'The end is nothing; the road is all'
Tom Allan, longtime reporter for the Omaha World-Herald, died June 27 at age 84. Tom Ash, one of his colleagues at the World-Herald, delivered a eulogy at the funeral
service July 1. It is excerpted here.
Tom Allan was my friend for the past 42 years. On behalf of Tom's family, I want to thank you for being here to honor Tom's memory and celebrate his life.
I know this will come as a surprise to many of you, but Tom sometimes gave the impression he was a little rough around the edges. He could occasionally appear to be a little crusty and sometimes a bit cantankerous. But Tom was a preacher's kid, and he worked at camouflaging it.
Still, if he did come across as a little rough, it might have come from a rough start in his life. He lost his mother when he was 4, and when he was 9, he and his younger brother, Bill, came to this country alone by ship and were met in New York by their father, who took them to Kansas and, later, to Council Bluffs, Iowa.
He served in the Army in World War II. He enlisted the day after Pearl Harbor. He was a bona fide member of Tom Brokaw's "greatest generation."
He was a tough little guy, but that's not who he was.
When I told my wife about his passing, she said, "Oh, he was such a sweet man."
That was the Tom Allan I knew. He was a sweet man.
Back in the early '60s, I was a young pup TV reporter in Omaha, and Tom was already a 15-year veteran of the World-Herald. We were acquainted from running into each other on stories, and we were both in the National Guard. Tom was a major, I think, at the time, and I was a PFC or SPEC 4. We were in different units, but we ended up together at summer camp in Wisconsin or Minnesota that year.
I ran into Tom out in the field, and he asked if I wanted to go to town that night and have a drink. Now such fraternization between officers and enlisted men was verboten in the military. But Tom was never one for convention. That told me something about the guy.
He never was one who paid much attention to rank or titles or station. And he didn't have much use for pretension. He looked beyond the status to the people in such places, and he generally looked for the inherent good in everyone.
He was equally comfortable in the company of our state's political leaders and business movers and shakers and the most humble among us. He could be equally irreverent with all the governors he knew, going back to Val Peterson, and with the boys in the bar in Benkelman.
In 1966, I joined the World-Herald and became a police reporter. I came under the guidance of three veteran police reporters: Jim Ivy, Bill Billotte and Tom Allan.
From Jim and Bill, I learned the ins and outs of the police beat. From Tom I learned to look for the human element and search for the emotion in the stories from the seamier side of our society.
Tom always credited Gregg McBride, the great sportswriter, as his mentor and "father" at the World-Herald. I was blessed to have Tom Allan. Although I was 20 years younger, he was more of a big brother than a father figure to me. ...
In the next few years, I moved over to sports and was privileged to cover the Huskers for about a decade. Tom was a member of our coverage team, and he was usually assigned to the opposing locker room. That meant that about 90 percent of the time, he covered the loser.
Tom always wrote about the opposition with respect. He looked for the dignity and nobility in the effort, no matter the outcome.
I was fortunate to be able to travel many miles with Tom by plane and car and to share many press boxes, hotel lobbies, restaurants and a few taverns and golf courses with him. In our conversations, I discovered that golf was not a game with him. It was an addiction, a disease.
I also learned that he had an even greater passion for the State of Nebraska and its people.
Tom could never understand how some Nebraskans could be self-conscious about our state. To him, Nebraska was utopia. He was captivated by the wonderfully diverse topography of the state. But it was the unique character of the people who inhabited this place that inspired him most.
He preached and practiced state pride before Bob Devaney came along and made it much easier. Tom was one proud Scotsman, especially when he was wearing his kilt, and one proud Cornhusker.
In my opinion, Tom Allan had a better grasp on the soul of Nebraska than anyone else I knew. He embraced the unique culture of our state, and he embodied it. He knew our culture was rooted in the ranches and farms and small towns of the state and that the spirit of our pioneer heritage was strongest there.
His relationship with the Sandhills was spiritual.
He was an insatiable state historian, and he was intimately familiar with the works of the great custodians of our heritage like Willa Cather and Mari Sandoz and Dr. John Neihardt, our state's poet laureate. Tom knew the latter two well and always said they were the inspirations for his work.
Tom saw every day as an adventure as he headed out on his byways. He couldn't wait to see what and who were around the next bend. He regarded all Nebraskans as family, and he had a particular affinity for the state fair and Nebraskaland Days because they were just big family gatherings to him.
He believed there was a good human interest story in all of us if he just looked hard enough for it. He could generally find a good one because he was genuinely interested in what mattered to his subjects, and he truly cared for them. You can't fake that.
Tom's stories came from discovering new friends and building relationships. That's what made him special.
Like so many others, my appetite for discovering the nooks and crannies in our state was whetted by his columns and our conversations. I was an inner-city kid from North Omaha, but I developed a passion for the Platte River Valley, the Sandhills and the Pine Ridge because Tom introduced me to them.
He also introduced me to Ole's Big Game Lounge in Paxton, which was Tom's oasis out west, and to his friend Ole Herstedt, who was a son of the Sandhills and a guy who was wired like Tom. It's true there was a legendary barroom brawl among the cowboys at Ole's a few years back, and it's true that Tom was in the middle of it.
Tom kept a mailbox at Ole's so friends out west could leave him messages. It was right under the baboon. More than once I left a bar tab in his mailbox, usually at Ole's insistence.
It was maddening to play golf with Tom. He refused to play the whole course. He didn't know what woods were for, and he'd hit those little popcorn irons 100 to 150 yards down the middle. He'd beat me to the green while I was off exploring, and he was not a gracious winner when he took a hole.
We both served on the board of directors of the Nebraskaland Foundation the last several years. That organization was a perfect match for Tom because its mission is to celebrate our state's heritage and accomplishments and to recognize its great achievers. ...
I know Tom regretted not being home much, and his family having to share him with his greater Nebraska family. But I also know that in his later years his family was paramount with him, and he was a doting grandfather and great-grandfather.
I also know Tom was drawn to those tiny church yards that dot the Sandhills landscape. Those lovely spots were where he found his peace.
In a column years ago, he wrote, "They provide much more than a tranquil spot to break a long summer day's drive. They are nature's tabernacles, and in them I feel closer to God than I ever have in big city churches or cathedrals.
"For some there may be only the physical respite of a refreshing pause by the side of the road at a spot of solemn beauty ...
"But whatever the reflection or response, the pause there by a weary traveler has made him a better man.
"For a few moments, he was alone with God."
I always thought the perfect final chapter for Tom would come sitting in World-Herald car #18, enjoying a magnificent Sandhills spring sunset, overlooking a lush meadow filled with newborn calves and a marsh loaded with migrating ducks and geese. But that was not to be.
He did play golf three times in his final week, so he didn't write too bad an ending.
I know he was always grateful to the World-Herald for allowing him to do what he loved to do for so many years.
The good thing is it gave him time to write his book, To Bucktail and Back ... a Million Miles of Memories. I'm grateful that Deanna Sands (managing editor of the World-Herald) pushed him to do it. I valued my copy before; now I treasure it.
I urge you to read it if you haven't. It will give you great insight into who Tom Allan truly was and why he had such an abiding love affair with our state and its people. The proceeds go to the Tom Allan Scholarship Fund at the UNL College of Journalism.
I think it was Willa Cather who wrote, "The end is nothing; the road is all."
I don't know what Tom Allan's ultimate destination was, but he took one hell of a trip, and I'm thankful he took so many of us along for the ride. He was a lovable cuss, and I loved him.
God bless Tom Allan!
