Tough to leave a great neighbor behind

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, September 25, 2004

Amanda Shadden and Wayne Henderson are neighbors with an easy sort of friendship.

“Like a cup of coffee?” he asks, already fetching a mug and pouring the steaming brew. “Straight?”

“No, I’ll take the hard stuff,” Shadden shoots back. “Milk and sugar.”

Watching these two chat, the word “hero” doesn’t come to mind. But to Shadden, whose husband is a crew member on the USS Abraham Lincoln, her neighbor fits that mold.

“He really is a hero behind our heroes,” Shadden said of the 62-year-old retiree. “He may not have gone to war, but he helped take care of the loved ones of those serving to protect our freedom.”

Henderson lives a few doors from the Shaddens in an Arlington subdivision that’s home to many military families.

Chief Petty Officer Jerry Shadden was aboard the Lincoln during its nearly 10-month deployment that ended with the carrier’s triumphant return to Everett in May 2003. The Lincoln battle group was in the Persian Gulf as war was waged in Iraq.

During that tense time, Amanda Shadden said Henderson went “beyond the call of duty.”

“He fixed our lawn mower, he fixed my cars, he brings fresh vegetables all the time from his garden,” she said. “Mr. Henderson fixes everything, he’s good to everybody, he watches over everyone’s house. I’ve never met a neighbor so caring.”

“Her husband was in Iraq,” said Henderson, an Air Force veteran. “Put yourself in somebody else’s place.”

Henderson struck up a friendship with the Shaddens’ son Christopher, now 15. “He’s been like a grandfather figure to my son, just talking to him and teaching him woodworking,” Amanda Shadden said. The couple also have an 18-year-old daughter, Kati, a recent graduate of Weston High School.

The neighbors’ visit Thursday was bittersweet. It was one of their last.

With 19 years in the Navy, Jerry Shadden is being transferred at the end of the month. Rather than going to sea with the Lincoln in October, he’ll be an instructor.

His next base was to be Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida. Hurricane damage may change their destination to Tennessee, Alabama, or even temporarily to Navy housing at Smokey Point.

Wherever their next home, movers were at the house last week packing their things. And Amanda Shadden had a parting gift for Henderson.

Sitting in his kitchen, she handed him a plaque that read: “Wayne Henderson. Best Neighbor. Thanks for all your help, The Shaddens.”

A wiry man with a face weathered by work in ranching, drilling and construction, Henderson took the plaque in his hands. He shyly thanked the giver. And when he thought no one was looking, he wiped his eyes.

“I’m not surprised Wayne would step in and help someone in need. That’s the kind of friend he has been to me,” said Dolores Carlson, 81, who met Henderson when he lived across the road from her and her late husband on Camano Island. “He did mowing, weeding. He’s so helpful.”

Amanda Shadden looks forward to her family’s next step. She’s happy her husband has stayed in the Navy and has helped other spouses through the Abraham Lincoln Enlisted Support Group.

“It’s a way of life,” she said. “That’s what I try to instill in my daughter and son. We’re a Navy family, we’re a team – even though sometimes it’s ‘Wayne, the car’s not running,’” Shadden said. She’s convinced her neighbor saved them a fortune in repair bills.

“Yeah, but I never did fix her rear-window defroster,” quipped Henderson, as if plotting one last good deed.

“We’re lucky,” Jerry Shadden said. “We live by a lot of good people wherever we go, but never to this extent. You just don’t get neighbors like Wayne.”

As the Lincoln prepares to go to sea again, look around at your Navy neighbors. Then think of Wayne Henderson, a fine example.

Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.