qynothna: January 2009

It was great to see Tom Hanna once again yesterday afternoon as I left my mother's home and drove by his heading home to northern Virginia where I live. I drive by his historic old home each and every time that I drive up to visit my mother.

I usually wave to Tom , to his windows and say " Hello Tom ! " out-loud as I pass by. I don't always have the time to stop. I wish I did. I wish that I could stop by with a bottle of wine and drink it with him and talk " wine stories " and experiences over these many years.

We are both in the wine business : have been for many years ( me coming on thirty and Tom coming on thirty-five/forty? I don't know ) and have worked together the one year back from mid 1999 to mid 2000 at MacArthur Beverages ( Addy Bassin's ) in Washington D.C. Our friendship was cemented that year when I think our mutual respect and appreciation of each other professionally and as people really gelled. We are each other's cheerleaders so to speak and I value that as much as about anything. Thanks Tom for all your kind words of praise and support over the years. It has been something I cherish and value. I feel the same about your talents.

I am glad to have had that one year with Tom Hanna. It was fun to work together as a team and to sell wines. We made a great team. Tom would include me whenever he could when tasting in-store and making buying decisions. I got to meet a number of the winemakers / owners that visited the store and to taste with them. I even took some pictures of these tastings / meetings and have the pictures that I took. I will have to download them onto this blog someday.

Tom is an Italian specialist and he has created an entire career around specializing in all Italian wines of quality and distinctness of soil and place and indigenous grape variety. I like that. I have learned from that and from Tom's example.

So yesterday as I headed back home I thought about stopping to see Tom once again. As I got to his home the light turned red and I came to a stop. Tom lives on a corner and so that gave me a chance to look to my left over at his old red brick home and to try and spy him through or in the windows. No such luck! The windows were still nicely-decorated and I liked that a lot, too. The light turned green and I moved forward and scanned the right side of the street for parking places. One was there, just a bit down. I rolled right into it, smoothly, easily and stopped the car.

This was it, I had made my decision, split-second to stop and go visit Tom and his wife for a few minutes, just basically say " hello " and exchange a few stories before heading home. I rang the bell and waited. Nothing happened. I then knocked on this old wooden door and waited. Nothing happened. I was now writing a " wee " note on my business card from Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3423 Connecticut Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 20008 , sales@clevelandparkwine.com, www.clevelandparkwine.com , 202:363-4265 ) and I heard the door move. There was Tom, smiling and we exchanged quick " hellos " and he invited me in.

It was totally serendipitous and fun. We both were talking. He was hunched over much more from all his surgeries, knee-replacements and infections over the last two years. It has been a bit of hell for him with all these problems manifesting themselves/

I asked Tom how he was as we walked into his big living room. He smiled as is his fashion and responded : " I've been better, I've been worse ". I understood : haven't we all? So we sat down there in two chairs and started to catch-up quickly. I only had fifteen or so minutes, mind you. I did not want to be driving home up here in the country in the dark.

Conversation flowed easily and we both got to relate some stories. The phone rang, I offered to get it. He said that if he did not get it his wife would or the answering machine would. I decided that this would be my cue to take my leave. I would have enjoyed staying longer but this was about the amount of time I had. Sorry Tom, it would have been fun to really talk more. We need to do it sometime, to share more of our stories. I would enjoy that so much.

Tom saw me to the door and I sauntered off quickly back into this gray, cold, ashen, washed-out small town, country landscape. I was looking forward to getting past the town and the series of god-awful pink flamingos that came down from one house on the outskirts of town and led down towards the street to surround a white snowman is it ?!? Too much pink! It just doesn't fit this drab winter landscape at all. Tacky comes to mind, too. Oh well, I was looking forward to the sunset and hoping it would be as magnificent as the last when my family had driven home after seeing my mother and brother in December 2008. Wow, that really stole my breath from me and made me want to do nothing more than to look at the sun fading away and take lots of pictures to try and capture some of the fleeting splendor of Nature's vast, unimaginable beauty.

Mom, it was great to see you. Good to talk to my brother as well and also nice to be able to fit you in Tom as the icing on the cake for this Sunday's " road trip ".

Got home, got to have a lovely dinner with my wife and son and share storeies with both of them. We all had our individual takes on our day's activities and it was fun to bring them out around the dinner table and enjoy them. Cheers everyone. See you soon Tom I hope. TONY