My best friend and I were in our 40s when we broke our super soakers by filling them with Hershey’s chocolate syrup, (now we know to mix the syrup first with wine so it does not clog). At this point in our friendship, we had already enjoyed over a decade of prior shenanigans.
Ten years earlier, I’d stolen her Christmas tree the afternoon before her big holiday party. She was at work when I let myself into her home. I bound the tree in Saran Wrap to secure her elaborate collection of vintage Shiny Brights, and in their place, left a ransom letter for a six pack of Mountain Dew.
Seven years ago, I’d snuck a round in her purse as a little souvenir from our morning at the shooting range. It never occurred to me that it would still be there the following weekend when she tried to board a plane to LA, and the TSA detained her, clearly unamused.
“I don’t want to go to Heaven.
None of my friends are there.”
Oscar Wilde
It’s not as though she took it lying down. Last year she put promotional pens from a nudist colony into my work bag, which before I knew it, ended up infiltrating my workspace and making the rounds with my students. Needless to say, when on a trip to Nevada City, I saw this tea towel at J.J. Jackson’s, and I thought immediately of my best friend.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the JJ Jackson store exists in a building locally famous for another set of best friends and game changers whose names still hang on the storefront, Osborne and Woods. After finishing advanced degrees in Art History at UC Berkeley, David Osborne and Charles Woods moved to Nevada City in the late 1950s, when many creatives and hippies came to the area, drawn to the beautiful natural vistas and characteristic Victoriana.
The two young men set up a design and print business that took up the second floor of the building seen above, and samples of their bright and bold work are viewable in Print Magazine’s feature on the their creations. They made posters, maps, books and prints, the deadstock of which was up until a year ago, still sold on the OsbornWoods Etsy store.
The two were crucial in helping to establish a city ordinance to preserve the town’s gold rush architecture and Victorian buildings, and preventing the construction of a freeway off ramp that would have brought down some of the town’s valued historical buildings.
In the early 1970s, the couple bought the town foundry, which had previously made tools for the gold mining businesses of the region. They turned it into a museum, and today The Miner’s Foundry operates as a cultural center and rustic events venue.
Both men have passed, but the combined efforts of their friendship has impacted an entire region and generations to follow. In columnist Paul Matson’s 2016 Union article on the men, he states “When photographer-journalist Bob Wyckoff listed the top 10 most important people in Nevada City, he had 11 names on his list. Said Wyckoff, ‘… [because Osborn and Woods] were one person.’ ”
Life long best friends are synergistic artists by nature, creating opportunities, stories, and hope beyond which either can create on their own. Famous American psychologist Abraham Maslow once said, “Musicians must make music, artists must paint, poets must write if they are to be ultimately at peace with themselves. What human beings can be, they must be. They must be true to their own nature.” And so must life long best friends be true to the creative process of love, and arguably, shenanigans.
Some ancillary info: Ultimately, the aforementioned tea towel launched a new line of whimsical, handmade skirts made with other upcycled/recycled materials to be sold in the Amicable Amygdalae Etsy shop. The end goal of which is to support my and my best friend’s life long work in alternative public education for at-risk teens. With help from the proceeds, I aim to bring a series of sewing workshops into the lives of kids who have not had the privilege of enjoying such opportunities.
