By Rosalie Tirella
How very interesting … .
I got an email from a woman who has known Terry Toombs – aka The Boob – for 13 or so years. She apparently house-sits for Terry when The Boob and her clan go on their 3-week-long vacations (which happens every four months or so!). The woman read my Toomes blog posting and ICTimes story and told me I hit the nail on the head when it came to the Toomes clan of 132 Institute Rd, Worcester.
She agreed: The Toombs milk the system. This woman told me Terry and clan “raid food pantries.” She said her man boys may act dumb but are intelligent enough to get on their comupter and book discount airplane flights. The woman said the Toombs are heading out for their 12-day vaca soon – in January! She said she wanted to say: WHO’S HANDICAPPED?? when one of Terry’s sons was making airplane reservations and asked for 2 handicapped seats. (why not?! more room/less money!)
The woman, who said the Toombs have 8 cats, and a flea problem (last summer) said the naked-boob-bearing Terry sounds right on, too.
Two words for Terry Theresa Toombs and clan: MEANS TESTING.
MEANS TESTING!
MEANS TESTING! A STRATEGY TO CURTAIL welfare fraud that Mass gunbernatorial candidate Charlie Baker recommended the State of Mass institute before this state and our fair cities and towns go belly up! I am a Democrat and would never ever take shelter or food or clothing away from a poor single mother and her infant/children. But the Toombs clan is something different. Something insidious eating away at the fabric of … Worcester, society.
Means testing should be something any social service agency/food pantry should do before it gives any sort of benefits/food/etc to folks who say they need the help.
For example: If you want food stamps, how do you live – what is the lifestyle that makes you unable to pay for food? Why should Terry Toombs and her family go all over Worcester county “raiding food pantries” and then use the money they shoud have spent on groceries to buy airplane tickets for their vacations? How insane is that?
Something is very very wrong here. The Toombs are the perfect example of a floundering USA. America has lost its bearings. Where once the USA had a killer work ethic – I know: my immigrant grandparents and my mom worked themselves to the bone – we now have the Toombs – the culture of entitlement. Fat, lazy, computer literate enough to Google “food pantries” and “free” and then jump into their van to retrieve their goodies.
When I was growing up, my mother told me what her mother from Poland told her: When you get your pay check this is how you spend yor money (in order of importance): rent, gas/heating bill, electric bill, food, telephone. Extra money went for clothing, shoes, etc. The last thing my mother would blow her teeny paycheck on was a family vacation. She just didn’t have the dough – and we kids had to adjust. We never ever went on a real vacation. My mother couldn’t afford a week in Florida or Cape Cod. She couldn’t spend dough on lake cabins, etc. But during the summer my sisters and I did go the Girls Club on Winthrop Street (fun!), attended Worcester’s Summer’s World play productions in the parks (also fun!), went to the lilbrary and enjoyed their movies and visited our Aunt Rose and Uncle Mark in the nicer part of town. They had a big back yard and a little house. Much nicer than our third-floor flat in Green Island. When we vistied my aunt and uncle, my mom (a single mom for the most part) relaxed with my aunt and uncle over a cup of coffee and donuts. My sisters and I played basketball with our cousins – or board games like Monopoly. A blast! We also had cook outs and icecream parties. And sometimes we all went – my Uncle Mark driving – to Natasket or Hampton beach for the day.
It was great fun – and appropriate. We were poor. We tried our best to have a good time during school vacations. More important: we always had lots of food (that my mom paid for with her hard earned dough) in the house, a roof over our heads, warmth, electricity, telephone service and boots for the winter months. Which we paid for ourselves. We kids – through my mom’s excellent example – had pride in ourselves, our minds, each other. My mom was God to us. My mother was fiercely proud of herself, too.
I will always love her for this.
Even though we were poor, my mom expected me to get all As in school (which I did – al honors classes and 3 AP courses – up until college!). And she expected me and my two sisters to go to college. This is when – through my aunt – we got assistance from the state and the federal government. Besides college applications, we filled out Pell grant applications, student loan appleications, scholarship applications, etc BECAUSE MY MOTHER WAS POOR AND WE COULD NOT AFFORD COLLEGE and we got help from the govt. Perfectly appropriate.
My mom earned every iota of respect we gave her. We feared her. She was old school. She was not our huggy, lovey-dovey gal pal – she was our mother. Sarah Palin would probably call her a Mama Grizzly.
So opposite from the pigs who are the Toombs! Their raids of food pantries! Terry The Boob and her pathetic husband and kids bring shame to themselves and what it means to be an American. For all of us.