Tim
Known Since: 1979
Resides In: Carmichael, CA
Tim, my best friend, is also officially my oldest friend. It pains us both to think how many years we've known each other, because it's a reminder of just how old we've gotten. Tim and I met when I started at Sacramento Adventist Academy in the 5th grade. But it wasn't until 6th grade when we became friends. It's too many years gone by to remember exactly when or how it happened, but we started hanging out at each other's houses and talking on the phone a lot. Soon, we were best friends, and both our families knew each other well from having to drive us back and forth all the time. We'd nerd out in our shared love of comics, and even combined our collections into one (in case you're wondering, we dug Iron Man, Shogun Warriors, Avengers, Rom Spaceknight, Micronauts and Moon Knight, to name just a few). We'd pretend we were DJs and do fake radio shows in my tape recorder. We'd play Atari games for hours on end. And, of course, we'd talk about girls a lot.
Man, we went through just about every first together you can imagine. We were both in love with the same girl in 6th grade, Jenny Jaurros (neither of us ended up with her, but I did end up taking her to the 7th Grade Christmas Banquet, so that's one in my column, pal). We started a school newspaper together, The Campus Chronicle, which had limited success (it actually got us in trouble at one point). In Junior High we met Wayne, who would become part of our inner circle, and later we'd add Manuel, too. We all collected and talked about comics, Star Wars, played role playing games, fawned over the genius of the mini-series "V", and played lots of the sort-of-board game Car Wars (often with our school coach and history teacher, I should add). As S.U.A. is a school that covers elementary right through high school, we were in school together all those years. We made it through puberty (somehow), and shared our different interests and hobbies (like Tim's chess thing and obsession with Civil War history) and worked on all kinds of grand projects together that we thought would make us famous. Since Tim was a talented artist and I aspired to be a writer, we had big plans to create a comic book together. Yeah, like most of our ideas, that never really panned out. We had an adolescence filled with video games at the bowling alley, movies at the mall, and plenty of comradery.
After graduation, we both went to American River College together for a while, and we both met Kevin and ended up forming the Mission Park group. And with that age came plenty of partying together and a host of new experiences as our world grew and life opened up for us in all its possibilities. With our birthdays less than three weeks apart, we both turned 21 around the same time, and discovered bars together (both the regular and...ahem...the gentlemen kind), and we both gambled for the first time in our 21st birthday trip to Reno. Our friendship was the one constant through all this, and the changes to come--Tim would go off to college in Chico, and I'd move to Arizona to follow love. But eventually, we were back together again, after both of us were at bad ends in relationships and were looking for roommates. After all those years of practically living together we spent so much time at each other's houses, we finally did get a place together, the famous house in Citrus Heights we called La Casa, which we shared with our friends Rich, Aaron and A.T. Soon Tim would end up engaged and married (a wedding which I was, of course, in), ending the roommate part of our journey, and I would move to San Diego. But time does tend to stick us back together, and when Tim's marriage ended and a job moved him to L.A., there we were, hanging out again most weekends when he'd drive down to hang out with Aaron and me. Tim would eventually move back to Sacramento to pursue a new career path by starting his masters in history, but with a good long distance plan and the ever-present e-mail, it still feels like we're living the same town. Frankly, it kind of always has, no matter where we've been. It's that kind of friendship, one that time can't lay a finger on.
Tim, like myself, is a creative soul to the core. As I said, Tim is an artist, and has built up quite a body of work over the years. Ever since we were kids, Tim has always been a carnivorous reader, plowing through more books than he could probably ever count, both fiction and non. Come to think if it, he's probably the reason I've read as much as I have over the years (which ain't near as much as it should be). As his current career path shows, Tim has always been a huge fan of history. When we were young, he read everything he could get his hands on about the Civil War, but in these latter days has become obsessed with Roman History. Many of Tim's other interests we've always had in common, like movies and television. Since way back in elementary school when we met, Tim has always been on the prowl for the ladies, and heaven help the maidens in a target-rich environment when he's on the move. Tim is extremely outgoing and is liked by everyone who meets him. Of the many things we share, the same sense of humor is one of them, and Tim's an extremely funny guy who loves a good laugh and a good time. He's always looking ahead, never satisfied with where he is in life, always looking to better himself and his opportunities.
What more can I tell you about the guy? He's the closest thing to a brother that I've ever known, and the one constant in my life, and through all the twists and turns we've both been through. There's a definite comfort in knowing that no matter where life takes you or what happens to you along the way, there's one person who's always going to be there for you. Or, one that had better be, because you have lots of embarrassing pictures of him from the last quarter century and know how to make a web page...
Random Me and Tim Memory: Oh, like I'm supposed to pick just one after all this time?! How 'bout when we were in that elevator with that Playmate, and freaking Uncle Owen's wife wouldn't stop yapping and blew our one chance to ever talk to one? Or when we somehow thought that if we both asked Rishon Ludders out in the 6th grade at the same time it would somehow help us both with her (yeah, that makes sense). Or the Atari Pac-Man competition we entered that time and got blown out so badly? Or sneaking in to see "Hot Dog, The Movie"? Oh, or sitting through the Star Wars Trilogy Marathon at Sunrise Mall theater? Or when we were at that (censored) club and (censored) from high school was up on stage and saw us and... Okay, we'll stop there...
