| Alzheimer's Disease Education & Referral Center |
| For Help With Macular Degeneration |
| National Alliance of Breast Cancer Organizations |
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| This Web site is created by Tom Tripp E Mail @ [email protected] copyright 2003/2007 |
| Tom Tripp was born on December 23,1948.
The youngest of seven (7) children born to Louis & Ruth Tripp of Shawnee,Kansas. Tom spent his early years growing up in a small four (4) room house on a little dirt farm in northeast Kansas, where his folks worked hard just to make ends meet & to keep seven (7) kids fed. With bath water being heated on the old stove, an icebox keeping the food chilled in the kitchen, a potbelly heat stove keeping the old house warm during those cold Kansas winters, & country music playing on an old radio, Tom spent the first 12 years of his life. By the grace of God Tom's Dad & Mom was able to trade, with a loan from the bank, that old dirt farm for a bigger home that was closer to town the schools & work, but was still in the country, in 1962. Tom's love for Gospels, came from an old country church his family attend weekly. When Tom was 8 years old, he contracted Polio & was in a coma for 6 months. It was while Tom was in the coma that he was placed in an iron lung , & on one warm July night, while in the coma , Tom's heart stopped beating. Weeping & feeling a deep pain of lost, Tom's father cried out his name & said "Tom cat (Tom's NIC name, when he was young. Given to him by his father), come back home,I need you here.". Tom's eyes open & he smiled..the doctor called out" We have a heart beat again, it is weak but study. .. Tom's heart had stopped beating for 4 minutes. When Tom finaly was removed from the iron lung , 3 months later, He had to learn to speak & walk all over again. Later in life, Tom wound tell the story many time, how he herd his fathers voice calling out to come back home again & how when he herd his father calling, he was standing next to a man on a narrow bridge .. Tom said , that he could not see the man's face, but he felt so safe, standing next to him, kind of like the feelings you have when you enter a Church or a Cathedral ( a place to worship) .. a feeling of deep peacefulness. "I truly believe this man was Jesus & we stood upon a bridge that laid between Life & Death, a bridge that stood between, Heaven & Earth" Tom said. "When I herd my father's voice, calling me home, I didn't not want to leave, but I knew I had too, because my father was needing me back home" Tom remembered. After Tom completed high school at the age of 17 he decided to move to NewYork City for a few months & see what life was like there, after spending his hole life in the country this was a BIG move for him so he packed his things in a few suitcases and catch the train east. The year was 1969, the year of Woodstock ,folk singers. Later he would recall that year as the year in which he became a man but nearly lost his soul. In 1970 Tom moved back to his hometown but after living in the fast moving & sometimes very hard world of NewYork City (1969) he knew he had other sunsets to see & oceans to touch. He Moved to Boulder, Colorado in 1972 after visiting there a few times with an old school friend & his wife that moved there in "1969'' Tom set up house keeping out side Boulder, Colorado for 2 years & later he would say whatever he lost in NYC he found again in the mountains that surrounded his home there. After a few years Tom started to get restless & wanted to travel & see what this country (USA) had to offer, before he putdown his roots for good & started a family of his own. Tom wound travel , for the next few years, across every state in the USA but two... Alaska & Hawaii. When ask why he hasn't visited those states yet, Tom just smiles and says, "I always leave the best for last, and my life is far from over." Tom has looked down upon this old earth from the top of the Rockie Mountains, watched the sun rise and set over two oceans. He has traveled through the hot desert and walked upon the frozen ponds of the northland, but he has always returned to Kansas ... the place where he hangs his hat to this day. Tom always had a love for country music and learnt the art of story telling at an early age in life and it can be herd in the stories and songs he writes today. Tom's father was a story tellers, as his father was, and his father before him. At the end of a long day, Tom's father would sit next to the old coal burning stove and tell stories about growing up in the coal fields of southeast Kansas, and of his many adventures in life. Tom's father loved the old country music & use to tell Tom stories while playing the country music in the background. From this Tom created his own style of story telling. In 1979 Tom's father went to join God in Heaven & this deeply touched Tom in many ways and his Mother passed away Jan 12 ,2007. His father was born in 1903 in a South East Kansas coal camp. Tom was at his father's side when he died in the hospital , after a long illness , during the winter of 1979. Some where towards the end of 1990s Tom's mother developed Dementia. Tom took care of his mother until the spring of 2001 then Tom had to place her in a nursing home where she could receive 24 hour attention and She passed away Jan 12 , 2007. Tom tells many of true stories about his farther & mother, one such story can be herd in a story Tom recorded in early 2004 called "Waltz Of The Wind (Daddy & Moma's song)" Tom's sister ( Jerry Gormen"Tripp") Died Thanksgiving Day 2002 froBreast Cancer. "She was like a mother to me" he said & "She had to take care of us kids growing up because our fokes had to work hard so us kids ( 7) could eat & have cloths on our back. Tom said "Cancer & Alzheimer's disease doesn't run in his family but it goes to show you that you should never thank something like that will not happen to you or your loved one .. Please visit your doctor atlest once a year." Tom said "Our family didn't speak the word Love much, we kinda took it for granite, that we all knew how much we loved one another" But I wish I would have told my sister one more time, how much I love her & thank her for all the years, that she took care of me as I was growing up" "She was like a mother to me" Tom wound say. Tom was married in 1977 , a marriage that wound end 5 years later. During this marriage, Tom fathered his first son "Jason Thomas Tripp'. Tom later married a girl he meet from California , her name was Lisa. During that marriage , Tom fathered 3 children , two girls and one boy ,, Christopher , Nicole , Gina. Over the many years, Tom has created smiles & tears, with the songs he sings & the stories that he has written & Tom says "When my work is done on this old earth, I am looking forward to once again , walking upon that narrow bridge, with a friend that I meet when I was only 8 years old, back in 1958, while I was in a deep sleep, a sleep they call a coma You can hear Tom's songs/stories at: |
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| These links helped me help the people I love" |
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| "After my footprints have� faded into the sunset, & my life on this old earth is no more...I will then be a storyteller in Heaven, as I walk once again with Jesus ,upon that beautiful Heavenly shore" Smiles and God Bless, Tom Tripp (The Storyteller) |
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| Post Polio Syndrome |
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| Tom and Lisa later divorced and are good friends to this day |
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