Author Archives: Woody

Tiny Grads and Big Emotions

by Woody

For the past week I have had a song stuck in my head. More accurately, a stanza from “Turn Around” and it goes:           

“Turn around and they’re two. Turn around and they’re four. Turn around they’re a young man heading out the door” – or a young woman, of course.

Wayne Bryan, father of the legendary tennis tandem Mike and Bob, shared these lyrics with me back, back, back when my daughter was born. It remained on my mind, and in my heart, until Dallas and her younger brother Greg headed out the door as young adults.

Maya marches in to “Pomp and Circumstance.”

Wayne, who had these lines of wisdom hanging on a wall at home as a constant reminder of how fleeting the time he would have with his twin sons was, later explained in his parenting book “Raising Your Child to be a Champion in Athletics, Arts, and Academics”:

“I found this to be so true. Mike and Bob hit their first tennis balls at age two on Monday, went to kindergarten on Tuesday, entered high school on Wednesday and graduated on Friday. At Stanford, they went up there on Monday and they were going out on the professional tour after their sophomore years on Tuesday.”

By Thursday, Mike and Bob were retiring with 16 grand slam championships and 119 tour titles together after spending 438 weeks ranked No. 1 in the world, and by Friday had their own children to turn around and see grow as if in time-lapse.

It’s no different for grandparents. One day I turned around and my first grandchild, Maya, was born; the next day I turned around and she was two; and yesterday – last week, in truth – I turned around and she was four and graduating from preschool and headed to pre-K.

Grownups sometimes, oftentimes actually, forget how little things are amplified into big things for youngsters. Indeed, I don’t think I have ever seen Maya happier, not even on Christmas morning, smiling so wide she almost sprained her face with joy at her recent graduation ceremony.

The happy and proud graduate and parents.

Nor seen her more proud, for she was beaming like human sunshine. To her, the certificate, rolled up like a baton and tied with a red ribbon, might as well have been a diploma from Harvard.

I wish you could have seen Maya and all her classmates in their miniature full-length gowns of royal blue and matching mortarboard caps, complete with gold tassels, as they marched in among balloons and “Happy Graduation” banners while “Pomp and Circumstance” played.

Beforehand, I would have thought all of this was over-the-top silly. It proved to be as wonderful as fresh strawberries in wintertime. I dare say there wasn’t a pair of eyes in attendance (or watching the video afterwards) that weren’t moist, some even spilling over a little. To be sure, additional lyrics from “Turn Around” gripped my heart and squeezed gently:

“Where have you gone my little girl, little girl, / Little pigtails and petticoats where have you gone? / Turn around you’re tiny, turn around then you’re grown / Turn around you’re a young wife with babes of your own . . . Turn around and they’re young, turn around and they’re old / Turn around and they’ve gone and we’ve no one to hold.”

After the little honorees had all walked across the stage, the principal announced, “You finally did it! The Class of 2023!” Again, at first blush this might seem grandiose silliness for preschool, and yet—

—turn around, turn around, Maya and her friends will be marching with their high school graduating Classes of 2036.

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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.

Wearing Theater’s Two Masks

by Woody

Anniversaries, like the two masks of the theater, can come with laughter and celebration or tragedy and tears.

Today, July 7, I will wear both masks simultaneously.

First, the celebratory anniversary. Or, as the United States Running Streak Association terms it, my “Streakiversary.” Simply put, I have run a minimum of 3.1 miles every day, without fail, for the past 20 years. The math adds up to 7,306 consecutive days and 83,337 miles, more than three times around the Earth, and more than 100 pairs of shoes, for a daily average of 11.4 miles.

With humility, I must point out that 106 runners have USRSA-recognized Streaks longer than mine, including four surpassing 50 years!

Sometimes we don’t fully appreciate something until it is taken from us. So it was for me with running after I was rear-ended at a stoplight by a drunk driver speeding 65 mph. While I was fortunate to have walked away from the wreckage, my neck required a diskectomy and fusion of two vertebrae, and I feared I would never run another marathon.

Six long months later, my doc finally gave me clearance to go on a short run of one mile. I gleefully, also slowly and painfully, went three-plus miles. Before I knew it, I had unintentionally run 100 consecutive days and decided to try for 365 and like Forrest Gump just kept going.

As with U.S. postal workers, I have not been detoured by rain nor sleet nor snow. Nor by injury and illness, Covid-19 and a kidney stone, wildfire smoke and a wildly painful cracked rib.

I have run at all hours to accommodate family plans, vacations, time zones. On the streets of London after a long travel day, I kept The Streak alive as midnight neared, causing one Englishman to holler, “Hey, bloke! You must be a Yank ’cause you’re bloody crazy.”

Crazy, perhaps, but psychoanalysis might reveal something else at play. While I did not realize it until a couple years later, it now seems beyond coincidence that my Streak began on July 7, 2003 – the due date of my wife’s and my third child. A baby lost to miscarriage. Was my Streak’s birth a subconscious response to death?

The pregnancy was a surprise, a wonderful one infused with champagne bubbles, but because my wife was 44, a high-risk one infused with worry. Only after making it safely into the second trimester did we exhale and allow ourselves to get fully excited.

Then the heartbreak of no heartbeat.

“You can try again,” family and friends say at such times. And: “At least you already have two healthy children.” They all mean well, but the heart does not listen to rationalizations.

We chose not to know the gender, perhaps trying to protect our hearts just in case, although we had picked out Sienna for a girl. A few years later, my wife had a powerful dream of a child on a playground swing. The girl, the same age our child would have then been, smiled and waved. Rather than being overwhelmed by renewed grief, my wife felt deeply comforted.

Surely thus influenced, even though it came a few years thereafter, I too had a real-as-can-be dream where I was running on the beach bike path, perhaps my very favorite route, alongside a child the same age ours would have then been.

She was smiling and happy.

I will think of heras I extend my Streak today, on her summer birthday that never was, imagining Sienna also turning 20, my eyes assuredly as salty as the sea.

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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.

Students Create Own 7-Point Creeds

by Woody

“I finally read ‘Wooden & Me’!” Matt Demaria, an eighth-grade teacher at Mesa Union School in Somis, emailed me recently regarding my memoir about my life-changing friendship with Coach John Wooden. “I thoroughly enjoyed it.”

Naturally, I thoroughly enjoyed Matt’s compliment, yet what I liked even more was the rest of his letter with photos included.

For starters, around the classroom Matt has posted quotes to inspire his students and center stage, side by side above the white board, are gems from two of the most important mentors in my life: Wooden and Wayne Bryan, father of Mesa Union’s two most famous alumni, Mike and Bob, the greatest doubles team in tennis history.

Wayne, on chocolate-colored construction paper, offers: “Don’t tell me about your dreams of a castle; show me the stones you laid today.”

And on plum paper, Wooden’s wisdom: “Remember this: the choices you make in life, make you.”

To my great pleasure, Matt holds these two heroes of mine in such high regard that their words are flanked on the left, on tangerine paper, by the great Ralph Waldo Emerson – “Do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain” – and on the right, on forest-green paper, by no less than Benjamin Franklin – “Hide not your talents; they for use were made. What’s a sundial in the shade?”

More important than posting a new motivational quotation weekly from writers and poets, artists and actors, sports figures and scientists, Matt displays wisdom from his students.

Specifically, inspired by John Wooden’s 7-Point Creed – “Be true to yourself / Make each day your masterpiece / Help others / Drink deeply from good books / Make friendship a fine art / Build shelter against a rainy day / Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day” – Matt had each student create their own seven personal points.

On 3×5 note cards of yellow and blue and pink, and displayed under the headline “Words of Wisdom from Mesa 8th Graders,” here are some assorted examples:

“The best competition I have is against myself to become better.”

“Not everyone deserves a second chance” and “Ask for help.”

“Saying you have no motivation is an excuse to be lazy” and “Quality over Quantity.”

“Having fun is one of the most important foods for your brain.”

“Being yourself is the best person you can be” and “Don’t worry about what others think of you, worry about what you think of yourself.”

“Friendships are like goldfish: they will die off quickly if you don’t give them love and care.”

“Goals won’t be accomplished by wishing” and “You can’t take it easy on the way up.”

And, “You decide how you roll with life’s hills and valleys.”

This final nugget rang true to me the other day when I figuratively stood atop a hill with a gorgeous view of a valley blooming with poison ivy. The hill’s summit was a reader buying five copies of “Wooden and Me” as gifts and asking me to sign them with personalized inscriptions.

As I was doing so, the gift giver mentioned she already had a copy of the book for herself and when I asked if she would like me to sign it as well, she said it was already inscribed. Sheepishly, she confessed it was actually personalized to a different name than hers because she picked it up at a garage sale.

She offered to show me the name, but I decided to roll with life’s valleys and declined on the ego-bruising off chance it was someone I knew!

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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.

Devilish and Sweet Typewriter Tales

by Woody

Although it will go widely unrecognized, today is an important date in history for it was on June 23, 1868, that Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for the typewriter.           

Three years later, Mark Twain saw one of these newfangled machines in a store window, in Boston; in he walked and out he came having paid a whopping $125 – equivalent to about $3,000 today – for a Remington model.

It proved to be a love-hate relationship for at one point Twain insisted Remington, which originated the QWERTY keyboard layout, cease and desist mentioning him in its advertisements, writing: “Please do not use my name in any way. I don’t want people to know I own this curiosity-breeding little joker.”

Mr. Twain on my Olivetti Lettera 32 model favored by Cormac McCarthy.

Twain also claimed these new typing machines were “full of caprices, full of defects – devilish ones.”

And yet, according to literary scholars, Twain was the first author to submit a typewritten manuscript – “Life on the Mississippi” – to a publisher in 1883.

In honor of today being National Typewriter Day, I would like to share the story of another QWERTY machine, this one bought not brand new for a princely sum, but secondhand at a pawnshop for $50. Even back in 1963 that was bargain for a top-of-the-line Olivetti Lettera 32 portable model.

The purchaser was Cormac McCarthy, legendary author of “The Road” and “All The Pretty Horses” and “Blood Meridian” and a long shelf of other best-seller page-turners, who died earlier this month at age 89.

McCarthy banged away on the black keys of that blue-bodied typewriter for nearly a half-century until the Italian-made machine wore out beyond repair. No small wonder it finally became roadkill considering the Pulitzer Prize-winner estimated he had put about 5 million words on its odometer.

Here is where McCarthy’s typewriter story gets even better, in three ways.

One. Whereas Twain surely would have tried out the caprices, defects and devilishness of a computer, McCarthy remained true to Christopher Latham Sholes’ invention.

Two. McCarthy, despite his fame and riches, did not buy a typewriter restored to mint condition for the burgeoning collector’s market that now sees machines priced as high as MacBooks. Rather, a friend gave him a replacement, another blue Olivetti Lettera 32, for which he paid all of $11 and which McCarthy used for his next million words.

Three. In 2009, McCarthy, who wrote in an authentication letter, “I have typed on this typewriter every book I have written including three not yet published,” put his original Olivetti up for auction.

The pre-bid estimate of $20,000 proved wildly wrong as an anonymous collector paid an eye-popping $254,500 with the proceeds, in a rare happy ending for a McCarthy tale, going to a non-profit organization.

I am happy to say that the entire handful of typewriters I have accumulated cost well below $254,500. This includes a blue Olivetti Lettera 32 identical to McCarthy’s, albeit a 1969 model with about four million fewer words of wear on its typebars and no New York Times Best Sellers to its credit.

Like McCarthy’s replacement Lettera 32, mine was a gift, not from a friend but from my little sister a couple years ago. For writing notes and letters it has the most pleasant touch and action of all my typing machines.

Even so, I dare say it is not the sweetest typewriter I own. That honor goes to another one My Li’l Sis gave me last month for my birthday, a replica of a Hermes Baby used by John Steinbeck, or so it seems, as it is quite small…

…and made of gourmet chocolate.

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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.

The Rest of the Story About ‘Bruno’

by Woody

And now, as radio legend Paul Harvey used to begin his popular segment, the rest of the story…           

Back in December when my second granddaughter, Auden, was born, I mentioned in this space that her older sister Maya calls me Bruno instead of Grandpa or some other variation of.

Readers continue to ask me where this nickname came from and Father’s Day weekend, since my daughter and son originally gave me this pet name, seems an apropos time to share the answer.

“Masterpiece Maya” and her “Bruno.”

To begin, let me go backwards. I had a great aunt named Wibbie – well, that is what my siblings and I called her because that is what my dad called his aunt ever since he was a little boy because that is what came out when he tried to say Elizabeth.

Another nickname from a boyhood, mine, that stuck – my oldest brother, in reference to a character in the B.C. caveman-era comic strip, began calling me Grog and still does.

Shakespeare’s Juliet famously says, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other word would smell as sweet.” Similarly, what’s in a nickname can smell as sweet as any rose.

Sweet names I call my son Greg include Little Grog or Grog, Brunjun (a contraction of Bruno Jr., stay tuned), Gregburn (a contraction of first and last names) and its abbreviation GB, Funcle (because Maya does), and Greggie, but rarely Greg.

My daughter Dallas once asked me why I have so many nicknames for her – Dally, Dalburn, Bingo-bum (a word she made up at age 4 and often called me), and Meatloaf (as obscure as Wibbie for Elizabeth) to name a handful – and I answered: “Because I love you far more than a single nickname can possibly hold.”

“Why Meatloaf?” you now ask. One long-ago day I was picking Dallas up at kindergarten and as she came out of the classroom I overheard her best friend, a boy she had gone to daycare with since age 2, tell her, “Bye, meatloaf.”

On our drive home, I asked why the boy had called her meatloaf and she giggled and explained, after very likely first calling me a “silly bingo-bum,” that he had actually said, “Bye, my love.”

I thought that was just about the cutest thing ever and my favorite private (until now) term of endearment for my daughter was born. She in turn still calls me Meatloaf and Bingo-bum and Daddy; my son calls me Big Grog and Pops; they both call me Dadburn and Bruno and, by extension, to them my wife and I are sometimes The Bruns. So many sobriquets, I like to think, because of so much love.

Now back to Bruno and its origins. When my daughter and son were quite young, about 6 and 4, there was a TV commercial for a local pizza chain that ended with the cartoon mascot declaring, “Bruno’s hungry!”

Kids being kids, they thought it was spit-your-milk-out hilarious when I began announcing dinnertime by saying in a loud mascot-mimicking voice: “Bruno’s hungry!”

They playfully started calling me Bruno and all these years later Maya now does as well; as will Auden, who by the way carries my mother Audrey’s nickname; as will their future cousin, Woodchip, which is how my son and his wife Jess – GorJess to him, Jessburn or JB to me – refer to their baby daughter due in three months, so loved that even in the womb she already has a nickname.

And now, as Paul Harvey would conclude, you know the rest of the story.

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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.

Li’l Sis With a Big Heart

by Woody

“Tell me again about the time you partied with Eddie Murphy,” I can ask my little sister and she is apt to ask back, “Which time?”

Or she might simply begin by recalling a quiet one-on-one conversation with the famous comedian-actor, back in his “Saturday Night Live” and “Beverly Hills Cops” days, in his kitchen while the rest of the mansion raged on.

My Li’l Sis also has personal stories about hanging out with Princess Stephanie of Monaco and Prince, not a prince but the Prince of rock-and-roll fame, and Paul Stanley from the rock group Kiss, too; Chevy Chase, John Wayne, Rob Lowe and the most of the Brat Pack; and on and on. She met Hugh Hefner and dated Dean Martin’s son, Dean Paul Martin, and all of these are just off the top of my head.

Me and My Li’L Sis back when…

Interestingly, MLS claims to have been starstruck only once. That was in a small restaurant in Montecito when she found herself seated at a table directly next to Oprah Winfrey.

“Can you believe it? Oprah!” MLS recalls, and yes I do believe it. “Of course I didn’t ask for an autograph because honestly I didn’t want to be disappointed if she wasn’t everything I imagined. Sometimes I think it’s best to think of your idols just the way you want them to be.”

What surprises me is not that My Li’l Sis didn’t ask for a selfie, but that Oprah didn’t somehow invite MLS to join her for lunch.

But my favorite story of My Li’l Sis, of a million memories that make me smile and laugh, is not Hollywood related although it does belong in a rom-com movie.

To set the scene: Owen Wilson (me) has brought his college girlfriend (Rachel McAdams) home for the weekend to meet his family. Around midnight there is a knocking on the front door.

And, “Action!”

Owen groggily answers the door and is greeted by two uniformed police officers (Samuel L. Jackson and Liam Neeson).

Hard cut to Owen knocking on the bedroom door of My Li’l Sis (Reese Witherspoon as Elle Woods in “Legally Blonde”) where Rachel is also staying. Owen mumbles, “Elle, the cops are here for you,” then pads silently back to bed.

Rachel (who became my wife) laughs to this day at how matter-of-fact Owen was, as if real-life episodes of “Adam-12” happened all the time to Elle.

Flashback an hour earlier: Some of Elle’s high school friends dine-and-ditch at a 24-hour diner, the waitress only recognizes Elle, and she thus mistakenly gets blamed.

Cut to the present. I actually misspoke – miswrote? – about that being my favorite MLS story. Rather, it was the time she turned down Christmas dinner at my house and instead spent the evening passing out cheeseburgers and bottled water to dozens of homeless persons who slipped through the cracks of being fed elsewhere.

Despite my misgivings of the dangers it is a kindness she routinely performs, alone, throughout the year not just on holidays. Too, she organizes neighborhood food drives with the donations going to various organizations.

Indeed, My Li’l Sis has the biggest heart imaginable and is the best sister anyone could wish for. She not only reads my column without fail, she texts or phones to praise them all, and often even quotes from them years later. That kind of cheerleading is no small thing.

It is fair to say that in my eyes and heart, MLS, who celebrates a milestone birthday today, is a bigger superstar than any famous celebrity she has ever met.

Happy birthday, Li’l Sis.

*   *   *

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.

Goodbye Legacy of ‘Hello World’ Kid

by Woody

Sometimes, lucky times, rare times, you meet someone who has a positive impact on you from the very first hello.

Sometimes this encounter can take place when you read about a special person. Such was the case for me recently thanks to my dear friend, and a former sportswriter for The Star, Rhiannon Potkey, who wrote an online feature story titled, “Hello World: 16-Year-Old Leaves Lasting Impact.”

Truth be told, Rhi, who now lives in Knoxville, Tenn., is herself a special person with a gift for making an immediate impact at hello – and is also leaving a lasting impact through her nonprofit “Goods4Greatness” that provides sports equipment and athletic opportunities to disadvantaged youth nationwide.

Just a few of the smiles Goods4Greatness spreads…

In addition to passing out brand new equipment, G4G also redistributes top-of-the-line slightly used sports paraphernalia donated by NCAA athletes and programs, from tennis rackets and golf clubs to baseball gloves and bats to soccer cleats and running shoes.

Receiving game-played gear that belonged to athletic heroes they dream of following in the footsteps of is surely a grander thrill for these kids than getting a famous autograph. Likewise, what a magical feeling for college athletes to be able to help kids in need. But G4G (goods4greatness.org – one of my very favorite charities to donate to) is a full column for another time.

Back to Rhi’s story about Albert “David” Filer V. A standout junior tennis player, David died in March at the tender age of 16 following a year-long battle with Glioblastoma Multiforme, a heinous collection of syllables that simply put is a heartlessly aggressive form of brain cancer.

It is not how David died, however, that will have a lasting impact but rather how he lived. What especially touched me is something his mother shared about her only child, about how one morning when David was 7 she went upstairs to his bedroom to wake him. Rhi writes:

“David was stretching and yawning and still seemed tired, so Pam Mozdzierz-Filer asked him if he wanted to sleep a bit longer.

“He responded: ‘No mom, I’m a hello world kind of guy.’

“A quizzical look crossed Mozdzierz-Filer’s face. She had never heard that phrase before. She wondered where it came from.

“David explained to his mom that from the moment he opens his eyes each morning, he just wants to get out of bed and be with people. He doesn’t want to miss out on anything.

“ ‘I was amazed at my son’s understanding of the world,’ Mozdzierz-Filer said. ‘At 7-8 years old, he understood that each day of life was to be embraced and that is how he lived.’”

What a remarkable attitude, what a wise old teenage soul, what an inspiring mantra to live by.

Those who know me know that I pretty much wear out quoting my favorite maxim of John Wooden’s 7-Point Creed – “Make each day your masterpiece.” And so David’s personal one-point creed has hugged my heart. What better way to begin making each new day a masterpiece than by opening ones eyes, yawning and stretching, and greeting the morning as a “hello world kind of guy” or gal?

Count me in as someone who feels David’s impact since reading Rhi’s long story about his too-short life. Indeed, I now make a point of literally saying to myself upon waking each morning, “Hello world.”

Do me a favor – no, do yourself a favor – and tomorrow morning when you awaken try it yourself. I am quite certain you will join David’s growing legacy and be inspired to make the rest of the day your masterpiece.

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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.

Hall-of-Fame Hat Trick for Derry

by Woody

The esteemed poet John Greenleaf Whittier, in his poem “Maud Muller,” wrote this famous couplet: “For all sad words of tongue and pen, / the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’ ”

Equally sad, sometimes, is when something has been but no longer is. Consider, for example, Frank Sinatra singing “There Used To Be A Ballpark.”

More melancholic, to my mind, would be a similarly themed song titled “There Used To Be A Newspaper” which is something that two new communities experience each week, on average, across this nation.

And yet, selfishly, I am happy and thankful that one specific newspaper’s ink disappeared, back in 1997, back in Texas, when the The El Paso Herald-Post ceased operations. El Paso’s great loss was Ventura County’s great gain. You see, that’s how star sportswriter Derry Eads came to The Star. It was like the Los Angeles Lakers getting LeBron James from the Cleveland Cavaliers late in his career.

Hall-of-Fame sportswriter, and person, Derry Eads.

Deservedly, Derry will be inducted as a journalist into The Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame this Sunday along with Mike Enfield (soccer, Ventura High), Samantha Fischer (softball, Simi Valley High), Marlene Harmon Wilcox (track, Thousand Oaks High) and Rick Stewart (baseball, Fillmore High).

Here is how big a deal Derry is: this will be his third Hall of Fame induction, a hat trick that also includes the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame and El Paso Bowling Hall of Fame.

The thing is, Derry has never acted like a big shot. He was always as enthusiastic about taking phone calls to record the day’s local fish reports as he was covering a CIF championship event.

Derry has the droopy mustache of a gunslinger from the 1800s and, fittingly, his trigger finger (and nine companions) is lighting quick on the keyboard, yet he is as soft-spoken as an Old West schoolmarm. Moreover, he chooses his words with the same thoughtful care in speech as he does for print. As a result, when he talks – and writes – people pay attention. I don’t think there exists a sportswriter who has met Derry and not both liked and respected him.

Derry retired from The Star in 2011, in theory anyway. In truth, he continues to cover sporting events and also remains the guru of updating the Bible of local prep sports statistics that was originally created by fellow local sportswriting legend Jim Parker.

Of the various title games and championship track meets Derry and I covered together, I have no specific press-box memory. What I do recall clearly, and with great fondness, are the countless times he and I had desk shifts together and he would happen to answer the phone when my son and daughter, when they were young, called to say goodnight to me.

Instead of transferring the call right away, Derry would talk to them for a while, asking about school and their athletic endeavors and such, and finally he would playfully refuse to put me on until they gave him the password.

“Red Snapper,” they would answer with sing-song delight even though they had no idea what the password meant. All these years later, here is the secret revealed: that is the nickname Derry called me, inspired perhaps partly from taking a fish report call and also because my hair back then still had quite a bit of strawberry tint in it.

Former Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher is credited with saying, “Nice guys finish last,” but he missed the mark like a wild pitch. Derry Eads is proof they sometimes finish as first-rate Hall of Famers.

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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 Things I Have Come to Know…

by Woody

The mile marker of a birthday is a good time for reflection and so today, shortly before beginning a new personal lap around the sun, here are a few things I have come to know…

Always double-knot your shoelaces.

Never pass up a barefoot walk on the beach.

Love is more powerful than penicillin.

Never ever pass up a chance to gaze at a sunrise or sunset.

Always take the opportunity to gaze at the stars on a clear night – or at Starry Night and other masterpiece paintings.

Speaking of art and masterpieces, these two bookend John Wooden-isms will carry you far: “Make friendship a fine art” and “Make each day your masterpiece.”

Who you travel with is far more important than where you travel.

All the same, Robert Frost was right: Take the road less traveled by.

John Muir was also right when he said, “Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.”

Don’t save the good china plates and crystal goblets and heirloom silverware for special occasions only.

Do spend as much time as you can with people who lift you up and as little as possible with those who pull you down.

Saying “You’re welcome” is as important as saying “Thank you.”

Writing a thank-you note or handwritten letter is always a few minutes well spent.

A good many movies and books are far too long, but most hugs are too short.

Never pass up a chance to hold hands with a boyfriend or girlfriend, a husband or wife or partner, a child or the elderly.

Don’t let your fears outweigh your dreams.

One minute of encouragement following a defeat or failure or during hard times is worth far more than an hour of accolades and praise after a triumph or big success.

Artificial Intelligence doesn’t worry me half as much as Real Stupidity.

The value of a compliment is often underrated by the giver, but rarely by the person receiving it.

A positive attitude will positively carry you a long, long way.

This African proverb is right: “There are two lasting gifts you can give your child: one is roots, the other is wings.”

Do unto others as you would have them do unto your children or grandchildren is a better Golden Rule.

We can always make room for one more at the dinner table or in our heart.

Maya Angelou was right: “When you leave home, you take home with you.”

The best travels, and life journeys too, often wind about a little crookedly.

Even a “bad” road trip will give you some good memories to last a lifetime.

It is not truly a favor if you make the recipient feel like you are doing a favor.

It takes worn-out running shoes to finish a marathon; worn-out brushes before you can paint a masterpiece; burnt pots and pans to become a seasoned chef, and blistered fingertips to finally master the guitar.

Some of my very favorite adults seem like they are just tall children.

No matter your age, never pass up a chance to ride a Ferris wheel or carousel.

If you can be world class at only one thing, make it kindness.

My dear friend Wayne Bryan is right: “If you don’t make an effort to help others less fortunate than you, then you’re just wasting your time on Earth.”

Don’t waste your time on Earth.

We should all make a wish and blow out a candle 365 times each year because every day is a once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece to be celebrated.

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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.

Fondly Missing ‘Mom’s Kitchen’

by Woody

“What is a restaurant that’s not around any longer that you miss?” asked a post on social media, eliciting more than a million responses including, locally, Ferraro’s, The Gin Mill, Bobby McGee’s and Anacapa Brewing Company.

To that Fab Four I could add myriad more – Hudson’s Grill, Ventura Spaghetti Company, Top Hat and Cartwright’s Famous Hot Dogs leap quickly to mind – but the restaurant I miss the very most is “Mom’s Kitchen.”

Perhaps your own Mom’s franchise remains open and, if so, count your blessings. My Mom’s Kitchen closed unexpectedly, and permanently, 31 years ago come October.

In its heyday – Oh, boy! – it was something. I dare say no fancy restaurant, casual café, famous chef’s food truck or 24-hour diner could ever rival it because it was all of those stirred, blended and folded into one.

Mom’s Kitchen, like similar landmark eateries, changed location over the years. It originated as a tiny hole-in-the wall in Columbus, Ohio, on Ashmore Road; soon moved into a slightly larger venue a mile away on McCoy Road; then, necessitated by its daily clientele ordering the kids’ menu alone having grown to four, expanded again nearby on Alliston Court.

Eventually, Mom’s Kitchen relocated across the country to Ventura, high atop the foothills, its best table having an ocean view that rivaled the famous Pierpont Inn’s dining room.

No matter its location, no reservations were required at Mom’s Kitchen – just walk right in and make yourself at home. Moreover, extra dinner mouths were always welcome as were bed-and-breakfast guests, the latter most commonly on weekends and any day in summer. On holidays, it was lucky the Fire Marshal didn’t shut Mom’s Kitchen down for being overcrowded.

More than once, before taking a plate a guest of mine and I would actually phone his rival location of Mom’s Kitchen to see if by chance it had a better dinner special that evening than my Mom’s Kitchen, but that very rarely proved to be the case.

Indeed, night after night, my friends, and my two older brothers’ and younger sister’s friends as well, flocked to our Mom’s Kitchen as if there were two giant golden arches out front of our house.

To be sure, hamburgers were sometimes on the menu, although they were usually grilled up by Mom’s sous-chef who, if we are being honest, was infamous for cooking the burgers a tee shot’s distance beyond the point of well done. Upon slapping a hockey puck onto a bun, the sous-chef would proudly announce, “Here you go, charred like in a fine restaurant.”

Meanwhile, Mom was a cordon-bleu-chef/short-order-cook who could turn hamburger into fifty fares – from meatloaf and stroganoff to tacos and burritos to her world famous spaghetti sauce served on handmade pasta, naturally, that made even my Italian mother-in-law Irish green with envy – all worthy of Michelin stars.

Back to the original R.I.P. eatery question, I dearly miss Leonardo’s Pizzaria from my boyhood, The New York Hero House in college, and most recently Ferraro’s. But most of all, I would wish for one more meal at Mom’s Kitchen.

I have a strong hunch you feel likewise about your own Mom’s Kitchen…

…unless, thank your blessed stars, it remains open for business. Perhaps its peak hours are now limited to special occasions like holidays and birthdays and any time you are in town. If so, I urge you to make travel plans and dinner reservations as soon as possible.

Better yet, just drop in unannounced – I’m fairly certain your Mom’s Kitchen won’t mind the surprise at all, especially this Sunday for Mother’s 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.