I met Tim Condron my freshman year of college, waaaaaay back before electricity was invented. We were fellow Communications majors, so we had a lot of the same arduous intro classes (“Video 101: How to turn on a TV set”). Tim’s one of the nicest gents you could ever hope to meet. He also happens to have a wealth of creative ideas, and sports a black belt in creative writing.

Tim’s father died young. He passed away when Tim was in college, from Hepatitis C that he contracted while working as a firefighter/paramedic and attending to an overdose victim. (No good deed goes unpunished.) You can read more about that here – Tim’s story starts on page 44. In a video production class we both took in college, Tim created a tribute video to his father, featuring still photos of his dad and family, with Steve Goodman’s “My Old Man” as the soundtrack.  To this day, it remains one of the most powerful and moving videos I’ve ever seen. Whereas the video that Tim and I created based on Bruce Springsteen’s “Darlington County” is better left to the Betamax dustbin of ancient history.

Tim almost died young too. A year ago he had what Fred G. Sanford would call “The Big One.”

fred sanford

But thanks to the miracles of modern science, he survived. And he’s created a website about life’s “second takes.” You can read Tim’s story about his near-death experience here, but below is an excerpt:

I’m on a mission to make a difference. To live a purposeful life, full of purposeful work, embracing purposeful relationships, and leaving this world a little better than it was on March 7, 2014.

 My journey is ongoing. It will never end. I must continue my search for meaning. This is not simply living in the moment. It’s living with a reason, living purposefully, living to make a difference. Living to be more than just another guy who some people knew but who passed away with all his ideas undeveloped, his passions unexplored, his words unspoken, his purpose undiscovered, his dreams unfulfilled, his fate left to people and circumstances that mattered not.

Godspeed, TC! Here’s some travelin’ music for your journey…