Growing Boise has ‘lost a lot, gained a lot’
It didn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who has lived in Boise very long that it was recently named the number-one city people are moving to from other parts of the country. Boise, according to a recent analysis titled “America’s Most Magnetic Metros Ranked by 2026 Migration Demand,” is the…
Fifty-five Years of Helping People
One of the most memorable incidents of my junior high school years was of being saved. Not in a religious way; I was saved from what most likely would have been humiliation at best, a beating at worst. It happened one afternoon while I was walking home from school. I was partway down…
A Pillared House, a Time Capsule
We never know when moments from our past will return as if they’d happened yesterday. They can stop us in our tracks when we least expect it, sometimes simply by turning a corner. It happened to me on a walk through what I thought was an unfamiliar neighborhood. The winding route took me…
Vacation Blues: One Mishap After Another
To borrow a line from the movie Six Days, Seven Nights, I may have had all the vacations I can stand. Most people’s vacations are relaxing. The Woodwards’ tend to be, well, something other than that. A recent vacation in Mexico was typical. Our home away from home in Mexico was on…
Remembering Neil Sedaka – ‘A Genuinely Nice Man’
Singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka, who died last month at age 86, was a hit machine. He wrote songs for, among others, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Connie Francis, Tom Jones and the Carpenters, in addition to hits he wrote for himself. As seminal a figure as he was in pop music, however, I remember him mainly…
A Lifetime of Flying: ‘Every Time Feels Like the First Time’
Most of us early in life have little idea of what we want to do with our lives. In my teens, I hoped at one time or another to become a rock star, a famous author, an architect or an airline pilot. The airline pilot idea began with family dinners in the old…
Memories – a selfless childhood friend and mentor
Sometimes the smallest things trigger memories when they’re least expected. A magazine advertisement for a fountain pen evokes memories of inkwells in elementary school desks. A song on the radio brings back memories of an old flame. A beat-up wrench in the bottom of a tool box summons memories of a…
Medical Scare Prompts New Year’s Resolution
The pain was like nothing I’d experienced. It happened during a family birthday celebration “What’s wrong, Dad?” one of my daughters asked. “I have this weird pain in my back and stomach. It will probably go away in a few minutes.” It didn’t. Four hours later, the birthday party was…
The Best Christmas Gift Ever
By now you’ve probably watched “A Christmas Story” on television, and not for the first time. Or the second, or third … It’s a Christmas classic most of us have watched more times than we remember. The movie, for whose who have been living in a cave or for some other reason haven’t seen…
‘Investing in Humanity is Never Futile’
Father Rick Frechette has devoted his life to helping the poor in Haiti. He’s been there for 37 years, witnessed suffering most of us can barely comprehend and says things have never been as bad during his time in the island nation as they are now. Haiti doesn’t get a lot of attention…
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Tim Woodward 