I first met Tommy when the Wild Boys were on their way to Chicago and needed a bass guitar. I was a recovering bass player, and sold Tommy my 1968 Fender Telecaster bass, a bass larger than Tommy was. Tommy was really more of a beat poet back then, just learning to be a musician, and quickly learned to play that bass. The Wild Boys went on to get better (and louder) and I became their only roadie and ran the sound. I had lost touch with Tommy until I moved back to Ann Arbor last fall. Tommy rented me a room in his house, and we started playing music at Bombadills Coffee shop in Ann Arbor and a couple of times in Hillsdale. We also played for his spot on A3 public radio (an internet radio station) several times. He taught me a LOT of new songs, many of which he had written, and I have incorporated several of his originals in my solo work. Tommy liked to bill me as Lonesome Jack, a sobriquet he felt reflected my style of music, and the fact that I had recently relocated from Ann Arbor from New Mexico, a land of mysterious cowboys. Last fall Tommy showed me that old bass I sold him in 72, and explained that he could no longer handle its mass due to a back injury. So Tommy and I reunited last fall and Tommy reunited me with that old bass (now wearing the patina of time). When I sold him that bass I told him there was only two conditions. The first was that he could NOT remove the peace symbol that I had put on the front back in 68, when I bought it in high school. The second was that if he ever wanted to sell it, to let me know. He honored both requests, and that tattered peace symbol decal is still on the front of that wonderfully aged bass. Tommy helped me a lot, helping me to become a better musician in that brief time we play last winter. We shared morning coffee, with discussions that ranged all over the worlds issues. The last time we got together to play was shortly before his passing. I'll miss you Tommy. We all will. Lonesome Jack Pence.