Timothy P Maffia

I met Tim the day a steam train roared through the dormitory at Peninsula Community College. It was 1979. Another freshman was testing his stereo system, using a sound effects record he’d borrowed from Tim, who, it turned out, had the room next to mine. We shared a love of trains. And we shared a sense of humor. I was there when Tim dropped his plans for a Forestry career and decided on television production, instead. Together, we hunted slugs for laughs in a satirical slideshow and hunted for laughs in a video project, “The Funny Old Hills.” We cut radio commercials in Port Angeles and “gripped” on video shoots in Seattle. Movies were important. In a screening at Peninsula, Tim reintroduced me to one of my forgotten favorites–”Singin’ In The Rain.” From then on, we were Cosmo and Don. We saw “Indiana Jones” in Port Angeles, “Tucker” in Bellingham and “Wrath Of Khan” in Seattle. Meals were mileposts. I remember lunches shared at Dick’s and Kidd Valley in Seattle; steaks at The Thirteen Coins and El Gaucho and breakfast at Andy’s Of Tukwila–train cars converted into a restaurant. There were dinners in the Amtrak dining car, Sunday morning buffet at San Francisco’s Sheraton Palace Hotel, lunch in the revolving restaurant at the Hyatt hotel and Cokes at the Top Of The Mark. Every Christmas FedEx brought a box of homemade Snickerdoodles from Tim’s own kitchen. I’ve never tasted better. He shared with me the sounds of the sea lions, live from the marina in San Francisco, leading to several generous invitations to share a room at The Palace. Our visits to my soon-to-be favorite city featured walking–a LOT of walking, including one memorable stroll of five miles or so, from the bridge to the city. We rode together in a rickety elevator to the top of Coit Tower and toured the claustrophobic confines of a World War II submarine moored at the waterfront. Together we soared over Seattle in a WWII era B-17 bomber, took in the Star Trek exhibit at EMP, rode to the top of the Space Needle (to play a video game!), trawled Pike Place Market and posed for pictures as “astronauts” at The Flight Museum. We took photos on Mt. Baker, and negotiated the twisty route to the top of Hurricane Ridge–recording the experience with my new video camera. We explored Expo ‘86 in Vancouver and loved PDQ Bach in Everett. Together we photographed the Golden Gate Bridge from nearby cliffs and recorded performances of the Blue Angels from the span itself. We met comedian Stan Freberg–walking out of a hotel as we were walking in–after seeing his performance at Bumbershoot the previous day. My wife-to-be was with us. We’d met not long before, and she didn’t know what to make of these two nerds who casually bantered pop culture references and finished each other’s sentences. We shared a love of Freberg, Spike Jones, Monty Python, Ernie Kovacs, Tom Lehrer and J.P. Patches. Together we discovered “Family Guy.” And, although I came to the party late, Tim insisted I check out a new show set in Seattle. In short order, we also became Niles and Frasier. Goodbye, for now, my friend, my brother. I’ll see you again. Maybe in those hills–the Funny Old Hills.