Author Archives: Woody

Friendships Reign in the Rain

by Woody

The harder the recent rains fell, the greater became the flood of phone calls and voicemails and text messages from friends, far and farther, asking how I was doing on account of our coastal paradise making the national news.

I bet you had friends do likewise—or maybe you were one.

The atmospheric river may have been Man Bites Dog worthy news, but friends checking in on friends is as common as Dog Wags Tail. And yet such acts of friendship, and family-ship too, are worth acknowledging—no, worth celebrating!—and not taking for granted.

A week ago in this space I chronicled how a Good Samaritan took 20 minutes out of her day, and drove quite a few miles out of her way, to personally deliver a package that had mistakenly landed in her mailbox.

If a kind stranger will go to such lengths, one can only imagine the distances our friends and loved ones will travel. I didn’t have to imagine the other day when, as the deluge hit full force, I received the following text from a relatively new friend, but already a dear one for some friendships are as fast and hearty as instant oatmeal, who lives in Northern California:

“Hey Pal, just checkin’ in to see if you’re ok. I’m just hearing and reading horrific stuff, and they start talking about Montecito, SB, and Ventura. I think the worst is over for us up here, but if there’s anything I can do, it’s only a four-hour drive. There’s nothing on my plate that can’t be postponed. Let me know. Stay dry, my friend – dj”

Only a four-hour drive! That, in a nutshell, is friendship, where distance and time are no obstacles. As Abdu’l-Bahá eloquently put it: “Where there is love, nothing is too much trouble, and there is always time.”

This quote often makes me think of my friend Scott and his now-grown son, Justin. A ballpark figure for how many youth baseball games Justin played in is 1,500, but father and son can both tell you the exact the number Scott missed: three—two of them because of emergency surgery.

Another sporting example of love being blind to trouble and always finding time is my longtime, and now long-distance, friend Randy who checked in on me from New York during the heavy rainstorm. In turn, I asked how his son Charlie’s tennis season at Merrimack College is going.

In a word, and befitting rising floodwaters, swimmingly! As a junior, Charlie is a team co-captain playing No. 1 doubles and No. 3 singles. And here’s the Abdu’l-Bahá-like best part of the update: Randy and his wife Debby, despite an eight-hour roundtrip drive to home matches, have attended 80 percent of them, plus most road contests too.

One final vignette of love and friendship, which are one and the same, ignoring distance. Not long ago, my college buddy Mikey was in Italy, in the coastal paradise of Sorrento, in a marketplace alleyway where he saw a man sitting with a typewriter. Knowing my affection for QWERTY machines, Mikey investigated, learned Paolo Grasso was a street poet for hire and requested one honoring my 20-year consecutive day running streak.

Titled “The Runner,” the custom creation is typed in Italian on one side, translated into English on the other, and is lovely. Even lovelier, however, is that Mikey thought of me some 6,000 miles away.

The poem includes this beautiful stanza: “This continuous running / towards a goal / makes the moment precious.”

Friends, shine or rain, make the moment precious as well.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Two Stories of Delivered Kindness

by Woody

The scene seemed so perfectly choreographed as to belong on a movie screen, not on a real city street.

A teenager, male and perhaps pushing age 20, was pedaling a bike while being pursued at a dead sprint by a young boy, no older than seven or eight, who in turn was being chased—flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop—by a woman in sandals.

A bicycle theft in progress was my first reaction, but in a flash I realized the bike was far too big to be the boy’s. No, the teenager must have stolen something else belonging to the boy, who surely belonged to the woman for she was calling out a name as a loving mother would. The boy, meanwhile, kept running and kept yelling “stop! Stop! STOP!”

Surprisingly, the thief hit the breaks and turned around…

…and turned out not to be a thief at all. Rather, he had dropped his hair pick and the boy had picked it up and raced him down to return it. I wish you could have seen the tall teen’s warm smile and the small boy’s big grin, and mine as well for having witnessed this feel-good deed.

Another good-hearted stranger gave me a broad smile the other day, except this time I was on the receiving end of the kindness. This tale begins with me sending a Priority Mail package to a dear friend. Alas, the advance copy of my soon-to-be-released novel “The Butterfly Tree” (more on this in a few weeks) flitted into the wrong mailbox.

Marcela Pearson, the unintended recipient, initially considered writing “Wrong address / Return to sender” on the front but instead decided to take matters into her own hands and fingers with a Google search.

“The picture of the typewriter on the return address label was a clue and it matched the graphics on your website,” Marcela explained as to how she found my email address and surmised I was the right Woody Woodburn to contact. She further asked for the correct mailing address so she could personally drop off the package.

I assumed my Good Samaritan would merely have to walk a few houses up or down her street, but this proved to greatly underestimate how far the mailing had missed its mark.

“Dear Woody, I just dropped off your package,” Marcela emailed me later the same day, and like an Amazon delivery driver even attached a digital photo of the parcel on the “Welcome” mat. “It was only 10 minutes from where I live, so no big deal. I guess (1234 Something Drive) somehow morphed into (234 Different Avenue). Have an awesome day, Marcela.”

No big deal? Far from it. It was an eight-mile round-trip out of her way, and 20-minute out of her day, big deal.

After I thanked her most sincerely, yet still inadequately, Marcela replied: “I am super happy I was able to help. It is really no big deal to drive 10 minutes to a very nice neighborhood; go to a place I have not seen yet. Sounds good to me. Life is about exploring.”

Her note concluded: “Just last week I met some really good people in Colorado. Finding good people sometimes feels like looking for a needle in a haystack—but they live and I keep searching.”

On the topic of good people, Coach John Wooden liked to say, “You can’t live a perfect day until you do something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”

In my book, Marcela and the bike-chasing young boy each recently lived a perfect day.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Tears and Smiles Share Same Date

by Woody

Today’s calendar page, January 26, plays Ping Pong with my emotions—tears doink-plunk! smile doink-plunk! heartbreak doink–plunk! joy.

Indeed, this date, more than any other of the year, in my family holds a story seemingly written in the stars and typed by the fingers of Fate. Coincidence alone seems overmatched in explaining it.

Coincidence, defined as “the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection,” is my sharing a birth date with my wife’s grandfather or my son and my daughter’s youngest daughter sharing their birthday. The odds are only 1-in-366 against these horoscopic connections.

Coincidence, mixed with healing serendipity, was my first grandchild being born on the one-year anniversary of the night, nearly the very hour, that the Thomas Fire razed my childhood home. For my father especially, who had still lived in the house, a date of gloom was turned into one of bloom in celebrating the birth of his newest great-granddaughter.

Multiple memorable events and coincidental anniversaries happen every day of the year, of course, which is why The Star and most newspapers run daily “On This Date In History” summaries. A January 26th coincidence, for example, is Michigan becoming a state (1837), Louisiana seceding from the Union (1861), and Virginia rejoining the Union (1870).

January 26, however, has surpassed coincidence for my loved ones and me.

Shuffling the chronological order, let me begin with “On This Date” in 2003 when a drunk driver speeding down a city street at 70 mph rear-ended me as I was stopped at a red light. My life, fast as a finger snap, was forever changed as I suffered a ruptured disc in my neck causing permanent nerve damage in my left arm, hand and fingers.

Still, it was not fully a tragedy. Fate, after cruelly cursing me, then smiled sympathetically and let me somehow walk away from a hunk of twisted steel and shattered glass that had seconds earlier been a Honda Civic. Indeed, two police officers at the scene told me they could not believe I survived.

The 26th of January 2015 offered no such blessed fortune for one of my daughter’s dearest friends. In India for a wedding, Celiné and her younger brother were passengers in a taxi when it was broadsided by a city bus. The brother walked away, the big sister did not, her 26-year-old life extinguished in a blink’s instant.

Two crashes on the same date can be brushed off as tearful coincidence. But there are three smiles, too. On January 26, five years before my car crash, my lovely niece Arianna was born; ten years ago, exactly one year before Celiné’s deathly accident, my daughter met her husband; and five years ago, another January 26th love story, when Holly, a college roommate and third “sister” with my daughter and Celiné, received a marriage proposal.

Holly’s fiancé, now her husband for she enthusiastically said “yes!” when he got down on bended knee, says he did not purposely choose the date for its significance in an effort to magically metamorphose an anniversary of sorrow into one with a measure of joy.

And yet it is possible that Justin’s subconscious helped guide him to the fateful date. Or, perhaps, January 26 magically chose the couple that is now a happy family of three.

I like to think the latter. As Mr. Hemingway wrote in the closing line of dialogue in his novel “The Sun Also Rises,” spoken in—oh, Celiné—a taxi:

“ ‘Isn’t it pretty to think so?’ ”

Yes, it is.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Two Love Stories Sweet as Jelly

by Woody

February is just around the corner, and with it Valentine’s Day, which made me think of “The Shop Around the Corner,” the 1940 romantic comedy starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan, which of course brought to mind “You’ve Got Mail,” the 1998 remake with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, which also reminded me of meet cutes.

Like baseball cards in my boyhood, I now collect stories from couples of how they met. Here are two recent additions, the first prompted when my friend Wayne Kempton mentioned he and his bride were going to celebrate their wedding anniversary with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

PB&J? Not caviar and lobster and local strawberries dipped in gourmet chocolate? There had to be a story, and a good one, so I asked and Wayne answered thusly…

“Shari and I eloped with a deep love, but very little earthly wealth. We had her ’59 Mercury convertible, one suitcase and two tennis rackets. And very little money. So, we economized en route, buying a loaf a bread, a jar of peanut butter and some cheese puffs that served as meals—many picnics, actually—on our way from Iowa to California.

“Each year since, we have celebrated August 29th with a feast of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cheese puffs. And champagne—we were not only broke, but also too young for wine then!”

Instead of in a bookstore around the corner, they had met in a grocery store where they both worked.

“It was in September 1966,” Wayne says, reaching back. “We were beginning our senior year, and I was the new guy at school. We became high school sweethearts and got engaged a year later on our first day of college. Our plan was to get married after finishing college, but we eloped a year later. We eloped because both sets of parents were dead set against us even seeing each other.”

Their parents proved as wrong as pickles on a PB&J sandwich, for Wayne and Shari have now gone through, at 26 slices in an typical loaf of bread, more than four loaves and quite a few jars of jelly and peanut butter with 55 anniversary feasts to date.

Earlier this month my friend Rick Estberg shared his own “Shop Around the Corner” love story in screenplay form…

“On this exact date, 44 years ago, a young man sat next to a young woman in a very attractive green dress. It was their first day on new jobs at their Agency. Soon they dated. And then they became lovers. And eventually they got married. For years they would joke about that accidental first meeting and the dress, which perhaps magically brought them together on Day One.

“About 40 years later the young woman, now not so young anymore, grew very ill. The young man, now not so young anymore, was beside himself, being unable to make things right again.

“Then, a year ago, the old woman died. And the old man cried himself to sleep. That night he had a dream. A dream about a wonderful and lovely young woman in a very attractive green dress. And for as long as that dream lasted the old man was happy once again, reveling in the magic that she brought to him. And the world. Which leads to the following mythical exchange:

“ ‘I don’t believe in magic,’ said a young man one day, very self-assuredly.

“The old man, with a small tear in his eye, replied thoughtfully, ‘Ah, but you will one day—when you finally meet her.’ ”

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

New Postage Stamp Priceless (to me)

by Woody

In just over one week’s time, on Jan. 21 to be precise, U.S. Postal Service first-class postage for a one-ounce letter will rise two pennies to 68 cents.

My two cents on the rate increase is that it remains a minor miracle, and a major bargain, to have a letter delivered from sea to shining sea, and anywhere between, in only a few days for such a price.

Considering the Pony Express charged five dollars in 1860 for a half-ounce letter, the equivalent to $191 in 2024, 68 cents seems a steal indeed.

Moreover, while the Pony Express was Hermes-like speedy, employing a relay system of fresh wing-footed horses and tireless riders to deliver mail from Missouri to California, a distance of nearly 2,000 miles, as quickly as 10 days, today’s mail travels by Jet Engine 30,000 Horsepower Express.

Along with the postage hike, two recent news items put stamps on my mind. The first was the auction sale of an “Inverted Jenny”—a 24-cent stamp issued in 1918 of which 100 were erroneously printed with the blue image of a biplane upside-down framed by a background of red—for more than $2 million.

More priceless to me personally, however, was the announcement a few days later that the USPS will release early this year a limited-edition first-class Forever Stamp honoring my hero and friend, the late and legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden.

Thorough thought went into the stamp’s design. In addition to featuring a head-and-shoulders portrait of Wooden from his coaching days, wearing black-framed glasses and a suit and tie and also wearing a game-face countenance, the background has two generic players—a jump shooter in a white No. 4 jersey and a No. 10 defender in black, the latter being the number of national championships Wooden’s Bruins won during his 27-years in Westwood and the former being the number of undefeated seasons they enjoyed. Additionally, “John” appears in blue and “Wooden” in gold, these being UCLA’s school colors.

It is further worth noting that Wooden, who passed away at age 99 in 2010, becomes only the second basketball coach thusly honored, the first being James Naismith in 1961. This is a rarefied pair as high-flying as an Inverted Jenny—the man who invented the game and the coach who perfected it.

Having been fortunate, blessed beyond measure in truth, to have enjoyed a 20-year friendship with Coach Wooden, here is one of my memories, a collage actually: every time I visited him in his home there would be two plastic tubs from the post office, each about the size and shape of a laundry basket, one brimming with incoming fan mail, the other filled with outgoing replies.

Many fans requested an autographed photograph or copy of his famous Pyramid of Success while others sent magazine covers, trading cards, jerseys, even basketballs for him to sign and send back.

Remarkably, and quite thoughtlessly, rarely was return postage included. No matter, Coach Wooden cheerfully packaged the items up, carted them to the post office and paid the postage himself. Week after month after year, this surely added up to a princely sum, but he was a prince of a man. As he said a million times, “You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.” John Wooden, who walked four miles each morning, also walked his talk.

An estimated 18 million Wooden stamps are set to be issued and I personally plan to buy enough to mail a heaping laundry basket worth of letters.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Tally of Kindness Merits an Update

by Woody

Two weeks ago, I gratefully announced the final tally of “Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive” to be a record by more than 100, but it turns out a few smile-givers slipped through the cracks uncounted and I would like to acknowledge them now…

Kids giving to kids always puts birdsong in my heart, so one of my favorite 2023 MVPs (Most Valuable Philanthropists) is Rayo Arriaga Gladish. Great-grandson of Arlys Tuttle, who passed away late last year at age 101, 12-year-old Rayo took the lead for the entire Tuttle family and donated 13 balls – plus two scholarships for the Ventura Youth Basketball Association, which has special meaning since his great-grandfather and husband of Arlys, legendary Ventura High School basketball coach Bob Tuttle, created the VYBA long ago.

“We will be missing my great-grandma this Christmas,” Rayo shared, “and hope to be part of bringing happiness and sports to kids in her memory and spirit.”

In addition to Rayo, thanks goes to Andrea Arriaga, Raymundo and Trudy Arriaga, Toni and Jaime Santana, Gayle and Leo Camalich, Gary Tuttle and Ruth Vomund, Erica and Mark Herring, Carly and Jared Wilson, Mary Antoci, Geoffrey Quemuel, Monica Ruiz and Mark Etchings, Summer Helms, Matt and Aimee Pesendian, and Mary Osborne and Lance Gilbert.

Meanwhile, Matt and Michelle Demaria gave a dozen combined basketballs, soccer balls and footballs; and Linda Peddie, with a shopping assist from her husband Jim while she was battling COVID-19, added four more.

All of which adds up to a revised final count of 1,171 children’s smiles handed out these past holidays.

Meanwhile, I keep thinking about 12 smiles handed out by Steve Askay, a former teacher of both my kids in high school. More especially, I cannot forget the tears in my heart over his donation being in memory of his “beautiful granddaughter Mabel Rae Askay.”

Beautiful is a grand understatement, as evidence by the photographs Steve shared with me. If Hollywood had a casting call for a 6-year-old cherub, Irish as Guinness with long curls the color of a shiny penny, a smile as bright as a full moon, and blue eyes that fairly twinkle, the part would have gone to Mabel with no others needing to audition.

Tragically, the Ventura girl died two summer ago, just weeks after finishing kindergarten, when, in an unbelievably freak accident, she fell off a float during a Fourth of July parade in Mandan, North Dakota, where her family was visiting relatives.

From the cloudburst of tears, remarkably, a Rae of sunshine emerged. For the past two years, her Dec. 10 birth date has been “Mabel Rae’s Day of Kindness” where people have been encouraged to do acts of “extravagant love, kindness and generosity.” There is even a “mabel-ray-shines-on” Instagram account.

Here is the kind of shining girl she was, as shared in her obituary: “Mabel Rae Askay lived her life like a red-haired tornado that fiercely loved everyone she ever came across. She never met anyone, or any of God’s creatures, that she couldn’t be friends with.”

Lynn Bova, Mabel’s kindergarten teacher, echoed this in The Star at the time: “You must imagine the warmth of the sun when she skips into the room. The joy in her sparkly blue eyes, her kindness as she rescues a lost spider or bug that found its way into our classroom, the silliness of her green tongue after enjoying a popsicle, and the love she shared with everyone she met.”

December 10 is a long way off – how much better if we treat every day like Mabel Rae’s Day of Kindness.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Recognizing Firsts Easier Than Lasts

by Woody

We love firsts. First place. First in line. First downs. Most of all, perhaps, we love first times.

Especially new parents, who are constantly experiencing firsts. Baby’s first smile. First words. First steps.

First, first, first.

In truth, the firsts never cease. Like chocolates on the conveyor belt in the classic episode of “I Love Lucy,” the firsts keep coming. First day of kindergarten, first solo bike ride, first time driving.

First, first, first.

Sometimes, however, I think we focus too greatly on firsts. Partly this is because firsts are easy—not necessarily easy to accomplish, mind you, but easy to recognize.

Your son has never ridden a bike without training wheels or your hand steadying it from behind and now he does. Let’s go to Ben & Jerry’s to celebrate! Your daughter scores her first soccer goal. Another recognizable milestone: Do you want a cone or a cup?

Of any age, we all have our own conveyor belt of firsts. First rollercoaster ride, first airplane flight; first crush, first kiss; first this and first that, all easy to recognize and store away in a mental scrapbook.

But what about lasts?

“Never thought we’d have a last kiss,” Taylor Swift poignantly sings, and this rings true also for the last time we read a bedtime story to our children or a last time we give them a piggyback ride to bed. But, of course, there was a last “Goodnight Moon” together with my daughter and a last schlep up the stairs carrying my sleepy son, for the girl and the boy are now a woman and a man, themselves parents of little ones.

Lost lasts. How sad that we rarely recognize a last while it is happening and miss out on the chance to press the “record” button on our mental smartphones.

I wish, for example, I could specifically remember the last time my mom, gone three decades now, held my little hand crossing a street—or, older, I helped her cross.

Lasts, lasts, lasts, lost, lost, lost.

Nor can I draw to mind last time I gave my son and daughter baths in the tub. Had I know it was the last time, surely I would have memorized all the details and splashed a little more—no, a lot more!—and laughed louder—much louder!—at the wet soapy floor.

When was the last time I brushed their teeth for them? Read them Dr. Seuss? Played “Sam the Alligator Man” with them, giggling their heads off, wrestling on the floor?

Sometimes, if you are lucky, life gives you a do-over. Indeed, grandchildren afford not only the chance to savor the whole menu of firsts again, but to try to recognize and savor the lasts this go-round. And so it is that I am again reading “The Runaway Bunny” aloud and giving piggyback rides to my three granddaughters.

Come to think of it, unlike firsts, we often have the power to create a brand-new last. Thus, I can read “Goodnight Moon” to my grown daughter a new last time and—if I take Tylenol afterwards—give my 6-foot-3 son a new last piggyback ride.

Two nights hence, we shall sing “Auld Lang Syne” to 2023 and fondly bring to mind some of our long-ago firsts. And as we ring in 2024, it seems to me we should resolve not only to celebrate the firsts that await us, but also to embrace other moments as if they were old acquaintances not be forgot.

Because you never know when the last kiss is.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Gift Balls Roll In For Big Final Tally

by Woody

Words fall far shy in fully expressing my gratitude to everyone who participated in “Woody’s 2023 Holiday Ball Drive,” but know this: whether you gave one ball, or many, you filled my heart with birdsong.

And no music was sweeter than from Steve McFadden, who gave four balls in memory of his dad, Harold – aka “Coach Mac,” one of my all-time favorite teachers – noting: “It always makes me smile to know a deserving child might have a little better Christmas. My dad would love to be part of your ball drive.”

Here are some more smile-makers…

Shelly and Steve Brown gave half a dozen balls in honor of their six grandchildren, and Jim and Sandie Arthur gave four balls in honor of their daughters and grandchildren.

Steve Askay gave a dozen balls “in memory of my beautiful granddaughter, Mabel Rae Askay,” and Brandon and Tommy Kendlinger, and Elijah Ontiveros, gave 20 “in the loving memory of their cousin and brother, Michael Kendlinger.”

Ken and Elaine Lyle’s grandchildren – Joshua and Brynlee Lyle, and Corbin Spahr – each picked out one ball, and Jerry and Linda Mendelsohn similarly took their grandkids to pick out 20.

Brad and Mia Ditto gave 10 balls in honor of Brad’s late father, Cliff, a former high school coach, and Chuck and Ann Elliott gave 10 “in memory of Jim Cowan.”

The Lance Eaton family likewise donated one ball “in memory of mentor James Cowan; two in memory of Roy Gilmore and our late son Mark; and two more to honor Mickey Perry and our Special Olympian son, Ian.”

Mickey Perry, meanwhile, and fellow legendary basketball coach Joe Vaughan donated 10 balls, as did Ann Cowan to honor her late husband, Jim.

Peggi and Denny Clayton gave one ball; Mike Wildermuth and Georgina Sandy, two; Connie Gajefski, three; George Saunders, four; Bob Vrtis, five; and Bobbie and Dave Williams added six. 

Irma Paramo gave two balls, as did Richard Dreher; Steven and T. Yamamoto gave three; Ben Coats, ten; and Al and Carol Gross donated 11 in memory of Dick Utter, a member of the ’49 Ventura High 30-0 basketball team that won the CIF.

Karen and Dave Brooks, and their trusty canine companion, Watson, also gave 11 balls, and Cristina Kildee gave three “in the loving memory of my furbaby, Bear.”

Kay Giles and Michael Mariani gave six balls, as did Carole Rowland; Tom and Sheila McCollum gave 18; and from my Buena High Class of ’78, Bob Colla Jr. gave two and Robert Schwartz added one.

Steve and Bobbin Yarbrough gave two balls; Thomas and Karyne Roweton, four; Katherine and Frank Anderson, five; Fran and Kate Larsen, six; Laurie Rutledge, eight; and Laura McAvoy and Sol Chooljian added 10.

The Pleasant Valley-Somis-Camarillo Lions Club gave 150 balls; a group of former Marines added 30; and patrons of The Goebel Adult Community Center in Thousand Oaks donated 65.

In another group effort, 287 balls were given by the “A Team” of family members and friends who wished to only have their first names used: Grandma Alma, Nancy and Rick, Connie and Andy, Carmen and Louie, Alma and Tomas, Christine and Tyler, Ruth and Shaun, Alast and Allen, Rachel and Mike, Reina and Michael, Juan, Beth and Stan, Caren and Achilles, Charlene and Phil, Rose and Jace, Dave and Yoda, Kellie and John, Shelly, Michelle and Michael, Beverley and Ricky, Steve, Jesus, Leroy, Dave, Cathy and Carlos, Claudia and Mike, Will and Heidi, Kelly and Lisa, Pamela, Tina and Chris, Lane, Deborah, Maddie, Mary Kay and Steve, Mel and Todd, Dawn and Jim, Donna and Art, and Ilene and Mitch.

Auden McAuley and Amara Woodburn each gave one ball; Anna and Tom McBreen, two; Judy Windle, three; Rick Estberg, four; Kent Brinkmeyer, five; and Glen Sittel gave six in memory of is mom “who was such a great supporter of my youth sports.”

Alicia and Hall Stratton gave five balls, as did Kathy and Ken McAlpine, and Lauren Siegel as well.

Secret Santas gave a combined 63 balls, including 25 in memory of my former Star sportswriting colleague Loren Ledin, a star person who recently lost a warrior’s decade-long battle with cancer.

Mike and Bob Bryan donated 50 assorted balls and, in a closing note of birdsong for my heart, for her fifth birthday Maya McAuley picked out one gift ball for a child she will never know but said she can imagine her-or-his smile.

And now, the final tally for 2023 is … drumroll, please … a whopping 1,142 gift sports balls, surpassing last year’s previous record by more than 100 children’s smiles!

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Some Far From Ordinary Books, ’23

by Woody

Without undue preamble, other than to say I surpassed my annual book-a-week goal this year, here are some favorites from my 2023 reading list…

“What You Are Looking For is in the Library” by Michiko Aoyama is a collection of short stories linked by a hint of magic and a librarian who is large and gruff, but also kind and wise, and is worth looking for on library or bookstore shelves.

“The Prospectors” by Ariel Djankian is a terrific tale switching back and forth between today and the gold rush in the Yukon.

My mountain of books read this year totals 62 with time still for a couple more!

“Let Us Descend” by Jesmyn Ward is a powerful, heart-wrenching story about a young woman who is sold by the enslaver who fathered her and the hellish relocation journey on foot she endures while accompanied by the memories and spirits of her mother and African warrior grandmother.

 “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store” by James McBride and “Tom Lake” by Ann Patchett both require a little patience early on, in my opinion, but eventually reward the reader fully.

“Saint Monkey” by Jacinda Townsend is a masterful and musical coming-of-age story of two friends told by a narrator whose storytelling voice absolutely sings.

Even though I have never played a musical instrument, I found Glenn Kurtz’s memoir “Practicing: A Musician’s Return to Music” to B-flat out wonderful with the author’s passion contagious. Another musical-themed book, the fictional “Symphony of Secrets” by Brendan Slocumb, is a terrific page-turning mystery.

“The Museum of Ordinary People” by Mike Gayle is far, far better than ordinary, and you do not have to be a runner to enjoy Jeffrey Recker’s “The Humiliation Tour” which is long in both pages (at 460) and laughs (4,600).

Conversely, “Baumgartner” by Paul Auster, about a widower wrestling with memories and grief, and “The Gift” by Pete Hamill, about a GI during Korean War coming home from boot camp to Brooklyn for Christmas, are both thin on pages but thick on beautiful storytelling.

“The President’s Hat” by Antoine Laurain is a fun journey following a hat with a mystical power to change the lives of all who wear it.

“Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin is a wonderful and wonderful and wonderful love story while “Tomorrow Will Be Better” by Betty Smith is a story about a lack of love with a protagonist, Margy, you cannot help but love.

John Wooden liked to say that the trouble with new books is they keep us from reading old ones. On the 20th anniversary of its publication, I reread

“Off Season: Discovering America On Winter’s Shores” by local wordsmith Ken McAlpine and enjoyed it ever as much as the first time.

Another local offering, by Ventura native Deborah Holt Larkin, that merits a high recommendation is “A Lovely Girl: The Tragedy of Olga Duncan and the Trial of One of California’s Most Notorious Killers.”

Evidence that good things come in threes, a third local author makes my list with “The Unsold Mindset” by Ventura native Garrett Brown and Colin Coggins.

Runner-up for my favorite book this year is “Remarkably Bright Creatures” by Shelby Van Pelt. My only complaint about this remarkably creative novel is that I wanted more of the chapters narrated by the octopus!

And – drum roll, please – the king of the 62-book-tall mountain I have read this year is “The Kudzu Queen” by Mimi Herman, whose poetry chops shine through with lyrical writing, precise word choices, and vivid imagery in this southern novel that brings to mind “To Kill a Mockingbird,” including young narrator Mattie’s voice that has echoes of Scout.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Make The Fresh Spaghetti Sauce

by Woody

Where I read it I cannot recall, but the lesson remains indelible: “Make the fresh spaghetti sauce.”

The anecdote was about a woman unexpectedly, and far too prematurely, widowed. Months later, she was walking in a park with a friend and, among chitchat, asked about dinner plans.

The friend nonchalantly said her husband that very morning had mentioned a craving for her homemade spaghetti sauce. But the day had gotten away from her without going to the store for fresh tomatoes and she didn’t feel like stopping on the way home. Sauce from a jar would suffice.

The two friends continued their strolling visit for a while when, out of the blue, the widow said softly, but with weighted feeling: “Make the fresh spaghetti sauce.”

As she was picking out fresh tomatoes at the grocery shortly thereafter, the friend realized the widow was not really talking about a homemade dinner. The wisdom had been about making the little extra effort for someone you love, whenever you have the chance, because that special person could disappear from you life — by death suddenly, yes, but also simply growing up and moving away.

In other words, bake a cake even if it’s not their birthday; play a board game or go on a walk when you’d rather read; take them to a concert you wouldn’t choose.

This past weekend, I made the fresh spaghetti sauce for my 33-year-old son by taking him to his first NFL game. This may seem surprising given that I was a sports columnist for three decades and you would surely imagine I had taken my son to countless pro football games over the years. As the maxim has it, the cobbler’s children go barefoot.

Truth be told, my son and daughter were so busy, busy, busy with their own sports games and running races growing up that there just never seemed time to go to pro sporting events together.

Also at play, however, is that when they were in their early teens I was rear-ended by a speeding drunk driver at the 2003 Super Bowl in San Diego. Nerve damage in my neck and hand forced me to leave sports writing. In fact, that was the last NFL — or NBA or Major League Baseball — game I attended because I have had no desire to not sit in the press box and not have the rush of deadline pressure.

What changed Sunday? The Cleveland Browns, my beloved team since boyhood and still, were playing the L.A. Rams in SoFi Stadium and for his birthday gift my son, who likewise bleeds burnt orange, wanted to go.

While I have covered a handful of Super Bowls, even more NBA Finals and a few World Series, I dare say this regular-season game instantly ranks as my all-time favorite because of my companion. Despite being conditioned to “no cheering in the press box,” I became hoarse from yelling and high-fiving and chest bumping my son through the first three and a half excitingly close quarters…

…before the Browns showed their true colors by boinking a game-tying PAT kick off the upright and promptly fell apart in trademark fashion to get blown out.

A Browns’ victory would, naturally, have been wonderful. All the same, my son and I could not possibly have had a more masterpiece day. As dyed-in-the-wool Brownies fans, there is even a certain charm in a fourth-quarter meltdown.

Indeed, I am so glad I made the fresh spaghetti sauce — even if it figuratively wound up spilled all over our brand-new throwback No. 32 Jim Brown jerseys.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.