Wonder Year: Eighteen nuggets of inspiration from 2023
It was going to be a book, but publishers turned it down so here's a sample for you Heart, Humor & Hope readers
After Eugene artist Rodger Deevers heard about my friend Stu McDowell losing a son to cancer, he did this painting to imagine 19-year-old Riley—he loved Oregon football—as part of the team. It was his way of honoring the McDowells, a family he didn’t even know.
Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series I call “Wonder Year.” In Part I, I told of how I kept a journal during 2022—it was actually 2023, I later realized—to note the wonder I noticed in my everyday life. The idea was to write a book. However, my agent couldn’t find a publisher who was interested. So, here’s Part II, a Whitman’s sampler of that year’s inspiration. (To read Part I click here.)
If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard.
—Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz
Jan. 4
I SAID GOODBYE to my swim buddy Vi Peck this morning; she’s moving to Minnesota. She’s been my inspiration since I began swimming four years ago. She’s 82, has been swimming since the Sheldon Community Pool opened more than 50 years ago and never misses a day—despite having had double-knee replacement and two surgeries to replace double-rotary-cuff tears. Beyond that she’s simply a fireball and a hoot, describing one of her surgeries as so efficient it was “slicker than snot on a doorknob.” I’ll miss her enthusiasm for life—and her analogies
Jan. 5
For years, I’ve kicked myself for not giving our mail carrier a nice year-end tip; the guy isn’t young and every few weeks he carries a 20- to 30-pound box of my books—or three—to our front porch. So I gave him a crisp $100 bill—far more than my usual tip but an amount I justified because it was long overdue.
That was at noon. At 1:50 p.m. I got a phone call from a woman in Albany, Bev Weir, who wondered if I was Bob Welch, the author, and if, by chance, I could sell her a couple of copies of Where Roots Grow Deep (1999). I said yes I was and yes I could. “Oh, this is amazing,” she said. “Actually, I’d like four. And can you sign them?”
I said sure. I pulled out my Square credit card reader—do John Grisham or Kristin Hannah offer personal service like this?—and told her I’d be happy to pay for the shipping. “Let’s just make it $80—$20 a book.”
“In that case,” she said, “I’ll take five so we can round it up to an even $100.”
I told her about the $100 bill I just gave the mail carrier. She said, without hesitation: “I love it. As Mother Teresa once said, not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.”
Jan. 6
Today I learned that Jeanette Bishop, a writer who attended more of my Beachside Writers Workshops than anyone else (more than a dozen), died at 91. Years ago she had asked me if I would officiate at her memorial service; I was honored to do so. Jeanette was remarkable, in part because after her husband had a heart attack and died at 41, she raised four kids on her own; in part because she had a humble spirit and a dry sense of humor; and in part because even though she didn’t always believe it, she was a splendid writer.
I got so tired of her saying, “Oh, I’m no writer” that I literally built a workshop to combat the negativity with which beginning writers often struggle.
We first met after I’d written a column asking Register-Guard readers how, if it were possible, they would choose to die. She said she’d want to be surrounded by her jazz-musician children playing music—and that’s essentially how she went. She wrote a book, For the Life of Me, and wrote a poem, “To My Kids,” shortly before she died. Read one stanza:
Live your lives
You made the world better
When you came
Keep working at that
Create
Vote
Demonstrate
Keep the music playing
Take care of each other
Celebrate
Jeanette Bishop
Jan. 14
At Black Rock Coffee on River Road, a friend said he had big news for me: His 37-year-old daughter, hoping to have a child with her husband, had been told by a doctor that, because of health issues, there was “only a 3% chance” of that happening. “Bobby,” he said, “she’s pregnant.” (Epilogue: She gave birth to a healthy baby boy in July 2023.)
Feb. 13
I got a note from a student who I had taught in a Reporting I class at the University of Oregon nearly two decades ago. This hardly ever happens. But Putsata Reang, a Cambodian refugee, wrote, “I want you to know how grateful I am to you as a teacher back when I was a student in the UO School of Journalism. Your class and your teaching style really had an impact on me. I went on to work for newspapers up and down the West Coast”—among them, the Seattle Times—” and then eventually moved abroad to work for a media development organization throughout Asia.”
She invited me to an event involving a new memoir she’d written, Ma and Me, which would win the 2023 Pacific Northwest Book Award. “I also have to tell you that you are in the book! There is a scene in which you encourage me to apply for a job at The Register-Guard, thus jump-starting my journalism career.”
I was stunned. I remember her; I do not remember encouraging her to apply for the job.
Note to self: Never underestimate the impact you might be having on others even though you might not be noticing it at the time.
Putsata Reang
Feb. 15
While catching a flight at the Eugene Airport, I ran into a local artist I knew named Rodger Deevers. We both frequent Johnny Ocean’s Grille at the Oakway Center. After Stu McDowell, an Oregon Duck friend of mine, lost his 19-year-old son, Riley, to cancer, the co-owner of the restaurant, Shawn Rahimian, had used his contacts at the UO to have a Duck jersey with “Riley” stitched to the back. “You can give the jersey to his parents,” he told me, “in their son’s honor.”
When Rodger heard about this, he was touched. He offered to paint a scene of a Duck huddle that would include Riley, a huge Duck fan who’d played football for Pacific Grove (Calif.) High, as if Riley were part of the team.
When we presented the jersey and the painting to Stu and his wife Caren on a trip to California in 2015, they melted into tears.