And for the introduction of our stars, “Shirley” is Shirley Kresin, who has spent the last six decades being the light, love and inspiration of Tommy’s life.

“Tommy” is Thomas Lambros.

He was the youngest common pleas judge in Ohio at age 30 in 1960.

In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson appointed him as judge to the United States District Court in Cleveland, where made the 110-mile commute every day.

He never left Ashtabula.

It’s where his home... his heart... his Shirley is.

In 1996, Congress named the federal building in Youngstown the Thomas D. Lambros Federal Building and Courthouse.



McCormack is the sports editor of the Star Beacon. Reach him at donmac@suite224.net.

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