Few knew or loved Catamount more than Tom (“Monsai”) Maloney.  Aside from growing up on the southern-most extremity of the mountain, it was Tom’s playground from the time he could ambulate.  Starting with bicycles and advancing to an old VW Beetle, to snowmobiles and to dirt bikes, Tom traversed nearly every inch of his beloved mountain.  From the lake and its lakehouse, to Mill’s Camp and the ominous caves, to the spot of the country’s one room school house where the first flag flew over a house of education, Tom knew Catamount’s haunts like the “back-of-his-hand.”

In Tom’s absence I will always hitch Tom and Catamount to the same wagon in my thoughts and remember him flogging either a snowmobile or a dirt bike past me and looking back over his shoulder with a bovine residue-eating grin on his mischievous face.  And if he could splatter me with mud from his rear tire, his glee would increase exponentially!

In later years when Tom wasn’t riding trails himself, he could be found repairing and otherwise maintaining them for others to use and to enjoy.  In this regard he was a true steward of the mountain that gave him so much pleasure in his own lifetime.  You’ll be missed, Tom, by so may who shared your mountain over the years.

Brad Brigham

Colrain

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