THOMAS HOLMES

In honor of Gus' comments in my David Kanera post, I've decided to post something on the weekend. So Gus, this is you - from my perspective.

His name was Tom. But he was better knows as "Gus" - or "Gussie G"

Gus joined us just for our senior year. I'm not sure where he originally came from. But he was a breath of fresh air.

I first got to know him in Mr. Wegner's Current Events class. Gus sat right in front of me. Was there anyone more cheerful and outgoing than Gus? Perhaps B.J. Lutterman. But B.J. left us after freshman year. Gus always had a smile on his face, and was about as good-natured as anyone I've ever known. Everytime he saw me he would greet me with a loud, "BURT!" It was hard not to like the guy.

I don't have a whole lot of memories about Gus. But one minor thing stands out. As mentioned above, we were discussing the current events in the news. And in the fall of 1988, there was (if memory serves) some huge catastrophe in Armenia or somewhere. I think it may have been an earthquake that killed tens of thousands - perhaps hundreds of thousands. Mr. Wegner was talking about how the country was having problems with looting. Apparently some people were raiding the pockets of the dead bodies that were strewn about. Mr. Wegner was disgusted by this, and said so. But Gus raised his hand with what I thought was a good point. He told Mr. Wegner that he shouldn't be so quick to condemn the looters of the dead people, because he wasn't in the same position that they were. In other words, if your home and village were destroyed, and you were in that type of desperate situation, then you too might actually lower yourself to raid the pockets of a corpse. Mr. Wegner still insisted that he would never do such a thing. But Gus argued that he couldn't possibly say for sure. It was a cool exhange to witness. Way to go Gus!

Gus appears twice on our senior video. In one scene, he sings a rap he wrote about the class of 1989. His second appearance is a bit more odd. He faces the camera with a huge handful of grapes, then stuffs them all in his mouth and chews them up. I have no idea what that was all about. I'm sure it's something that I was never made aware of. But I've always been curious.

Gus is one of the rare people that I never ran into after graduation. I knew nothing about his life after highschool. But if memory serves, he was planning to join the Air Force.

About two weeks ago, in anticipation of posting about him, I began to try and track him down. I found some possible information. But I wasn't 100% sure if I had the right guy. But here goes. If I'm correct, I believe Gus got married, but unfortunately divorced in 2004. I don't think they had any kids. I believe he's in the Wuakesha area, and is possibly working for some sort of youth treatment facility in Oconomowoc. Since Gus has stopped by the blog to say hi, perhaps he can tell us more.

UPDATE - 11/11/06 - Here is one of two appearances Gus made on our senior video.