I’ve always felt that laughter has got something to do with a good life.

Gordon Hudelson retired from Lockheed in 1977, grabbed his fishing pole and hit the road in his camper. When the good life got boring, Hudelson came home, but there was little to do. Five years ago he got a speeding ticket that sent him to a senior center and he hasn’t been bored since. Hudelson, 66, lives in Van Nuys.

I thought I was going to just travel the country the rest of my life and fish, but I got tired of traveling. I moved around all over the place, and I ended up back here.

I sat around and felt sorry for myself. I didn’t get involved in enough things. I spent too much time with the boob tube, and the four walls and ended up in bars too much of the time, like a lot of people do, looking for company.

Then I got a speeding ticket, and I told them I couldn’t pay the $240. They said, “Well, do community service.” They gave me 32 hours. That’s how I ended up over there at the Bernardi Center.

They didn’t really have anything for me to do, but I ended up putting books away in their library. I was working only about an hour and a half a day. I said, “It’s not going very fast. I’m never gonna get my 32 hours in by December.”

So they sent me out to the reception desk with another volunteer, Helga Brinkman. We became real close friends.

When we were working out there together they could hear us laughing all over the place. They’d all come down and see what was going on, what we’d pulled on somebody now. I’m a jokester. I’m always kidding somebody or teasing them, or pulling jokes on them.

When I got my 32 hours in, I figured I’d be gone like a rabbit, but as it turned out I seemed to enjoy it. It gave me someplace to go, something to do, what you need when you’re retired. Now I spend 30 hours a week there.

A lady by the name of Jerri Barr came in and started a group for people who are living with husbands, wives, daughters or sons who are chemically dependent. It’s an Al-Anon type thing. They call it “Taking Charge.” I went to the groups with her, I was more or less her assistant.

We show them that you cannot talk to a person and get through to them if they’re hooked on prescription medication, drugs or alcohol. You’re talking to the medication or the drugs or the bottle, that’s what you’re talking to.

By learning about the problem, and the things that the chemically dependent person is going through, it makes you more capable of being able to live with them. My brother was an alcoholic. If I’d known then what I know now, maybe I could have helped him.

At the time, Jerri was finishing up her classes in chemical dependency at the Riverside Medical Center through San Fernando Mission College. She evidently believed that I had potential for doing something like that, so she gave me the little shove that I needed. I found out that I still have a half a brain that I can use. I got decent grades so I just kept on going. I’ve only got 12 units right now. If I take ‘em all, I’ll end up with 27.

When she left to take another job, I took over the group myself.

I also started doing the “friendly visitor” thing. You go out and talk to homebound people for a little while, see how they’re doing. It just gives them somebody to talk to for an hour. There’s one lady I go see who lives in a trailer park. The little lady’s 90 years old. Her son sends her boxes of cake mix. She makes cookies out of them and goes around delivering them to the people in the trailer park who can’t get around. She takes mail out to the mail box and does different things for them. She’s a real sweetheart.

I love ‘em all, I really do. And I feel that I’m helping them, doing something for ‘em by going to visit ‘em, and it helps me, too, because I like to do it.

I enjoy my work, I enjoy the people, and I enjoy my little jokes and tricks. I’ve always felt that laughter has got something to do with a good life. You have to have a good laugh once in a while.