Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

*

Let me begin by borrowing the signature phrase of the late, great radio broadcaster Paul Harvey, “And now the rest of the story…”

Two weeks past in this space I shared the tale of a unique bench I happened upon while out for a run on a woodchip path in Redondo Beach. Situated in the shade of trees, with the salty perfume of the nearby ocean in the air, what made this bench special was that three mornings in a row I found a single book, different each day, resting on the wooden slat seat and bearing a Post-It Note reading: “Free! Good Book. Enjoy Me!”

The first two offerings – “Tuesdays With Morrie” and “Angela’s Ashes,” good books indeed – I had already read. The third book, on the final day of my visit, “The Old Man by the Sea” by Domenico Starnone – not to be confused with Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” – was new to me so I took it.

I also took away something else: inspiration to leave a free book on a bench for someone to take and enjoy.

And I knew the perfect bench.

It is about a mile, as the crow flies, from my front door and indeed has crows – and hawks and hummingbirds, osprey and owls, gulls and geese, on and on, even an occasional golden eagle – flying overhead, for the bench is in Ventura’s Harmon Canyon Preserve.

More specifically, this bench is a five-minute stroll from the preserve’s Foothill Road entrance, a relatively flat walk on a dirt pathway wide enough for hikers and trail runners and mountain cyclists. Tucked around a bend, and northwestward facing, it is an idyllic spot to sit and watch the sun set behind the foothills. Directly behind the bench is a sycamore tree, too young now to provide shade, but one day, Nature willing, it will grow into a Joyce Kilmer poem and afford a canopy of coolness to those who find respite here.

All of which is to say this is a most lovely bench, as it must be, for it is a memorial for a most lovely person, Suz Montgomery, who five years ago at age 73 succumbed to cancer after a lengthy courageous battle.

Not long ago, after a long fundraising effort, Suz’s Bench became a reality and a dedication ceremony was held with nearly a hundred family members and friends – Suz had a magical gift of making the latter feel like the former – gathering during a sunset that was so gorgeous it made you think Suz was somehow responsible, once more making those who loved her smile.

Suz’s Bench has become one of my favorite sanctums, a place to escape the busyness of life, a place to savor fresh air and postcard scenery and listen to avian symphonies and watch birds float on updrafts like feather kites and, of course, a tranquil place to read.

Inspired by the free book bench on the woodchip running path in Redondo Beach, I have started leaving books now and again on Suz’s Bench, one at a time, each with a Post-It Note: “Free! Take Me! Enjoy!” Because my dear friend died before my debut novel “The Butterfly Tree” was published, it was my wistful first offering.

I hope the recipients have enjoyed these token tomes and that other hikers follow in kind in giving so this becomes the littlest of Little Free Libraries – Suz’s Free Book Bench – because I think she would have liked that.

“And now you know,” as Paul Harvey would conclude, “the rest of the story.”

* * *

Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

*

Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.