Jared Tillman was in his mid-twenties when The Change came. He was a second generation hippie living in Topanga on a commune with his parents when it occurred. Topanga survived the Dieoff relatively unscathed due to its low population and isolation and while Tillman didn't prosper, he did as well for himself as anyone. His mother died from a coronary a few years after Doc Leibowitz ran out of statins and blood pressure medicine to give her while his father had died of lung cancer being a smoker of tobacco as well as weed. Tillman had married but his wife had died in childbirth of their only child Connor when Jared was in his mid-thirties.