Odds & Ends Around the Valley

Remembering Them

Memorial Day and Armed Forces Day are traditionally the time to thank those in the military, past and present, who have given or are prepared to give their lives in service to this country.

This year, the holidays were an opportunity to give a hero’s welcome to the men and women returning from the Persian Gulf. And although parades and ceremonies are one way to honor those in the services, Ann Van Wie suggests another.

Van Wie is assistant chief of volunteer services at the Sepulveda Veterans Administration Medical Center and is responsible for helping find the hundreds of volunteers needed to facilitate patient care.

Van Wie thinks that in addition to attending parades, people might want to think about how they could help veterans.

“Because of insufficient funding, our hospital is in serious need of all kinds of volunteer help,” she said. “We need people who are willing to work on the wards, in the library, in the recreation room, in the pharmacy. We need people who can only come in occasionally and those wonderful people who are willing to come on a regular basis.”

Van Wie said that volunteers work in offices on patient records and in the pharmacy mailing out prescriptions. They help feed patients, run errands, write letters and listen.

“Listening to the patients, talking to them, is one of the biggest needs we have here,” Van Wie said. “We have long-term patients who have no family or anyone to talk to. Just to have someone come in to sit down and visit is very special to them.”

By long-term, Van Wie means veterans of the Vietnam and Korean wars and World War II, and even a 95-year-old veteran of World War I.

In addition to committing time, there are other ways to show support, Van Wie said. “The patients are always glad to get personal items like face soap, laundry detergent, shampoo, body lotion, combs, brushes, nail clippers, stationery, toothbrushes and toothpaste and deodorants,” she said.

Van Wie has lists of other items that would be useful to individual patients or in common areas of the hospital, such as the recreation room and library.

To get in touch with Volunteer Services at the hospital, the direct line is (818) 895-9325.

Immortalized

Professional illustrator Steve Friedman, who lives in Lancaster, doesn’t remember exactly when he became fascinated with Cindy Davis Betzer’s work.

“She’s had a number of shows in the Antelope Valley and I was impressed by her portraiture,” he said.

So impressed, in fact, that he recently commissioned her to do his own portrait.

“There is so much mediocre work out there that her exceptional talent and imagination really stood out,” Friedman said.

Betzer’s portraits, at first glance, appear to be realistic portrayals of a subject’s features, but on closer inspection there emerges a surrealistic subtext that tells the viewer more. This additional visual information can be painted into the background or onto a piece of clothing, as it is in one of Betzer’s more recent works, “Pioneer Women.”

This painting shows two women bound together by a large scarf. On the scarf is the story of Betzer’s pioneering family coming across the plains in covered wagons to Arizona where seven generations of her ancestors lived.

Both are on exhibit at the Lancaster Museum/Art Gallery in the current show, which features a continuum of Betzer’s work--from her early efforts at surrealism and realistic art to her current work.

Betzer, in addition to being an artist, is a teacher at Quartz Hill Elementary School, a candidate in the master’s program in fine arts at Cal State Northridge and the single parent of five.

The show, which continues through June 23, also features the works of local contemporary portraitists Katherine Granger, Ruth Prue and Janis White.

Landmark Decision

Taylor’s Fine Furniture store has been located at Van Nuys Boulevard and Hamlin Street in Van Nuys since 1940, when it was just Taylor’s and sold secondhand furniture to farm workers.

In a few weeks, 80-year-old Eric Woythaler, known as Eric Taylor to his thousands of customers, is going to close shop.

Times have not been good in the furniture business, said his son, Ben Woythaler. Ben and his brothers have urged their father to sell the remaining stock and sit back and enjoy life for a while.

The senior Woythaler has agreed, and the final sale is now in progress, but old habits die hard.

“My father still puts on a suit and tie and comes to the store every day,” Ben Woythaler said. “He wants to personally say goodby to all the customers who are coming in to reminisce and buy up the remaining stock.”

Through the years, Taylor’s has helped furnish the homes of actors George Kennedy, Robert Conrad and Margaret O’Brien, and musicians Seals & Crofts and the Jacksons.

Ben, who left independent film production four years ago to help out in the store after his father’s bypass operation, says he is sorry to see the store close, as it is a Van Nuys landmark. But it has had a good run, he said.

Overheard

“I’ll tell you how bad business is. I’ve got a customer with a bad attitude, bad credit, a minuscule down payment on an $800,000 house, and I’m actually trying to qualify him.”

--Real estate saleswoman to her luncheon companion at Cheesecake Grill in Calabasas