Young Tim's Service Work

By Mike McPadden
SUNY Purchase
Class of 1990 (except I failed out in 1988)

When I met Tim Aher in 2004 I was, in fact, not "meeting" him at all. I'd known him – off and on, granted – for the previous 17 years.

In 1987, I was a freshman film student at SUNY Purchase. The transition, for me, from a strictly regimented Jesuit boys academy to wild-and-free art-shool bohemia was no easy thing.

In fact, I could not have been more out of my element.

One issue was that I had never spent so much time around people my own age. And I was learning, the hard way, that they were creeps – and not in a manner I could relate to.

Who I could relate to were preschoolers. I was the oldest of 15 grandchildren, at least half of whom converged upon their grandmother's house for dinner at least once a week.

So when I was attempting to fill a required science credit, I stumbled onto a child psychology course that involved working with children. I took it. It wasn't like the teenage girls were talking to me anyway.

Among the three and four-year-olds I worked with was young Timothy Aher. And I actually did remember him, for years, as a sweet little guy who, on occasion, had to be reminded to keep his hands to himself.

Now lest anyone imagine Tim was a bruiser as a toddler, let me shatter your dreams – his two best friends were a pair of twins named Phillip and Sara. Tim was very taken with Sara's shiny red hair and he liked to sort of "pet" it.

Sara, darling though she was, sometimes needed to not have fingers stroking her head, and she'd let me know. Thus was born the sternest phrase I would ever muster during my tenure at the SUNY Purchase Children's Center: "Hey, Tim, let's use our words! Let's TELL Sara how pretty her hair is!"

Sometimes Tim respected my suggestion, sometimes he just took off to keep company with someone in the classroom less dorky than the guy with fluorescent orange hair and a Monkees t-shirt. And, yes, that would have been absolutely anyone else in the classroom.

But what Tim didn't realize – and that I hadn't realized until having this horrible reason for reflection – is how deeply Tim and his pre-kindergarten classmates had helped me during what would prove to be a very troubled time in my life.

I like to make wisecracks about being a misfit and unhappy in college but my depression was, in fact, deadly serious. My time, then, at the Children's Center provided me with hope, with a purpose, with a connection to the world I'd left behind in Brooklyn, and the suggestion that an even better world might be possible.

Years later – when Tim was an adult friend of my (technically) adult friend Brian Collins – I mentioned attending SUNY Purchase and Tim mentioned the Children's Center. I knew who he was immediately. We joked, from then on, about my bad influence on him. It never occurred to me to thank Tim for the good influence he had been on me.

So I'll do that now.

Tim – thank you. You have held a special place in my memory and my heart for all these years, and I want you to know that you always will.