Old story

This is a true story reprinted from an earlier journal. Something told me to do it for some reason.

Woody

Monday, April 26, 2010 | An Inspiring story

Years ago, when I was younger and more ambitious, I worked a full time job as a woodworker and I worked a part time job delivering the morning newspaper to 500 plus rural customers and a small number of stores. One of the last stores on my route was a truck stop which was also a restaurant and convenience store. It was opened 24 hours
.
I had one customer who would meet me at this store to get his paper. I guess he enjoyed reading the paper with his coffee and breakfast as most people do. I was happy as hell because it saved me a little time, from stopping at his home!

He was an older fella who always had an unlit cigar in his mouth. We didn't know his name so we nicknamed him cigar man.

My wife, would often accompany me to help fold the newspapers leaving me free to drive and when we would reach the truckstop, cigar man would always be at the door awaiting his delivery. He always had little to say but my wife would often vent about problems at the pressroom and when she was done, cigar man would always say the same two words, "whatever! right?"

Many years went by and one day cigar man wasn't at the store so I asked the cashier, where is the guy with the cigar? and the cashier said,"You mean Woody? His wife past away and I havent seen him since"
My heart dropped, I felt so bad for the guy. I didn't know if he had family or not. Well, several months past away and I never knew what became of Woody.

Further down the road was an old sanitarian that had been turned into a nursing home. It was situated about halfway up a hill on a road called mountain avenue. We delivered about a half dozen papers to individual boxes outside the nursing home. On a cold wintery day, as we drove up to those paper boxes, there was Woody standing there waiting for his paper. We stopped and talked to him for a few moments. He asked us to come and visit him and we said, ya we will when we can find the time.

I gave him my deepest sympathy over the loss of his wife and he said those same words, "whatever, right?" I answered back "yea whatever woody!"
Every day from then on he would meet us there and we would talk about the weather or whatever lol, He always invited us to visit and although we said we would to be polite, I don't think we ever had any intention of doing so
.
In the summer, the home allowed him to have a little vegatable garden outside. He had tomatoes cucumbers, corn and would often share them with us. He was so proud of his gardening skills and we often gave him positive feedback about it.

One Sunday afternoon I told my mife, "Look, we're not doing we should go visit Woody! We keep saying we'll go but we never do and that's just not right." I had to promise my wife that we would only stay for 5 or 10 minutes. So we went.

Woody was on the top floor of the old four story brick building in a room that had antique fixtures in the baths and a clean room with a bed that had been made. My wife sat in the only chair and I sat on the bed. Woody opens his closet and brings out box after box of scrapbooks. He made sure there was a scrapbook in our lap the whole time we were there which ended up being about 6 hours!
He was telling us the story of his life through his scrapbooks! And wow! what a life it was! It puts mine to shame! He had a grown daughter who worked for the international Red Cross in Europe someplace, he didn't know exactly where. He had been in the army for 20 years and served his country. He had scarpbooks filled with medals he acheived while in the service. He had acconplished alot in his life! He had a great life, he traveled the world and made many friends who were probably either deceased or in a nursing home like he was. It was interesting learning all about him, asking questions and getting a personal narration as to what we were looking at. That day before we left he gave us alot of fresh garden veggies and we thanked him and left.

Several months later, we were checking over our early morning subscription stops for the day, we noticed all the nursing home papers were stopped!
After further research, we learned the nursing home had closed due to the high cost of maintainance. The company could not afford to bring it up to code. All of the patients had transfered to other nursing homes. I stopped someone coming out of the nursing home the following morning and I asked if she knew where Woody was sent and she said she thought up in Dover which was 100 miles away. I knew I would never be able to talk my wife into going that far to see someone who wasn't even related to me, so I knew I would never see Woody again. My heart sank!

Every morning from then on as I drove by the old nursing home to deliver further up the hill, I would notice Woody's garden unkept and overgrown with weeds and grass. Where there was once a conduit that tied three people together; sharing our bounty with each other, no matter if they be food or just our time; was now dead and rotted.

Whenever I think of Woody I find myself wishing I had spent more time with him but the same is true for all of my friends and family who have gone before me. Not enough time to talk, not enough time to say goodbye, the list is endless and we wind up leaving this earth with "unfinished business"! Maybe in the afterlife....."whatever, right?"

Thankyou for reading this! Please visit the Woody in your life. TC!

God Bless!