Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here) and orderable at all bookshops.
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Breakfast out already had been perfectly wonderful, delicious food enhanced by savory conversation with a dear friend, and then Serendipity pulled up a chair and the morning wonderfully became even more perfect.
St. Nick, as I nicknamed my pal because his heart is as big and giving as Santa Claus’s, was telling me about a “god wink” he recently experienced, that being what he calls serendipity, when the check arrived. Quick as a human wink, he snatched it and refused to split it, so in altruist defeat I slipped away to the washroom.
Upon returning to the table I was greeted by matching Cheshire grins from St. Nick and our waitress, Autumn, suggesting my fly was down. Fortunately, it was up.
What else was up that had them so delighted? Autumn’s well-used black folder for holding customer orders had caught St. Nick’s attention. Specifically, he eyed a strip of masking tape on the front cover. Torn off raggedly at both ends, the tape was not there to repair a crack. Rather, it bore a name, hand-printed legibly but hurriedly, in black marker. Not Autumn’s name, nor that of a co-worker she might have borrowed it from, but the name “John Wooden.”
St. Nick naturally asked about it; Autumn answered she writes Wooden’s name on her folder before each shift to remind her of his life lessons, no matter that she was born long after he retired from coaching basketball in 1975; and St. Nick then told her, in my continued absence, that I had been blessed to know Coach for more than two decades and even wrote a memoir about my friendship with him.
This name tag god wink was followed by another and a third, like blinking dry eyes in need of Visine. Firstly, I had considered asking St. Nick to brave the freeway traffic and meet me all the way in Tarzana at Vip’s Café because that was Coach Wooden’s regular breakfast spot. With luck we might even get Table 2, a booth actually, that was always reserved for Wooden and is now memorialized with a plaque.
Vip’s would have been especially meaningful on this occasion on account of the birthday gift I had on hand for St. Nick: a small card featuring Coach Wooden’s “Two Sets of Threes” – Never lie. Never cheat. Never steal. Don’t whine. Don’t complain. Don’t make excuses. – displayed inside a thick acrylic block.
The small keepsake elicited unexpectedly big emotions from St. Nick, who shared with me now that when his grown daughter was young she put the “Two Sets of Threes” on the refrigerator where it remained for a very long time. To this day, daughter and father still recite all six.
With Coach Wooden’s spirit having joined us at our table across from Serendipity, and imagining what he would do in this god-winking situation, I asked St. Nick if he would mind if we gave the “Two Sets of Three” to Autumn now and I would give him a replacement later.
St. Nick not only generously concurred, he did so with great Enthusiasm which fittingly is a cornerstone trait on Coach Wooden’s famous “Pyramid of Success.” The impromptu re-gift certainly proved a success. Oh, I wish you could have seen Autumn’s face light up as bright as the springtime sun on this cloudless UCLA Bruin Blue-skied day!
Outside the café afterwards, St. Nick recalled one of his favorite Wooden-isms: “You can’t live a perfect day without doing something nice for someone else who can never repay you.”
It was indeed a perfect start to a masterpiece day.
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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.