What would Judge Gardner do?

SUE CLARK

When I think of Judge Bob Gardner’s columns I grin, no matter what my

mood.

Even though I’m sad he’s retiring his weekly column, “The

Verdict,” I smile thinking about the hilarity he’s inspired. Gardner

has been, in my opinion, the best of the Daily Pilot columnists.

There are others whom I admire, and some I read only to make sure I

take the opposing view, but this gleeful judge’s commentary is my

first choice in the Tuesday paper. I look to his local history not

just for a glimpse of Balboa’s past, but for a glimpse ahead to how

I’ll be when I’m his age.

Many of my friends are Christian, and have adopted the motto,

“WWJD” (“What would Jesus do?”). Mine is “WWGD” (“What would Gardner

do?”). This mantra has aided me in handling my rheumatoid arthritis.

Gardner often writes about getting older physically, and he’s

described illnesses, surgeries and hospital stays. But he does it

with a gracious elan. He is the first to poke fun at himself. He

handles his occasional infirmities in his typical zany way. Gardner

has no idea how he has helped me to accept and yet laugh at my own

aches and pains.

When I got scared at the endless blood tests I was going to have

to have, I thought, “WWGD?” “He’d write about it,” I said to myself.

So, I wrote a column on the bizarre rituals I go through when giving

blood. This column delighted Ahmad, my favorite lab tech, and his

employer, Westcliff Labs, framed it and put it up in his office. No

one likes an aging person who constantly complains. Gardner has his

physical ups and downs, yet is able to get a laugh and perhaps

unknowingly help someone on the far end of middle age, like I am.

I’m the skinny type, and there I share another bond with the

Judge. One of my favorite columns is one where he and his young

friends decided he must have a tapeworm, because no matter how much

he ate, he couldn’t put on weight. I laughed all the way through his

endeavors to remove the alleged tapeworm by various bizarre and

disgusting local remedies.

One time, a secretary at my work told me to “stop chewing so

loudly.” I was eating a few dozen cookies, which had been brought in

by a parent and placed on a table in her office.

“It makes me crazy to see you eat so much and never gain weight,”

she muttered, grimly munching on a carrot.

“WWGD?” I thought. How should I diffuse this tense situation?

“I have a tapeworm, and I’m hoping to entice it out by using

cookies.”

She laughed, the mood lightened, and all thanks to Gardner.

I have a friend who is very morose about growing older. Her motto

is: “Life stinks, and then you die.” She is a beauty who is not used

to getting wrinkles, sore joints and fatigue. Her e-mails are often

about being close to 60 and not drop-dead gorgeous anymore.

The best advice I ever gave her was based on my love for this

columnist I’ve never even met. Thinking of Judge Gardner, I wrote

her: “Humor is ageless!”

Your honor, I want to be like you when I grow up.

* SUE CLARK is a Costa Mesa resident and a high school guidance

counselor at Creekside High School in Irvine.