Where I read it I cannot recall, but the lesson remains indelible: “Make the fresh spaghetti sauce.”
The anecdote was about a woman unexpectedly, and far too prematurely, widowed. Months later, she was walking in a park with a friend and, among chitchat, asked about dinner plans.
The friend nonchalantly said her husband that very morning had mentioned a craving for her homemade spaghetti sauce. But the day had gotten away from her without going to the store for fresh tomatoes and she didn’t feel like stopping on the way home. Sauce from a jar would suffice.
The two friends continued their strolling visit for a while when, out of the blue, the widow said softly, but with weighted feeling: “Make the fresh spaghetti sauce.”
As she was picking out fresh tomatoes at the grocery shortly thereafter, the friend realized the widow was not really talking about a homemade dinner. The wisdom had been about making the little extra effort for someone you love, whenever you have the chance, because that special person could disappear from you life — by death suddenly, yes, but also simply growing up and moving away.
In other words, bake a cake even if it’s not their birthday; play a board game or go on a walk when you’d rather read; take them to a concert you wouldn’t choose.
This past weekend, I made the fresh spaghetti sauce for my 33-year-old son by taking him to his first NFL game. This may seem surprising given that I was a sports columnist for three decades and you would surely imagine I had taken my son to countless pro football games over the years. As the maxim has it, the cobbler’s children go barefoot.
Truth be told, my son and daughter were so busy, busy, busy with their own sports games and running races growing up that there just never seemed time to go to pro sporting events together.
Also at play, however, is that when they were in their early teens I was rear-ended by a speeding drunk driver at the 2003 Super Bowl in San Diego. Nerve damage in my neck and hand forced me to leave sports writing. In fact, that was the last NFL — or NBA or Major League Baseball — game I attended because I have had no desire to not sit in the press box and not have the rush of deadline pressure.
What changed Sunday? The Cleveland Browns, my beloved team since boyhood and still, were playing the L.A. Rams in SoFi Stadium and for his birthday gift my son, who likewise bleeds burnt orange, wanted to go.
While I have covered a handful of Super Bowls, even more NBA Finals and a few World Series, I dare say this regular-season game instantly ranks as my all-time favorite because of my companion. Despite being conditioned to “no cheering in the press box,” I became hoarse from yelling and high-fiving and chest bumping my son through the first three and a half excitingly close quarters…
…before the Browns showed their true colors by boinking a game-tying PAT kick off the upright and promptly fell apart in trademark fashion to get blown out.
A Browns’ victory would, naturally, have been wonderful. All the same, my son and I could not possibly have had a more masterpiece day. As dyed-in-the-wool Brownies fans, there is even a certain charm in a fourth-quarter meltdown.
Indeed, I am so glad I made the fresh spaghetti sauce — even if it figuratively wound up spilled all over our brand-new throwback No. 32 Jim Brown jerseys.
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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn
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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.
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