LESSONS OF FRIENDSHIP
64 | May• 2019
17 years. Tom corrected him once,
and Mike retaliated. Tom tore into
the hefty youth in a violent wres-
tling match that left them both
shaken and the front room a sham-
bles. That evening after school,
Mike went to see Tom.
“Mike,” Tom said, “every home
you’ve been in has kicked you out
because you couldn’t resist telling
someone off. You have to learn to
control yourself.”
Mike looked at him and said,
“How can you expect me to when
you can’t?” From then on, Tom be-
came a model of self-control, a fact
not lost on Mike. Tom learned what
was probably the biggest lesson his
boys had to master: how to control
your emotions and not strike out
blindly at life’s disappointments.
Another boy, Billy, was a 16-year-
old electronics whiz who had a nasty
habit of hot-wiring the door of any-
one who crossed him. Tom decided
his talent was worth encouraging.
Billy was given a basement corner
for his workshop, and his ‘shocking’
behaviour subsided.
By 1971 Tom had enough money
for a three-bedroom cottage. Five
years later he bought and restored
an old house as a residence for
homeless girls. In 1977 we renovat-
ed our last residence for boys, an old
farmhouse. Thanks to three Pres-
idential citations for ‘exceptional
service to others’ and a mailing list
of 30,000 contributors, Butterfield
Youth Services could now boast four
residences, housing 26 young peo-
ple, plus a complex of classrooms
for special instruction, a g ym and
an art studio.
Then Tom got another idea. Why
not a film about Butterfield Boys
Farm? For the next two years hebesieged Holly wood with the same
persistence that 20 years earlier
had battered down the doors of the
state bureaucracy. The result was
a poignant CBS television movie
shown in December 1981,The Chil-
dren Nobody Wanted.
Tom was a 42-year-old man
now, his generous beard streaked
with grey. As usual he was work-
ing night and day. When I saw him
next, at the film’s première, he’d lost
weight and looked thin and tired.
He had filled every job he’d ever
done at Butterfield with competent,He besieged Hollywood with the same
persistence that 20 years earlier had battered
down the doors of the state bureaucracy