Walter Woodstock, 1935-2015

The hot sting of tears welling up in my eyes was immediate when I read the headline, “Obituary: Walter Charles Woodstock.” I also felt my heart begin to hurt when I realized what it meant.

Walt, as I knew him used to come over to house every evening on his meal-break when he was first assigned to Klamath in 1972 as the town’s newest deputy sheriff. He always sat on my dad’s left side so he could get up from the table if called by the dispatcher.

After dinner, my old man and Walt would sit, talking quietly over coffee while we kids cleaned up the kitchen, clearing the table and loading the dishwasher. I always felt like I was interrupting them when they sat by themselves like this and often wondered what the two men talked about.

It wasn’t until I read Walt’s obituary that I could finally answer that question: “He was a proud Marine during the Korean War…” I didn’t know this about Walt, but it goes along way to resolving my curiosity.

Dad was also a Korean War vet, having been severely injured by an anti-personnel mine he drove over. The blast tore up his knees, killing a man riding in the back of the Jeep.

The two were remembering their youths, their experiences, sharing their thoughts and healing each others emotional wounds. Looking back, I can now understand the sense of humor the pair displayed following those occasions where life was at its worse for most people.

You see, while Walt was a cop, my dad was an ex-cop and the fire chief of our little department north of the Klamath River. When I was older, I’d ride out with him and eventually, we’d see Walt at the same scene, whether it was a car crash, a house fire or a medical emergency.

One evening, I recall Walt limping as he walked up the drive to the house for dinner. During the meal he explained that he had thrown himself on the floor at his residence after a vehicle’s headlights shined through the curtainless sliding glass door of the house.

It was only then that he sheepishly added, “I was naked.”

We all roared. He had a great sense of humor and no worries about making himself the so-called ‘butt-of-the-joke.’

There was also the more serious side of Walt, like the time following my break in at the Morgan’s home to steal a couple of World War II helmets. He came to the house and placed me in handcuffs, seating me in the back of his cruiser.

Walt left me there to stew on what was about to take place, heading back inside the house, I presumed to talk with my parents. By the time he returned, I was a blubbering mass of sorrow, willing to take any punishment offered, as long as it wasn’t a trip to the sheriff’s office and juvenile detention.

When he returned to the Crown-Vic, he opened the door and instructed me to get out. That’s when he gave me the lecture of a life-time in one sentence: “You keep this up Tommy, and one day people won’t be reading about you in the sports section, they’ll be reading your name and seeing your face in the crime-blotter.”

That’s all he said as he spun me around, removed the handcuffs, releasing me to my folks. I recall later that night wishing he’d taken me in, as I think I got the worst butt-whipping of my life, and rightly so.

Following graduation, I joined the Air Force. It was while in Texas attending technical school that Mom wrote me, saying Walt was in the hospital with serious injuries following a nasty traffic accident.

“We’re not sure he’s going to make it. If he does, he may not walk again,” she wrote. “Your father’s pretty upset.”

A few days later, I called home for the third or fourth time, I learned Walt would be okay, but he’d have to retire. News like this travels quickly in a small community like Klamath.

While I never saw Walt following graduation, I never forgot him. In fact I recalled an incident at our home when Walt choked on one of Mom’s cupcakes.

On his way out of the house one evening, he grabbed a couple of cupcakes and shoved one in his mouth. By the time he made it to his cruiser, he had nearly passed out, unable to breathe.

But he managed somehow to gulp down the mouthful, admonishing himself as he climbed in the car, “I got to remember not to stuff my face like that.”

I don’t know if he ever learned that Mom had put a 25-cent piece in the cupcake, if he did, he never let on.

Walt leaves behind his wife Shirley, daughter Karen and her husband Dave, son Troy and grandchildren, Morgan, Leah, Emily, Veranda and Kevin and his wife Sarah, and three great-grandchildren Paul, Elijah and Brody. He was 80-years-old.

Semper Fidelis, Walt.