Remembering Vince Tampio, (continued) |
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| Somewhere in his mid-60s, Vince finally began to age. First, his feet started giving him trouble, then his knees. Of course, the problem was always his weight. He simply loved to eat. The last time we had lunch together, in mid-September, we had dim sum for four at his favorite Chinese restaurant. But there were only two of us at the table. And he knew all the waitresses by name.
Of course, that doesn't mean he liked them. "That one's always stingy," he cracked. "You'd think she owns the food." And when Barnet called to tell me the sad news, and I was trying to figure out when, exactly, Vince had just been in New York, I dated his trip by saying he'd been looking forward to seeing John Stamos in Nine. "So he's the one," Barnet joked. "Be nice," I said, "considering the news." "No," Barnet rightly insisted, "Vince would like that kind of theatrical cattiness." He was a teacher, and an artist, though perhaps not exactly a role model. "I'm just a big old guinea," he'd tell me repeatedly, though maybe going very light on the "old." From South on, it was always, "Do what I say, not what I shout," and, thirty-five years later, Vince remembered balling out Allen Moss in front of a full stage cast, then suddenly turning and seeing Allen's mother. "I think I got out of South just when I could," he admitted. "When I first moved to California, I used to have nightmares about having to go back." He was happy here, looser. In retirement, in addition to his New York and European trips, he had his friends -- in June, he'd gone traveling with a couple he'd know since college in Ohio. For their 50th wedding anniversary, they'd all gone on a cruise from New York to Panama, through the canal, then up the West coast. At home, he had his big screen TV, and all the cable football and baseball he could handle. He got a lot of what he wanted in life, and some things he probably didn't expect: us, for example. He never seemed comfortable accepting the thanks we all kept offering him for helping start our careers. "We were just a bunch of kids having a lot of fun back then," he'd try and defer. "That's what made it worth it." He gave our class one last gift though, completely unintentionally. It was a lunch for Vince, with Barnet, Paul, and me, that started the questions that led to our 37th reunion. Without him being there, that wouldn't have happened. From Robert Fiveson, on hearing the news, "He had a lot to be proud of. Certainly a mentor to many of us who ended up as pros. In fact, an unusually high percentage, I think. I commend his spirit to God." Rich |
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