RIP George Toomer

3 Comments

1. 
   Posted by J David Moeller, on 14 July, 2009

   George and I met in military school over 50 years ago. He was my penultimate best friend. He was like a brother to me, a father, a mentor, a confidant.

   In my life I have never been closer to any one human being as I was to George. I looked up to him and respected his selfless wisdom and bled him of it regularly to guide me on my path. I always marveled at his sagacity and lightening ready wit. I’d quote his morsels of inspiration to my friends when I felt his words would serve them as they had assuaged my problems.

   Over and over he’d admonish me to avoid getting “the thinkies”…referring to my habit of over thinking a problem in my life and agrandizing it out of proportion. I’m sure others of his friends received the same prescription.

   George allowed me to pester him mercilessly while he worked over his drafting/art table -like a puppy underfoot, never turning me away; always kind and patient.

   In 1970 we co-published Claxon Magazine, a “ground-level” alternative magazine in Dallas. All four issues we produced were sell-outs and featured the work of such photograpers as Jack Caspary, Phil Hollenbeck, Shel Hershorn, Moses Olmos, and others.

   George designed and produced the entire publication while I edited and wrote. He was not the best speller and I’d remind him when he turned in copy that “You’re pictures, I’m words”…a phrase I heard him say to others in later years…and it made me proud that he’d adopted something of mine into his vernacular; I had so often done so of his.

   In November of that year we founded the “Giant Thanksgiving SuperFeast”, a free Thanksgiving dinner for anyone needing a place to go, regardless of their ability to pay for it. A record of those SuperFeasts can be found at .

   Over the years it became a goal to make him laugh. He was a master humorist. He could, if given the stage and a bent for performance, most assuredly hold his own with the best comics of our time.

   I never met a soul that wasn’t convulsed by him time and again. And so, I’d try to make him laugh…and succeeded, perhaps, five times. And those five times were the highest moments of my life. Surely, he’d tell me I was funny…and I knew I was…but to hear him laugh spontaneously at a joke or witticism from my lips was as if I’d found the Holy Grail itself.

   These last years, and more so this last, we’d talk on the phone perhaps every 10-15 days or so: I in Chicago, he in Dallas. It may have been two old farts checking in: unsaid but underneath “You still alive?” “Yeah, you?” but it was always to old friends reminiscing and sharing.

   It had been about two weeks since our last chat so I called my friend Saturday afternoon at 5:13 pm. We talked for forty-four minutes and 50 seconds according to my cell phone’s log. We bemoaned our age, our aches and pains, the fact that we’d not enjoy the company of women any more. He offered advice about my current spate of problems and “thinkies” and I tried to comfort him by understanding the pain he was suffering.

   And then, as do all calls, it was time to sign off.

   I spoke first, “I love you, man!”
   George replied, “Yeah, me too.”
2. 
   Posted by Pat Barton, on 14 July, 2009

   He was one of my favorite people of all time. I wll miss him forever.
3. 
   Posted by Dee Massey, on 27 July, 2009

   I have heard about George for a long time but never had the chance to meet him. Thank you, J. David Moeller, for giving us a glimpse into his life. I can’t think of a more fitting tribute than what you wrote here.