The year was 1970. The occasion was the annual Phoenix Home and Garden Show. The opportunity was to open my great grandfather J.E. Thompson’s 46-year-old Rancho Joaquina estate for public viewing. The problem: It was a mess, inside and out. In stepped the local chapter of the American Institute of Interior Designers, along with The […]
Boyce Thompson: Last Drop-Kicker in Westchester County
My father, Boyce Thompson, Sr. (1932-2009) was the last person to drop-kick extra points for his high school team in Westchester County, N.Y., one of many claims to fame for a great high school athlete who never lost his youthful enthusiasm. Drop-kicking, of course, gave way to place-kicking after the football was redesigned to give it […]
Boyce Thompson, Sr., Dies Unexpectedly
Loved by all for his kindness and warm wit, Boyce Thompson, Sr. died unexpectedly on December 17th 2009 at 76 years of age. He was preceded in death by his wife of 52 years, Patricia Simmers Thompson. He is survived by brothers Bill and Tony Thompson and by four children–Boyce and wife Carol, Hugh and wife […]
Meany Remembered as Brilliant Party Prankster
You know the kind of stories that reduce you to a senseless mass of convulsive laughter, where you involuntarily blurt out laughs like coughs, where your eyes stream with tears and you can’t speak? And just when you stop, you make eye contact with another person who also got the joke and start all over again? Those were the kind […]
J.E. Thompson’s Unsuccessful Run for the Senate
J.E. Thompson couldn’t have picked a more difficult time to run for the U.S. Senate. The year was 1934, right in the middle of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first term. The county was in the midst of the Great Depression. The president and his Democrat allies in Congress enjoyed strong backing. Moreover, Thompson, a relative unknown […]