If you are using Tiger, you probably already know that F12 brings up the Dashboard (in my case F1 because I reconfigured it). But, you may not know that there is an undocumented keyboard shortcut to slide the Widget drawer opened and closed. When Dashboard is active, hit Command= (⌘=) to slide the drawer opened and closed.
Also, you don’t have to bring up the drawer to close active widgets. With the drawer closed, simply hold down the option key as you roll over your widgets and it will display the “x” for closing them.
Another tip, if a widget isn’t displaying properly, select the widget and hit CommandR (⌘R) to reload it. It has a nifty little spiral effect when it’s reloaded.