Thomas J. DePaolo

1947 - 2022

Neighborhood characters run a gamut from unique to peculiar, but Tom was like no other. He was first with a greeting, first with a favor, and often the first person you'd run into any day in his Belmont Shore neighborhood.
"You couldn't walk down the street with him for five minutes without someone calling out to him," his neighbor Nancy said.
Thomas J. DePaolo was more than a neighbor-he was an unselfish friend, a pinch-hitter, an "alley-cat mechanic," as one neighbor called him, and an animal lover. He was born in Rhode Island and spent most of his youth in the Valencia area and worked on a turkey farm, where he fed what he said were about 100,000 turkeys.
"It took me hours to walk down the paths and fill the feed troughs, almost from dusk to dawn," he said once.
After his service in the U.S. Army, Tom found his way to the coast, where he worked for 40 year repairing ships at Todd Pacific Shipyard. When he retired, it was to fulfil his true calling-being a neighbor.
"'Sure, no problem'-Tom would say that and respond to a favor before you finished the ask," neighbor Lisa said.
Tom was caregiver for Lisa's two dogs when she was at work. When another neighbor died tragically 11 years ago, he took in her dogs as a loving gesture. After Tom died, the dogs went a forever home with a local family.
Tom died at home in the company of his close friend Scott, after being hospitalized for a sudden stroke. On June 12, Scott organized an informal backyard memorial to celebrate Tom's wonderful memory and exchange stories.
"When I moved here in 1995, Tom was the first person I met," said Sterling, one of the guests. "He helped me with my truck-and we were friends ever since. We'd take walks and hang out. You'd never meet a person he didn't know!"
"Anything I told the guy about my life, he would ask me about it later-how's your classes going, how's that interview? Littlest things, and three weeks later, he'd remember it," said Colin, another neighbor. "He'd send me voice mails at 7:30 on a Saturday morning when I was still sleeping, ask me if I needed anything from Archibald's, and then say, 'Catch ya later.' He was just that kind of guy-he cared about other people. I'm keeping the voice mails as long as my carrier will allow it."
Tom could often be seen under the hood of one of his beater cars, trying to get them running. He'd work on everyone else's, too, and accepted nothing in return.
"You needed a tool, some knowledge, an idea for something mechanical or in the house, he'd come over within 10 minutes and check it out for you," Colin said. "Then he'd talk to you about all kinds of stories he had."
Not that Tom didn't attend to his own needs. One of them was a nightly chocolate milkshake at Archibald's, where he'd sit wearing Bermuda shorts, no matter the weather.
Archibald's, much like Grandfather's clock in the poem, shut down a little before Tom did. The empty building is one of many reminders of the person who was a good, kind, unselfish friend. We miss you,
Tom. Catch ya later.