Category Archives: Columns

Kind Givers Get Ball Drive Rolling!

by Woody

Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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“Give every day the chance to become the most beautiful day of your life,” Mark Twain wrote. And: “It is higher and nobler to be kind.”

Once again, “Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive” is off to a fast rolling start as readers of this column have proved themselves to be both noble and kind in making the Christmas season more beautiful for local disadvantaged kids.

Linda and Frank Zych took their three grandchildren, who were saddened by the thought of other kids not owning their own sports ball, to each pick out a gift and the result was: Zoey, 12, chose a volleyball; Carter, 11, decided that a football would make some little boy very happy; and Emmy, 7, after much consideration, picked out a shiny purple ball she felt would make child’s eyes light up – plus a basketball from them all.

Jan and Tom Lewis, and family, donated a dozen basketballs in honor of coaches Mike Giordano and Joe Vaughan. “We are forever grateful,” Tom shared, “for all the life lessons they taught our daughters Cory, Emily and Maddy, and many, many others, while growing up.”

Kay Giles and Michael Mariani gave eight soccer balls; Peggy Greathouse and family donated six basketballs; and Judy Magee-Windle gave eight balls “in honor of my four grandsons who I adore.”

Stephanie and John Orr gave four soccer balls; Marty Rouse gave two balls; and Anna and Tom McBreen donated one basketball.

Sue Hughes gave two each basketballs, soccer balls, and footballs; and Draza Mrvichin gave the same mix of six, noting: “I love this opportunity to share.”

Nita and Nick Perkins donated 10 balls “in memory of our Dads.”

Dave Stancliff gave 10 basketballs in honor of his two youngest grandchildren, Johnny and Rosalie and added: “It warms my heart to know children will get something free in this terrible economy. I hope you exceed last year’s donations.”

One dozen basketballs were given anonymously “in honor of good Samaritan Rhiannon Potkey and her nonprofit Goods4Greatness.” Other anonymous givers donated one basketball; two footballs; and four soccer balls.

The women of VISA (Ventura Independent Soccer Association) kicked in five soccer balls, noting: “We hope these balls spark a lifelong love of soccer that we all still have to this day.”

Nadine Herron pitched in a dozen balls “in honor of my late brother, Jerry Herron, who played professional baseball” and Howard Reich gave half a dozen assorted balls.

Kathy and Alan and Hammerand gave four soccer balls, three basketballs, three footballs and said: “It is always fun to see your column advising that it is time for your annual Ball Drive – it means that the holiday season is approaching. I feel like the need may be even greater than normal this year, so we hope the response is great!”

In the Introduction to a collection of his “Editor’s Notebook” columns published in 1988, Julius Gius, legendary chief editor of The Star, wrote: “I have had a rich and rewarding life. Everything has come up roses for me. I count my blessings every day and wish them for everyone.”

If you similarly have been blessed, I encourage you to follow Gius’ example by dropping off new sports balls (no batteries required!) at a Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, Toys For Tots, or similar program.

Also, through Dec. 8, you can hand off your bouncing gifts at Sanbell (formerly Jensen Design & Survey) at 1672 Donlon St., Ventura CA 93003 (weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) – or have online orders shipped to the same address – and I will see that they wind up in deserving young hands.

And please email me about your gifts at woodywriter@gmail.com so I can add your generosity to this year’s ball tally as well as acknowledge you in a future column.

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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.

Sweet Treat After Halloween

by Woody

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“Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive” is underway! New sports balls can be dropped off through Dec. 8, or online orders delivered to, Sanbell at 1672 Donlon St. in Ventura, 93003. Please email me about your gifts at woodywriter@gmail.com so I can add your generosity to this year’s tally and acknowledge you in a future column.

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This column from my archives five years ago gave me a smile anew and I hope it will you as well…

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Out of precaution, but with small expectation, my wife bought a single bag of candy bars in case any trick-or-treaters came by Halloween evening. In years past we have handed out upwards of 20 bags.

But coronavirus kept our doorbell silent as a tombstone all night.

It is easy to jokingly snicker, “Great! I’ll just have to eat all these Snickers myself.” Truth is, instead, I felt empty because autumn’s annual parade of kids singing “Trick or treat!” as their goodie sacks and plastic pumpkin buckets fill up, fills my heart.

Imagine, long after turning off your porch light, unexpectedly hearing a knock on your door and being greeted by the cutest costumed child of the evening. That’s kind of what happened to me. In this case, it was a day after Halloween and two young girls were dressed up as themselves – as the most adorable siblings imaginable.

Their ages were 3 and 5, and they were at a local park with their parents enjoying a late-afternoon picnic. Meanwhile, I was on my daily run and seeing them time and again as I circled past put a smile on my face and helium in my stride.

I wish you could have seen them. The girls played catch with their dad, then tag with their mom; played by themselves while their parents snuggled on the spread-out blanket; joined mom and dad for a snack, and a hug, before racing off to pet a passing dog on a leash; and on and on went their fun.

Just as Halloween is a time machine transporting us back to our own childhoods, these two children sent my mind racing in reverse a quarter century to when my daughter and son were about their ages.

Instead of on a blanket in a park, our young family of four was on vacation having dinner at a charming Italian restaurant. After the spaghetti and meatballs disappeared, and scoops of ice cream too, our waiter vanished. The kids grew antsy as we waited for the check. Ten minutes became thirty and my wife and I became increasingly impatient as well.

“Where’s the check?” I grumbled softly.

“Where’s our waiter?” my wife mumbled.

“Can we go yet?” the kids pleaded.

Our waiter remained AWOL. Eventually, finally, at long last, I caught the attention of a different server and asked if he could please have our check.

No, we could not.

Instead, our original waiter brought us a heartwarming explanation: Two elderly gentlemen at a table across the room had surreptitiously paid for our dinner, but requested the waiter not let us know until after they left – hence the long delay.

The Samaritan pair had seen a happy young family, our server shared with a smile, and simply wanted to anonymously do a random act of kindness. Now and again since, I have tried to repay those benevolent men when I see happy young families in restaurants.

I wished I could have paid the dinner check for the two girls and their parents at the park. Instead, all I could think to do was stop by before leaving and tell them something they already knew – what a lovely family they are!

This led to a brief social-distanced visit where I learned the sisters are inseparable, even sharing a bed by choice, and a third sibling is on the way.

As I jogged away into the early arriving darkness, the two girls sang out in sweet harmony: “Have a nice day!”

“Thank you!” I shouted, turning back. “You, too!”

Thanks to them, mine already had been.

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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.

Earlier Deadline For “Holiday Ball Drive”

by Woody

Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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“You can’t live a perfect day,” John Wooden believed, “without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”

He taught this lesson by deed. One such occasion remains as vivid to me as if it happened last week, not three decades ago. Actually, it is a quilt of numerous remembrances stitched together from each time I visited Coach in his Encino home.

In my mind’s eye I can still see the plastic postal bins, approximately the size of a laundry basket, filled with outgoing fan mail: photographs, trading cards, magazine covers, even basketballs and UCLA jerseys that people sent Coach to autograph. Requests for a signed Pyramid of Success were also common.

A surprisingly sizeable number of these fans failed to enclose return postage. No matter. Coach trekked to the Post Office weekly and footed the bill himself.

Once again, we all have a chance to emulate Coach Wooden’s benevolent example and live a perfect day by helping others who can never repay us through “Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive” which kicks off today.

To the kindhearted souls, and there are legions of you, who have made this effort part of your family’s holiday traditions, this year’s early start instead of right after Thanksgiving Day will come as a surprise but is necessary because the deadline to give has also leapfrogged sooner to December 8.

The inspiration for this annual endeavor occurred about 30 years ago at a youth basketball clinic when former Ventura College and NBA star Cedric Ceballos awarded autographed basketballs to handful of lucky attendees. Leaving the gym afterward, I happened upon a 10-year-old boy who had won one of the prized keepsakes…

…which he was now dribbling on a blacktop outdoor court, and shooting baskets with, all while perhaps imagining he was Ceballos with the game clock ticking down to the final buzzer.

Meanwhile, the real Ceballos’ Sharpie signature was quickly wearing off.

Curious as to why the boy had not protectively taken the trophy basketball home to keep safely on a bookshelf, I interrupted his playing to ask.

“I’ve never had my own basketball,” he answered matter-of-factly between shots.

With visions of that boy – and other boys and girls who do not have their own basketball to shoot, soccer ball to kick, football to throw – dancing through my head, I asked you dear readers to help brighten the holidays by donating new sports balls for disadvantaged kids. You responded like champions then and have continued to ever since.

Are you up to the challenge once more? If so, drop off new balls (no batteries required!) at a local Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, Toys For Tots, or similar organization.

Or bring them (weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Dec. 8) to Sanbell (formerly Jensen Design & Survey) at 1672 Donlon St., near Target, on Telephone Road in Ventura – online orders can be shipped to this same address – and I will see that your gifts wind up in deserving young hands.

While the early deadline cannot be helped, I fear it may result in fewer balls – and, thus, fewer kids’ smiles – than in years past, and that would be heartbreaking. I beseech you all to please prove my worries unfounded.

Please, also, email me at woodywriter@gmail.com about your donations so I can add your generosity to this year’s tally and thank you by name (unless you request anonymity) in a future column.

Individually we can each take a step towards living a perfect day by collectively making the holidays happier for a whole lot of kids.

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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.

Century of Linked Hands

by Woody

Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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When it comes to anniversary parties, Nostalgia always RSVPs “Will Attend” and a celebration earlier this month to commemorate the Ventura County Star’s 100th year in print was no exception.

Familiar faces reaching back to the 1970s, and every decade since, were on hand and familiar bylines who have become names in obituaries were on our lips as we shared stories about colleagues and friends, which is redundant, really, for they are one and the same.

One old memory of mine struck me with new meaning on this venerated occasion. It involves Julius Gius, chief editor of the Star-Free Press as the paper was called during his stewardship in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. Mr. Gius is arguably the brightest star the Star has ever been graced with and for good reason is in the California Newspaper Hall of Fame.

I joined the S-FP’s sports staff in September of 1987 and before Mr. Gius retired two months later – hopefully the former did not spur the latter – he shared the following story with me.

It happened in a small farming town in Ohio, in a big wheat field, where a young girl wandered from home and became lost in the crop that had grown taller than she. Her parents called out her name, with growing urgency, while searching frantically.

Her three older siblings joined the hunt, then neighbors too.

But as daylight dimmed and disappeared, hopes did likewise. By now seemingly half the townspeople were hectically racing through the wheat field trying to find the little girl, with no success – the flourishing grainland was simply too vast.

Night fell and with it the temperature. If the little girl was not found very soon she would surely perish from hypothermia. Abruptly, her father called everyone in from the maze of wheat.

No, he had not given up on finding his dear daughter. Rather, he suddenly had an idea. He gathered the volunteers and asked them join hands to form a long human chain. More accurately, they formed a giant human comb.

They now all walked together, side by side by side, combing through the tall amber waves of grain. In this manner they no longer missed areas, as was the case when they searched willy-nilly separately.

Within ten minutes, the search party of more than one hundred individuals, now united as one, found the little girl curled up on the ground, stone still as a grave marker.

They were too late.

No, wait – she was shivering, slightly, alive after all!

Metaphorically, this is how a newspaper is put out each day with all available hands: writers and photographers; copyeditors and section editors; advertising and sales reps; paste-up women men armed in the olden days with X-ACTO knives and glue or wax, today graphic artists with computers; newsboys selling papers on the streets long ago, paperboys and girls on bikes later on, and now adult delivery drivers in cars; and more hands, on and on, linked together.

More specifically, and more personally, it seems to me the wheat field represents the Ventura County Star because from its historic premier printing published on June 15, 1925, with Roy Pinkerton as top editor, it has taken eight more chiefs, including Stacie Galang currently leading the charge; plus every other employee who has ever helped put an edition of our beloved paper to bed; and, also, each reader for without them a newspaper is as silent as a tree falling in a lonely forest – all holding hands across the ages for The Star to find its way to a centennial celebration.

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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.

Modern Prometheus In Dodger Blue

by Woody

Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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Dr. Victor Frankenstein, the fictional scientist who created a monster from reanimated body parts collected from human corpses in the 18th century, has outdone himself in 2025, in real life, by perfecting his newest Prometheus.

In Mary Shelly’s famous novel fully titled “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus,” the unnamed monster measures eight feet tall and is covered from face to foot with horrifying stitches used in assembling the hodgepodge of anatomy, including a brain from the University of Ingolstadt.

This new 21st century Modern Prometheus stands eye-to-eye with the mighty Paul Bunyan, has a physique like Michelangelo’s David that likewise seems carved from Carrara marble, and somehow has been electroshocked to life. It should have a pet named Babe The Dodger Blue Ox.

Shohei Ohtani the Modern Prometheus!

Unlike in the cinematic adaptation, this Modern Prometheus has a baby-smooth face free of scars, no electrode bolts emerging from its neck, nor does it lumber like a drunk walking on stilts on an uneven cobblestone street.

Rather, this monster is as graceful as a Keats poem and fast as the wind – or Ricky Henderson on the base paths – thanks to having been assembled with Hermes’ winged feet and Usain Bolt’s gold-medal legs.

The other appropriated appendages used in constructing this Modern Prometheus include Nolan Ryan’s right arm, albeit with the elbow of Zeus surgically inserted, that throws lightning bolts – straight or veering – with the accuracy of Robin Hood’s arrows.

The only “being” who could possibly hit these bullet-fast projectiles is the new Modern Prometheus itself. Thanks to one eye transplanted from a peregrine falcon and the other coming from Ted Williams, this monster can read the date on a flipped coin from 60 feet, 6 inches away and deciphering the gyroscopic red seams of a baseball is as easy as making out the top letter on an eye chart.

Additionally, this updated Modern Prometheus was injected with a magical serum of mongoose blood mixed with rattlesnake venom. The result is turbocharged reflexes that make a cannonball in flight seem to be in slow motion.

Thus, squeezing a bat in Muhammad Ali’s southpaw fist, which is connected to Hank Aaron’s blacksmith wrist and Hercules’ left forearm and bicep, this monster could smack into orbit every baseball pitched to it if it so chose, but what would be the fun and drama in that?

Instead, like a card shark playing possum before winning the night’s biggest pot, this Modern Prometheus purposely fails time and again until the moment calls for a Hollywood-worthy home run – or three! – and then delivers a skyrocket on cue. Roy Hobbs was “The Natural,” but Shohei Ohtani is “The Supernatural.”

This monster ballplayer’s face is also a conglomerate. On the mound, he has the steely-eyed countenance of an Old West gunslinger. In the batter’s box, he displays Bjorn Borg’s “Iceman” unflappability. In the dugout and circling the bases, he flashes Magic Johnson’s “Showtime” – Shohei-time! – smile that requires no translation into another language.

Ohtani is a great-great pitcher and a great-great-great hitter; as both stitched together, with no apologies to Babe Ruth, he is the G.O.A.T. unicorn.

If not a modern-day Dr. Frankenstein-ian creation, the only other plausible explanation is that Ohtani comes not from Japan, but arrived on earth in a pod sent from a distant planet.

Shohei Ohtani next plays in the World Series – or, in his case, the Out-Of-This-World Series. For fairness sake, Toronto Blue Jays pitchers facing this Superman in a blue L.A. cap with a No. 17 Dodgers jersey covering his red cape should be allowed to doctor the baseball with spit and kryptonite dust.

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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.

‘Psychedelic Snowfall’ Of Butterflies

by Woody

Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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In honor of the “Books, Butterflies & Botanical Gardens” fundraiser benefiting the Ventura County Library Foundation on Sunday, October 19, this column from my archives seems apropos to share anew…

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In “A Moveable Feast,” a memoir of his halcyon days – and nights – in Paris in the 1920s, Ernest Hemingway wrote of F. Scott Fitzgerald: “His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust of a butterfly’s wings.”

A key reason for my traveling to Key West on vacation was to visit The Hemingway Home & Museum in Old Town. Five minutes away by foot, on the same block as the popular Southernmost Point in the Continental United States, is The Key West Butterfly & Nature Conservatory. Being so near, I decided to see some butterfly wings.

Entering the humid sanctuary with a soaring glass ceiling that seems to touch the clouds was to step into a time machine. Within seconds, I became a bubbly kindergartener on a school field trip.

“Look!” I reflexively exclaimed to my wife, pointing at a butterfly fluttering a few feet ahead.

“Look! … Look!” I quickly repeated, almost singing, as two more painted marvels danced through the air in slow motion.

Seeing a single butterfly in one’s backyard lightens the heart; here, inside the artificial outdoors, there are more than 3,000 representing 65 species. I had anticipated spotting butterflies would be like an aerial Easter egg hunt requiring eagle eyes and good luck. Instead, it was like being in the midst of an NBA championship celebration with confetti – oversized and alive! – floating all about.

My reaction to this psychedelic snowfall was as if watching Fourth of July fireworks: “Oooh! … Ahhh! … Wow! … Look at that one!” So unbridled was my childlike delight that I may have half-skipped along the winding pathway.

Scarlett, or perhaps Rhett, struts her stuff.

The climate-controlled paradise boasts beyond butterflies. The botanical garden features a rain forest of plants and trees, a meandering stream with resident turtles, and two gorgeous flamingos as florescent pink as a Key West sunset.

Long-long-long-legged Scarlet and Rhett were not always so radiant. After two years of bureaucratic pink tape to secure them, they arrived sickly and gray. Loving care, and importantly a diet rich in brine shrimp containing a natural dye called canthaxanthin, returned the “Gone with the Wind” pair to “flame-colored” per the Portuguese derivation “flamenco.”

Rhett and Scarlet, each 7 years old with life expectancies up to 75, enjoy the feathered company of 20 other species of exotic birds that seem to have had their feathers colored by imaginative children using the 64-count box of Crayola crayons.

Indeed, the fabulous fowls – “Look! … Oooh! … Another one over there!” – come in purples and pinks, reds and oranges, greens and golds, vibrant hues all. I wish you could see them.

Yet it is the butterflies that steal the show. One of the guides called them “flowers of the sky” which I think is perfect. I bet Hemingway would have loved that description too.

Two especially memorable moments occurred on my breathtaking stroll through this Land of Ahhs. First, a bird of a royal blue variety lighted on my left shoulder and remained perched for what seemed like a minute, although surely it was 10 seconds at most, before flying off.

Shortly thereafter, a “flower of the sky” as luminously turquoise as the local shallow ocean waters, lighted upon my right forearm. With its wings opening and closing ever so slowly for thermal regulation, it rested there for a true minute before bidding me farewell.

On a sheet of paper in a typewriter at Hemingway’s nearby home, a copy of a letter he wrote to a friend begins: “Having a wonderful time!!!”

That aptly describes my visit with the butterflies!!!

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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.

An Evening Of Silver Linings

by Woody

Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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Sometimes, rare wonderful times, when everything seems to be going wrong it somehow all turns out wonderfully. Such was the case the other evening when a young child cried and technology pouted and traffic threw a tantrum – and serendipity just kept smiling over and again, and once more.

Ever since she was a toddler my daughter and I have gone on “Daddy Dates,” as she called them then, and still does, because to my great fortune she has not outgrown these special outings, just the two of us, even though she is now well into her thirties.

In one of my favorite photographs, Dallas, maybe 5 years old, is in a sunflower dress and holding a bouquet to match, and I am in a “tuxedo” which is what called my sport coat she requested I wear. I requested that when she was older if a boy did not open car doors, and pull out her chair, she not give him another date.

Serendipity brought us to Robert Louis Stevenson’s former residence.

Naturally, when she and I went to a concert in San Francisco’s Masonic Auditorium recently I opened doors and helped her into her seat because I did not want to be unworthy of future Daddy Dates.

This date almost didn’t get out the front door to begin. A tearful two-year-old, with her daddy out of town, did not want her mommy to also leave. A delay that would surely make us late could have been frustrating; instead, it was actually a joy to watch my daughter soothe her own daughter with love and patience.

Heavy traffic, followed by a long security line when we arrived, then a brief snafu with our online tickets, promised to make us miss the opening song. And yet, somehow, we made it to our seats literally five seconds before the house lights went down and the music rose up. It was as if serendipity smiled and asked The Swell Season to wait for us.

As for our seats, a birthday gift from my son, they were terrific: floor level, slightly left of the stage, and so close we could see Markéta Irglová’s fingers dancing – gently sometimes, other times frenetically and mesmerizingly, always seemingly perfectly – on the piano keys.

Similarly, the skill and passion of Glen Hansard strumming his acoustic guitar with speed and fury was a thrill to behold and explains the comet-shaped gash worn through its face just below the sound hole.

The Swell Season sang their familiar old hits from the movie “Once” and new gems from their 2025 album “Forward,” but the highlight was the final encore, an acoustic rendition, sans microphones, leading the crowd of 4,000 in a hair-raisingly beautiful sing-along of the classic American folk song “Passing Through” popularized long ago by Pete Seeger.

Joining in, I was 10-years-old again and transported back to elementary school when Mr. Hawkins, my beloved fifth-grade teacher, would play guitar for sing-alongs.

Walking the city aimlessly after the concert, Dallas and I happened upon 608 Bush Street and serendipity smiled once again with a California Historical Society commemorative plaque noting that Robert Louis Stevenson, the great Scottish writer who penned “Treasure Island” and “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” briefly lived and wrote here in 1879 and 1880.

Our Jekyll-and-Hyde evening continued on the drive home with badly congested freeway traffic from an accident, but this, too, proved to be a silver lining because it wonderfully extended our time together.

Naturally, I walked my date to her front door – but there was no need to apologize to her father for missing curfew by an hour.           

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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.

Books, Butterflies, Botanical Beauty

by Woody

Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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The most wonderful thing happened when I was four years old, so thrilling it imprinted as one of my very first memories that to this day remains golden as a summer sunrise, so life-changing it planted the seed for becoming a writer – for before one becomes a writer, he or she must first be a reader.

Before I even entered kindergarten, my mom took me to the local public library to get my very own library card, which goes a long way in telling you I had a masterpiece mother.

While I cannot remember the first book I checked out, the first unforgettable one was “Where The Wild Things Are.” Week after week, I re-re-re-checked out this illustrated treasure by Maurice Sendak until the librarian finally told me I needed to return Max and his wild creature friends for other kids to enjoy.

So it was that my love affair with libraries began, a romance that has grown and not diminished six decades later, for I agree with the great author Pat Conroy who once noted: “I was born to be in a library.”

His and my enchanted experiences seem to be the norm, not the exception. Indeed, it is rare to meet an adult who does not fondly recall going to the library as a child.

Long before he became a silver-screen storyteller, Robert Redford was a storybook reader, having recalled before his recent passing: “I don’t know what your childhood was like, but we didn’t have much money. We’d go to a movie on Saturday night, and then on Wednesday my parents would walk us over to the library. It was such a big deal, to go in and get my own book.”

Public libraries remain a big deal, and a free deal, providing not just books at no charge but also Wi-Fi and, here in Ventura County in the summertime when school is out, free lunches for kids, and so much more. For example, in addition to enjoying listening to storytimes, my young granddaughters love reading aloud to therapy dogs at the library.

“I discovered me in the library,” said author Ray Bradbury and I feel likewise. It is fair to say I would not be a journalist, nor have authored the novel “The Butterfly Tree: An Extraordinary Saga of Seven Generations,” if I had not been a library-goer.

As the title suggests, butterflies and botany are woven into its pages; additionally, a public library has a meaningful role; thus, I am especially honored to be a speaker and have a book signing at the “Books, Butterflies & Botanical Gardens” fundraiser benefiting the Ventura County Library Foundation on October 19, noon to 4 p.m. (For tickets or to be a sponsor: https://bit.ly/4gmQXVP )

My daughter Dallas Woodburn, an award-winning YA author who got her first library card, also at age four, at the bygone H.P. Wright Library, will join me as we discuss writing and reading, favorite authors and books, and such.

Also, Jana Johnson, a renowned conservation biologist, will discuss the two-decade-long recovery efforts to save the critically endangered Palos Verde blue butterfly.

Ventura’s Botanical Gardens afford a lofty panoramic postcard scene of our slice of paradise – ocean, iconic pier, islands, mountains – worthy of mailing to the most beautiful locales on earth to make the recipients a little envious. And yet the views inside any public library surpass this or even Yosemite Valley at its Ansel Adams’ best because the books in the stacks can take you anywhere and everywhere in the world – and beyond, to worlds only imagined.

Thanks, Mom!

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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.

Hall-of-Fame Campsite Cleaners

by Woody

Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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The long road to the International Tennis Hall of Fame is paved with tireless hard work and endless dedication, bottomless talent also, naturally, but the surprising thing is the roadside is remarkably clean of litter.

Mike and Bob Bryan shared this revelation as the capstone of their induction speech, more than 15 minutes of eloquence punctuated at conclusion with a trademark Bryan Brothers Chest Bump, last month in Newport, R.I., for which I was fortunate to be in attendance, further privileged in the third row.

Wearing their newly bestowed navy blazers emblazoned with a white tennis racket and “ITHF” over the heart, Camarillo’s favorite identical twin sons made it easy for the assemblage, even those in the back row of folding wooden chairs that filled the historical 145-year-old lawn court, to tell them apart: Bob’s tie was striped, Mike’s dotted.

Bob (left) and Mike Bryan’s exemplary Hall-of-Fame speech was filled with heart — and humor, too.

Displaying the same synchronicity they used with rackets to become tennis’s most titanic tandem of all time with 16 Grand Slam championships and 119 professional titles overall, both records by a mile, Mike and Bob seamlessly took turns at the microphone recounting their shared career; dispensed heartfelt thanks to those who helped make it possible, most emotionally to their tearful parents Kathy and Wayne; then ended by coming full circle to journey’s beginning.

“Each day,” Mike now said, his mind’s eye looking back four decades, “when we made that seven-minute drive to the Cabrillo Racquet Club, if our dad ever saw a piece of trash on the side of the road he’d pull the car over, we’d jump out and pick it up. He’d often say to us, ‘Always leave the campsite cleaner than you found it.’ ”

Instantly, I was reminded of two more Hall of Famers I likewise had the inspiring pleasure to know well: basketball coach John Wooden and baseball manager Sparky Anderson.

The first time I joined Coach Wooden on one of his daily four-mile walks was memorable for myriad reasons, including when he abruptly stopped, stepped behind me and across the sidewalk, then bent down for a piece of litter – a hamburger wrapper, I still recall – that I had not noticed. He continued to contribute to the cleanup of his neighborhood, and I followed his example, as we briskly padded on.

“Pick up your own orange peels,” Coach called it, his Wooden-ism version of the Boy Scout’s clean campsite rule.

Sparky, on his morning walks in Thousand Oaks, not only picked up “orange peels,” he would deliver onto front doorsteps any newspapers still resting in driveways. Moreover, on trash day he would go for a second stroll in the early evening and roll empty garbage barrels from curbside up to garage doors.

“Woody, it don’t cost nothing at all to be nice,” Sparky said, a core tenet the Bryan Brothers exhibited to the fullest during their playing careers, from signing the very last autograph request after every match to sending flowers to staff after each tournament.

“Always leave the campsite cleaner than you found it…” Mike had quoted their father; posthaste, as if he were poaching at the net, Bob stepped sideways and leaned into the Hall-of-Fame mic:

“…and Mike and I have tried to live by this rule, not just on the side of the road, but with the tennis fans, with our Foundation, and we’ve tried to give back to the sport that has given us so much. We hope in some small way we’ve left the tennis campsite a little cleaner and a little better than we found it.”

Indeed, Coach Wooden and Sparky would be proud.

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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.

Hole Leads To Whole New Beauty

by Woody

Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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Because Ol’ Green recently needed another small repair, and further inspired by my late mom’s quilt shared in this space last week, here is a column from my archives from four years ago…

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Imagine a teenager looking in the mirror while getting ready for prom and seeing an eyesore pimple. That is the kind of chill I felt the other day when I put on my favorite pullover and spotted a small hole, but impossible to miss, in front.

Understand, I have had this wool, olive green, quarter-zipper, vintage Patagonia pullover for close to two decades and babied it most of that span so as to keep it pristine as long as possible. As a result, it has spent more time sequestered inside a dresser drawer than out in the world, which is not a good thing.

Ol’ Green keeping me warm at the Ventura Pier…

Also as a result, it has made more than its share of appearances at happy gatherings and special events, which is a good thing. The unsightly new blemish, however, promised to retire Ol’ Green from marquee billing.

While age finally claimed its youthful beauty, I did not want the small hole to get stretched and pulled and torn into a larger one. “A stitch in time saves nine” but, alas, my skill with needle and thread is limited to sewing a button back on a shirt. Meanwhile, my wife felt the emotional pressure of a surgeon being asked to operate on a loved one and begged out.

My dear friend Kathy, who possesses Betsy Ross skills, saved the day – and saved Ol’ Green. I wish you could see her handiwork. Darned if her darning isn’t masterful. The interwoven needlework is nearly invisible.

Since I know where to look, however, I can see it – and this makes me surprisingly happy. I say this after thinking about the Shakers who were renowned for their furniture craftsmanship yet deliberately introduced a “mistake” into each piece they made in order to show that man should not aspire to the perfection of God. Flawed, they believed, could be ideal.

Ol’ Green is now similarly ideal.

Navajos, likewise, weave a single imperfection into their handmade blankets. To their eyes this makes the blankets more, not less, beautiful. In “Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West,” author Hamptom Sides elaborates on this mindset:

“Navajos hated to complete anything – whether it was a basket, a blanket, a song, or a story. They never wanted their artifacts to be too perfect, or too close-ended, for a definitive ending cramped the spirit of the creator and sapped the life from the art. So they left little gaps and imperfections, deliberate lacunae that kept things alive for another day.

“Even today, Navajo blankets often have a faint imperfection designed to let the creation breathe – a thin line that originates from the center and extends all the way to the edge, sometimes with a single thread dangling from its border. Tellingly, the Navajos call the intentional flaw the ‘spirit outlet.’ ”

Henceforth, I will take the Shakers’ and Navajos’ perspectives to heart when I wear Ol’ Green and embrace its repaired imperfection as a “spirit outlet.”

“Kintsugi” also comes to mind, this being the Japanese practice of repairing broken pottery with seams of gold and, in the process, making the object more beautiful for having been broken. That is exactly how I feel about my beloved pullover.

From now on, instead of saving Ol’ Green for special occasions I am going to wear it regularly. And when future holes and “spirit outlets” appear, and surely they will, I may ask Kathy to perform her seamstress wizardry with gold thread instead of perfectly matched olive.

Ol’ Green-and-Gold will then be even more beautiful than ever.

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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.