Tim was a great friend to so many of us. He had a wonderful soul. I will so long remember him and his incredible family and falling asleep in the snow outside his house New Year's Eve (9th grade?) the night Kenny (Croen) and Sindy (Berger) started their romance and Don (Harris) and A (W) ...? -- this was the year the Knicks broke the consecutive game winning streak by beating the Cinncinnati Royals down by 5 with 16 seconds left in the game (I think) -- maybe I have that wrong AND I remember great times at Tim's farm. Tim was a great part of my growing up.
Tim and I were best friends from elementary school into junior high and grew apart in high school but remained good friends. He was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in third grade at a time when self-monitoring was rudimentary at best, but he fought to keep his illness from getting in the way of experiencing life. And he worked at experiencing life a whole lot more than the rest of us because he feared he’d have less time. Tim loved to read, and he loved music. While we were excited about discovering THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, Tim was reading EAST OF EDEN. And while we were listening to the many standard music artists of the time, Tim was also entertained by the likes of Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith. He opened me up to an entirely new world of music and I would only begin to chip away at his reading list in college. We often begged his older siblings to accompany us to concerts that we had little chance of attending on our own and had tickets to attend Woodstock with plans to leave the farm and meet his older brother at the concert. Needless to say his mother wasn’t about to let her 15 year old, insulin dependent son walk into what the news was reporting to be inaccessible by more than 15 miles!. (I’ll spare everyone the description of our dismay). When Tim died he was running a soup kitchen in Poughkeepsie, New York not far from the family farm. Beyond his lust for life, Tim had an unwavering sense of social justice and a belief in public service.
Wow, Jim. Thanks for posting that. What a wonderful way to go: soup kitchen, social justice and public service. That's better than most of us and something we should strive for. Not exactly Trumpian! I recall a very early elementary school memory, when I spent much time at Tim's house, when he and Dermutt (spelling?) fed their little dog crayons then waited for the technicolor turds to pop out!!! Now, THAT is a memory! Worthy of Ben Hollis. I also got to go to the family farm once. We played in the hay in the barn and my childhood asthma went into high gear and I spent the night wheezing and huddled with a vaporizer. Oh, well...
Good to see you at the reunion, if only very briefly, and hope you're well. I'm retired which is a step in the right direction. Trying to do some of that social justice stuff. Take care, David
Thomas Wessel
Tim was a great friend to so many of us. He had a wonderful soul. I will so long remember him and his incredible family and falling asleep in the snow outside his house New Year's Eve (9th grade?) the night Kenny (Croen) and Sindy (Berger) started their romance and Don (Harris) and A (W) ...? -- this was the year the Knicks broke the consecutive game winning streak by beating the Cinncinnati Royals down by 5 with 16 seconds left in the game (I think) -- maybe I have that wrong AND I remember great times at Tim's farm. Tim was a great part of my growing up.
James Moorehead (Moorehead)
Tim and I were best friends from elementary school into junior high and grew apart in high school but remained good friends. He was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in third grade at a time when self-monitoring was rudimentary at best, but he fought to keep his illness from getting in the way of experiencing life. And he worked at experiencing life a whole lot more than the rest of us because he feared he’d have less time. Tim loved to read, and he loved music. While we were excited about discovering THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, Tim was reading EAST OF EDEN. And while we were listening to the many standard music artists of the time, Tim was also entertained by the likes of Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith. He opened me up to an entirely new world of music and I would only begin to chip away at his reading list in college. We often begged his older siblings to accompany us to concerts that we had little chance of attending on our own and had tickets to attend Woodstock with plans to leave the farm and meet his older brother at the concert. Needless to say his mother wasn’t about to let her 15 year old, insulin dependent son walk into what the news was reporting to be inaccessible by more than 15 miles!. (I’ll spare everyone the description of our dismay). When Tim died he was running a soup kitchen in Poughkeepsie, New York not far from the family farm. Beyond his lust for life, Tim had an unwavering sense of social justice and a belief in public service.
David Harris
Wow, Jim. Thanks for posting that. What a wonderful way to go: soup kitchen, social justice and public service. That's better than most of us and something we should strive for. Not exactly Trumpian! I recall a very early elementary school memory, when I spent much time at Tim's house, when he and Dermutt (spelling?) fed their little dog crayons then waited for the technicolor turds to pop out!!! Now, THAT is a memory! Worthy of Ben Hollis. I also got to go to the family farm once. We played in the hay in the barn and my childhood asthma went into high gear and I spent the night wheezing and huddled with a vaporizer. Oh, well...
Good to see you at the reunion, if only very briefly, and hope you're well. I'm retired which is a step in the right direction. Trying to do some of that social justice stuff. Take care, David