Jim Vestal passed away on September 16, 2007. I met him when I was still a teenager and happened to log onto his BBS, way back in 1987/1988. I've been trying to remember exactly when, but I suppose that's not important. What is important is that Jim was one of the best friends I ever had.
His bbs in 1987 wasn't the best bbs in our area, or the busiest. What made it different was that it was the only Christian bbs, run by a Christian. I was posting a message to his board, telling him how great it was that there was a Christian bbs in the area, when he popped on to chat.
"You're a Christian?"
"Yup."
"How long?"
"Since I was 5 years old."
"Let's meet!"
That was that. I remember the day I went over to his house, we connected very quickly. We were both into computers; he had his Tandy CoCo III, while I had my Commodore 64c. We talked about Jesus. We talked about music, oh man, music. I grew up barely knowing music existed beyond traditional hymns and acoustic folk music. Jim changed all that.
As I grew a bit older and ready to move out of my parents' house, Jim became my roommate. We'd sit and listen to music for hours, or watch science fiction on TV (mostly Star Trek). Jim had never been to a funeral in his life, and in fact had tried to avoid that sort of thing, but when my father died, Jim was there.
We argued a lot, that was one thing Jim excelled at. He actually enjoyed arguing, whether it was big or small. He was famous for his arguments, but as he got older, he realized that arguing really didn't get you far. Certainly the arguments we ever had were never about important things. It was more about whether Petra was better than Whiteheart, or whether a phaser could actually provide enough dilithium to power the Enterprise.
His love of Jesus was evident his entire life. I have no doubt he's with Jesus as we speak. He knew the Bible more than anyone I know. A game he used to play was to listen to the Bible Answerman on the radio and answer the questions before he did.
Jim's memorial service will be this Friday, September 21, at 3pm, at The Rivers Foursquare Church, 1548 Poole Blvd., Yuba City, CA 95993. If you can make it, great, and if not, that's okay too.
He will be missed. We love you, Jim.
Greg Chance
