In a big family it's hard to get a spot to yourself, Tom was an avid reader as a child and in order to find peace and quiet he would take all the snow boots and winter clothes out of their huge trunk and crawl inside. He rigged up a light with an extension cord that ran in from the other room, and no one would bother him for hours. In high school, Tom and his friend Whitney found the duct that went under the principal’s office. One morning, they snuck in and hooked their record player up to the school PA system and played records for several periods of school, taking turns going to class so that they both had alibis. It took several hours for anyone to figure out where the music was coming from, never expecting a pirate radio station to be located under the floor beneath the principal’s desk. Needless to say when they were discovered the principal was furious and threatened to make sure they’d lose their college scholarships. Luckily upon reflection he decided it was rather ingenious, and granted reprieve. In his late teens, Tom wrote a letter to NASA during the Apollo series. At that time, they were having a launch problem and he decided that he had figured out a solution and thought he should tell them how to fix it. To everyone’s surprise, they promptly wrote him back and thanked him for his input. NASA informed him that indeed, he was correct and while they had just now figured that very same solution for themselves, he should keep up the good work.