Most young people today have little or no idea what the expression “basic training” means. If they’ve heard of it at all, they could be forgiven for thinking it was a course on the Internet for Dummies. Firsthand experience with basic training, also known as boot camp, has become far less common since Congress ended the draft in 1971. The draft, for young people unfamiliar with it, was conscription into the armed forces. Young men received “greetings from the president of the United States” ordering them to report for military service, the first component of which was boot camp. Boot camp involved weeks of being shouted at and humiliated, coupled with grueling physical exercise and instruction on how to march, shoot and…
Tim Woodward is a longtime Idaho columnist. His columns appear one Sunday a month, often more frequently, in The Idaho Press and are posted on woodwardblog.com the following Mondays.
Posts by Tim Woodward
Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays, which is odd when you consider that it’s often been a disaster at my house. Who doesn’t love Thanksgiving? The seductive aroma of turkey roasting, the annual gathering of friends and relatives from near and far, the uniquely American-ness of it all? True, Thanksgiving is celebrated in other countries, but nowhere is it enjoyed more universally, or ravenously, than here in the U.S. It’s a documented fact that Americans eat more food on Thanksgiving than any other day of the year, as anyone who has downed an after-dinner Alka Seltzer and groaned through a quarter or two of football can attest. Last year, after cooking and hosting Thanksgiving dinner forever, my…
TROY, Alabama – The scene: a motel on the outskirts of Troy, Ala. In the parking lot, a black Dodge Charger that practically screams Boise State University football. Stretching the width of the front windshield are the words “Boise State,” across the top in blue and orange letters several inches high. Painted on the rear windshield: “#Game Day Bound! #Bleed Blue.” Blue and orange dice hang from the rearview mirror. Two BSU flags dangle from the back windows. The rest of the car is all but wallpapered with Bronco logos. Its license plates are in BSU frames. It was the opening day of what was expected to be the Broncos’ dream season, before Oklahoma State and San Diego State downsized the…
A.A. changed my life. No, not Alcoholics Anonymous. I’m referring to a publication called Advertising Age. Journalism students at my college were encouraged to read it. I was then a student in the advertising option of its journalism program. Most of A.A.’s pictures were of advertising executives in suits standing around with cocktails in their hands. The cocktail part sounded okay. I was, after all, a student at the University of Idaho, where drinking beer was practically the school sport. It was the suits that bothered me. Did I really want to spend my life in a suit and tie, mingling with other people in suits and ties, talking about the hottest trends in underwear and mouthwash commercials? It…
Dear Blog Subscribers, This is to let you know that as of last month I’m no longer writing for The Idaho Statesman. I hadn’t been happy for some time about a restriction from writing personal columns there. There were other factors In my decision to leave after so many years, including the frequency of my columns being cut from every other Sunday to once a month, but it was mainly not being able to write personal columns that led me to resign. I love writing them, and readers have told me for years that they enjoy reading them. The good news is that starting this Sunday, my columns will be published in The Idaho Press. I’ll be writing for The Press at least one…
https://www.idahostatesman.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/tim-woodward/
Here’s the link to my August Statesman column. I hope you enjoy it. — Tim Boise woman ‘needed a life,’ and found one helping people cope with death
Buried treasure: Lost for 5 years, wedding ring is back on ‘shocked’ Boise woman’s finger
A photo above a desk at the Ada County Highway District offices depicts “a blind, one-armed marsupial with a head wound.” The stricken marsupial, according to a long-ago Statesman letter to the editor, could easily do a better job of timing Ada County’s traffic signals than the guy who actually does the job. The computer-generated photo graces the office of the guy who’s been doing the job longer than anyone. I’ve silently (and not so silently) cursed this gentleman while stopped at red lights that seem to have no earthly reason for being anything other than green. Cursed him without even knowing his name. That, of course, is patently unfair. What do I or other motorists who take his name…
I have a new appreciation for actors. Not that I haven’t always appreciated them. How the best ones do what they do rises, in my opinion, to the level of high art. At the opposite end of the spectrum were my “performances” in last week’s production of “The Music Man” for Boise Music Week. This was Music’s Week’s hundredth anniversary. Boise’s 1918 Music Week was the first in the nation, and for a century our Music Week has relied on local talent. “Talent,” in my case, being a bit of a stretch. My first and until now only appearance in a play was in a high school production of a play whose name I’ve long since forgotten. I…