The last time I spent any significant time with Tad was in 2001 or 2002. He was living in Tucson doing a clinical rotation as part of PT school, and I was in Phoenix. He was just getting into climbing around that time, so we decided to meet up in Flagstaff to climb to the highest point in Arizona, Humphrey's Peak. Not exactly Mount Kilimanjaro, but it would have to do. We went with my brother, Eric, and Casey Parks, neither of whom Tad had ever met. Tad told us the story of he and Chad Jacobs climbing Pike's Peak (about a 26 mile round trip which I think I recall Jacobs did in jean shorts or something). Hopefully Chad can retell that story. The other thing that stuck with me from that trip is that we all went out to dinner and had some drinks the night before the climb, and when the check came, Tad handed the waitress his credit card before the check even hit the table. We all offered to pick up our meals, but Tad insisted. Here he was with two guys he had never met before and myself, an engineer making decent money, and the PT student ends up paying. He said something like, "what kind of friend am I if I can't pick up a meal once in a while?" That generosity just really stuck with me.
I keep remembering a bunch of little details from our time at the DU house and from the semester that we were roommates. Every time I'd say, "Hey Tad, how are you doing?", he'd say, "Hey Leahy, can't complain." Can't complain - That was his mantra back then, and I still use that response often.
He was our breakfast cook for a while, and I can remember coming down there all groggy early in the morning, and there would be Tad in his bandana with his music blaring, and I'd always have him make one of his Mom's specialties, "Sunny Surprise", which was toast with a hole cut out of the middle filled with an egg cooked sunny side up.
I remember the flag football game where we beat TKE for the championship. Schmidtberger threw up a pass that Tad and Greg and a TKE all jumped up and tipped. They all fell to the ground and the ball fell right in Tad's chest for the win. What I remember about that was that while everyone on the sidelines and on the field started running around screaming our heads off, that Tad just laid there holding the ball with this huge, strangely peaceful grin on his face.
I also remember him telling me that back in high school when he was this monster of a linebacker compared to all the other schools they played, that he loved it when he could just run over some poor running back and then help that guy up to his feet and say, "Hey man, nice run. Good play." and give him a pat on the shoulder pads just to get in the guy's head.
I loved how Tad knew every single lyric to every song played on the radio. One night a bunch of us played basketball at the rec, and when we got back and jumped in the shower, Tad started singing some song at the top of his lungs. I joined in and sang what words I knew, and then after that was over, he said, "OK, Leahy, now you pick a song. Start us off." For some reason the song "Summer of '69" was in my head, but I couldn't remember how it started. So Tad goes, "come on, it's easy - Got my first real six string... bought it at the five and dime..." So we both belted that song out, singing over the top of our own echoes and the hissing water. It's something that I would have never, ever, ever done by myself, but Tad brought out the best in us.
One more - I remember that every month, whoever was treasurer at the house would have to get up and announce who was late in paying their house bill. It was monotonous, and we all just blew it off. But one night, Schmidtberger got up to read off the list, and Tad stood up, one of the few times he said much at chapter meeting, and called us all on it. He basically told us all that we needed to take personal responsibility for ourselves. Tad worked as breakfast cook, saved his pennies from the summer, never went out to lunch, and always paid his bill on time. I think Tad was really the only one who had the authority to even be able to stand up and say something like that. For a lot of us, mom and dad paid the bills, and for others we racked up credit card bills, and paid late when we had to, but Tad was very much into personal accountability.
I keep thinking of a million little stories like that. I'm looking forward to remembering those things with everybody else.
