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…
Tim Woodward is a longtime Idaho Statesman columnist. He retired in 2011 and now writes a column every other Sunday for The Statesman's Life section and columns are posted here the following Mondays. Additional blog posts will be made when timely.
Posts by Tim Woodward
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…
Anyone who visits or drives by the Downtown St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center knows things are a bit chaotic there these days – closed roads, detours, mountains of dirt … The disruption isn’t limited to the hospital alone. A nearby clinic where one of my doctors works looks like the last thing standing in a bombing range. Amid the turmoil of the hospital’s expansion, however, are islands of beauty and tranquility. The flower gardens surrounding St. Luke’s – literally thousands of tulips, pansies and hyacinths in spring and marigolds, petunias and zinnias in summer – bring “oohs” and “ahs” from passersby and comfort to those dealing with pain and loss. They’re East Boise institutions. Lee Barnard, who grew up in…
Sorry, I don’t think the link I just posted for Sunday’s column works. Could it be possible that I made a technical error? Will try again later, when I can get a grandkid to help:) Sorry for the delay. – Tim
http://www.idahostatesman.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/tim-woodward/article209498699.html
Longtime readers know that I am prone to vacation blunders, mishaps and occasional disasters. A recent trip to Mexico was no exception. My wife and I sat in the seats next to the exit on the flight from Boise to Phoenix. Before we took off, a flight attendant woke me from dozing (we’d gotten up at 3:30 a.m.) by blurting out a mostly unintelligible – to us, at least – pronouncement. He finished by looking expectantly at me and saying I needed to answer him in the affirmative. I did. Neither of us has the hearing of a teenager. After he left, we looked at each other and confessed that neither of us had understood a word of what he’d said. Across the aisle,…
From now on, I’ll be posting the Statesman link to my columns. Just click on the following link to read the latest one. If you have problems, please let me know using the comment mode. Thanks? — Tim http://www.idahostatesman.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/tim-woodward/article206672424.html
Dear readers, My columns are now running monthly in The Statesman rather than every other week, and I’ll be focusing more now on Idahoans with interesting stories. I could use your help with that. Idaho is home to lots of people with interesting stories, but finding them can be a challenge. If you know of someone who has had an interesting life, has an unusual occupation, pastime or tale to tell – or is maybe just a colorful Idaho character – I’d love to hear from you. Examples of people I’ve profiled in the past range from buckaroos, inventors, high-rise crane operators and others with uncommon lines of work to people with unusual hobbies or collections to a woman whose expensive dental work was…
Note to Readers: Apparently some of you were able to read this column by clicking on The Statesman link and some weren’t. I’ll do my best to have the technical difficulties fixed for the next one. For those of you who couldn’t get the link to work, here’s the column in the regular format. — Tim Dick Dahlgren knows what it takes to enjoy life. He’s skied the great resorts of the U.S. and Europe, fly fished with celebrities, run with the bulls in Spain. He also knows about being sick and depressed. He’s had prostate cancer and a major heart attack that destroyed a third of his heart muscle. He’s had two stent surgeries, surgery to install a pacemaker, breast cancer and…
Oops! It appears I made a technological blunder because the link doesn’t work. I’ll post the column tomorrow in the usual format, but you can read it now by going to www.idahostatesman.com. Sorry for the confusion. Tim