Monthly Archives: June 2026

Father’s Day: Experiencing Poetic Role Reversal

by Woody

This Sunday will be my son’s third Father’s Day and one of my own greatest joys as a dad has been watching him as a dad.

Truth be told, I actually got a glimpse of my son as a father a decade ago when a line of poetry by William Wordsworth – “The Child is father to the Man” – played out when I was visiting him, then 27 years old, in New York City.

I embraced this turnabout as happily as I embraced him at the airport. In fact, his surprise greeting at baggage claim was the beginning of our role reversals.

I had planned to take the subway from JFK and meet my son at his apartment in Lower Manhattan. Worried about me navigating the subway system, he covertly trekked out to meet me. A very father-like thing.

This played out again and again the rest of my visit: my son insisted on carrying my luggage; gave me his bed; lent me the jacket off his back when the night air turned cold.

Father and son-turned-father and his son…

The most dramatic way my Child was father to this Man occurred when, in similar fashion to how I used to take him to Ventura’s now shuttered H.P. Wright Library, he took me to the venerable New York Public Library.

On the way there, I was jostled in a rugby-like scrum getting on a crowded subway car and my right index finger got sliced open, as if by a long stroke of a potato feeler, by the closing door. Firm pressure with a napkin largely stanched the bleeding.

We exited at the next stop and my son located a pharmacy and bought Band-Aids and tape. But when I removed the napkin the red floodgates reopened.

“I’m taking you to get stitches right now,” the Child-turned-father-of-the-Man demanded.

At Urgent Care, my son signed me in and did all the necessary paperwork. He even accompanied me into the treatment room as had I with him numerous times long ago.

The first anesthetic injection made me curse and the second was even worse, bringing tears to my eyes. The whole while my son held my other hand and told me how brave I was being. He then distracted me with laughter – kept me in stitches, if you will – as I received 18 sutures.

To be honest, the painful mishap was worth the experience of seeing this side of my boy-turned-man.

For the remainder of my visit he kept the tables turned. He changed my bandage. He focused our itinerary on me. He led and I followed.

At a jazz club one evening, my son and I arrived early and were rewarded with the best table in the joint. Moments before the performance began, however, the manager asked if we would consider changing places with an elderly couple too feeble physically to sit on tall stools in the rear of the room.

Because my son and I are tall, the manager felt we could still see the show but emphasized: “You really don’t need to. I just wanted to ask.”

Without a beat’s pause, my son replied with enthusiastic sincerity: “Of course they can have our seats.”

We went from first row to worst row – and I could not have been happier or more proud.

Wordsworth’s poem also includes this stanza: “My heart leaps up when I behold / A rainbow in the sky.”

So, too, does my heart leap up beholding the kind of Man my Child has become, and the rainbow of a father Greg is to little Jayden and his big sister Amara.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.

Commencement Address for Classes of 2026

by Woody

“Ladies and gentlemen of the class of (2026): Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.”(1)

“The best advice I can give anybody about going out into the world is this: Don’t do it. I have been out there. It is a mess.”(2) “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go for it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”(3)

“Find your Passion with a capital P!”(4) “The fireworks begin today. Each diploma is a lighted match. Each one of you is a fuse.”(5) “You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world’s happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.”(6)

“Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.”(7) “Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.”(8) “Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”(9)

“Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down.”(10) “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”(11) “Always, always, always, always, always, always, always do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.”(12) “Fortune befriends the bold.”(13)

“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”(14) “You cannot achieve mountaintop dreams with downhill effort.”(15) “And will you succeed? Yes! You will indeed! 98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.”(16)

“Make today your masterpiece.”(17) “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”(18) “You can’t do anything about yesterday, and the only way to improve tomorrow is by what you do right now.”(19)

“Do not judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”(20) “The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit.”(21)

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”(22) “Learn as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die tomorrow.”(23) “When you get, give; when you learn, teach.”(24)

“Wise are those who learn that the bottom line doesn’t always have to be their top priority.”(25) “We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”(26) “If you don’t make an effort to help others less fortunate than you, then you’re just wasting your time on Earth.”(27)

“There is a good reason they call these ceremonies ‘commencement exercises’ – graduation is not the end, it’s the beginning.”(28) “When you leave here, don’t forget why you came.”(29) “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”(30)

“When you leave home, you take home with you.”(31)

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(1-Mary Schmich. 2-Russell Baker. 3-Howard Thurman. 4-Wayne Bryan. 5-Eward Koch. 6-Dale Carnegie. 7-James M. Barrie. 8-Anthony J. D’Angelo. 9-Ralph Waldo Emerson 10-Ray Bradbury. 11-e.e. cummings. 12-Ralph Waldo Emerson. 13-Emily Dickinson. 14-Edmund Hillary. 15-Woody Woodburn. 16-Dr. Seuss. 17-John Wooden. 18-Mark Twain. 19-John Wooden. 20-Robert Louis Stevenson. 21-Nelson Henderson. 22-Henry David Thoreau. 23-John Wooden. 24-Maya Angelou. 25-William Arthur Ward. 26-Winston Churchill. 27-Wayne Bryan. 28-Orrin Hatch. 29-Adlai E. Stevenson. 30-Dr. Seuss. 31-Maya Angelou.)

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.

This, That, The Other And More

by Woody

As coincidence would have it, just as I finished another personal lap around the sun I also finished filling a notebook with thoughts about this, that, and the other – mostly my own musings, but some quotes from other people as well.

This particular notebook – journal is more accurate, I suppose – is roughly the size of a pocket paperback and bound in leather of deep-sea blue hue with a hundred or so pages and came from the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West.

Since I was in need of a column for today, and since serendipity smiled, here are some Woody-isms from its pages . . .

If someone asks if your glass is half-full or half-empty, a good response is: “You want half of the half?”

A small kindness from a friend is nice, but sometimes it is even more wonderful and heartwarming when a kindness comes from a stranger.

Note to self: Try to be a kind stranger more often.

I believe this is a proven scientific fact beyond challenge: Leftovers taste best cold out of the refrigerator, straight from the container, while leaning over the kitchen sink.

An eagle builds its nest stick by stick by stick, flight by flight by flight – building a dream into reality requires the persistence and patience of an eagle.

Leftovers for breakfast are the best of all.

Today is a steppingstone to tomorrow; you cannot skip any stones on your path to building your own eagle’s nest.

Sometimes one of the nicest favors you can do for someone is to ask a favor of them.

Spreading rumors is bad, but listening to Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” remains great.

I do not fully believe in small acts of kindness because I don’t fully believe any act of kindness is small.

It is a lot harder to climb a mountain with heavy regrets in your backpack.

A better Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto your children – or, better yet, your grandchildren.

Sometimes, oftentimes in truth, my favorite adults resemble are kids who have simply grown tall and old.

When it comes to cold food, pizza is even better than ice cream.

One’s character can be a puddle, pond, lake, or sea – strive to be deep.

It is better to express condolences awkwardly than to say nothing at all – if it comes from the heart, even clumsily, it will reach the heart.

Courage is making your first guess in Wordle a one-vowel word.

You cannot achieve mountaintop goals with downhill effort.

At a holiday gathering, or any gathering for that matter, the dinner table always(!) has room for one more.

In the heart there is also always(!) room for one more.

Sometimes the ocean churns or has a dangerous riptide, but always(!) the ocean sings again with pleasure – so keep swimming through hard times.

You don’t raise up others by raising your voice – other than cheering(!) on the side of the marathon road or in the bleachers.

Love and dreams will carry you far in life – especially love.

A good daily goal: Learn something worth sharing – and then do so.

Grace is to forgive someone not just for what they have done, but also for what they have failed to do.

I have a dear friend who is a terrific writer, yet his heart and grace exceed his art and that is no small thing – I want to be more like him.

Hemingway, coming full circle, said “courage is grace under pressure” but courage is also doing a crossword puzzle in ink rather than with a pencil.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.