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Robert Fitzgerald Draper
Dear Classmates,
I am deeply saddened to inform you that, Tim Cassell, my one of my best friends for the last 43 years passed away today. Tim and I met at Albert Harris Middle School and bonded almost instantly through our love of science fact, science fiction, our shared odd sense of humor and ability to divulge any tidbit of information from the Star Trek Lexicon or even give you a walking tour of the USS Enterprise based on having watched every episode at least 100 times! We were classic nerds.
By the time we reached high school, Tim, Richard Critz and Julie Jones (Gooding) and I were near inseparable. Star Trek was still the conversation topic of the day and I still can't believe Tim's Dad drove us all the way down to the Greensboro Colosseum in the back of a pickup truck to hear Gene Roddenberry (the creator of Star Trek) speak. Tim and I would laugh at that trip for YEARS after that. We also laughed for years at being thrown out of classroom together for laughing at one particular teacher's mispronunciations of "clandestine" (Candlestein) and "pun" (poon). Tim's laugh was always so spontaneous and infectous.
My first exposure to computers was through Tim (and his job at Radio Shack). I used to go by his shop after school and we would wait 30 minutes for a simple backgammon game to load from a cassette tape onto a computer (this was before floppy disks). From that point forward, computers and programming would always be a part of our lives.
I worked at the public library after school but did not have a car so I would walk about 4 miles across town at night after work. Tim frequently would not allow me to walk home (especially on cold nights) and would go out of his way to give me a ride home from the library in his yellow VW Beetle. We've always had fond memories of that car.
Tim also LOVED music. Everything from playing trombone in our high school band to simply listening to his favorite musician, Elton John. I remember being in the car with him as he was obsessesed with an Elton John song that was playing on the radio that wasn't in his complete collection. Turned out, it was a new artist named Billy Joel. From that moment on, he was also a Billy Joel fan.
Tim, Julie, Richard and I all went off to college at Virginia Tech. Years would pass. Julie and I each settled in the Washington DC area, Richard in New Hamshire and Tim in the Charlotte, NC suburbs. In 1984, Tim married Sherry Jones, his wife of 31 years. Talk about a patient wife. I remember driving down to visit them soon after the birth of his daugher, Caitlin, for a Star Trek series premiere party: complete with us walking around in full uniform costumes and drinking "Romulan Ale" (Zima with blue food coloring).
Tim and I lost touch somewhat after a while. Only sharing the occasional call over the years just to check in with one another. Like so many others, our casual friendship was rekindled when we became Facebook friends. Once again, we were able to find humor in each other's lives and circumstances (though I must say, I think my comic mishaps greatly outnumbered his). Looking back at it all, I'm glad I could still make him laugh.
I lost a great friend today. He layed down to take a nap yesterday and never woke up after a fatal brain bleed left him without cerebral activity. In every sense of the word, this is a sudden loss to me and, no doubt, devastating to his wife, children and sister. My deepest sympathies and prayers go out to them.
I find that when someone close to me dies, over time, a lot of memories fade but the one thing I never forget is his or her laugh. If that holds true, I will remember Tim for a long, long time.
Rest in peace, my friend.
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