Old Type Way to Slow Down

April 28, 2018October 25, 2021 by Woody

Old Type Way to Slow Down and Smell Roses

My dear friend Michael Mariani recently texted – ironically, it seems to me – asking if I had a manual typewriter he could borrow. He was considering buying one, but wanted first to do a test drive.

I replied that while my circa 1910 Underwood No. 5 had been restored to fine working order, it still offered a fairly clunky experience.

Only days later, I received an old-fashioned typed letter. It was folded and tucked inside a card with a photograph of the gorgeous black-and-gold 1936 L.C. Smith & Corona Standard portable typewriter of which Michael had impulsively become the proud owner. TypewriterKeys_Screen shot

Unlike perfectly uniform lettering spit out by a computer printer, typed keystrokes create various shades of black which in turn create a kind of mosaic artwork beyond the words themselves.

Moreover, I believe the x’d out mistakes and typos – after all, a typewriter has no “delete” key or spell-check – in Michael’s letter add warmth and beauty.

“Dear Woody,

“You are holding in your hand my third typewritten note.

“What is my fascination with the typewriter?

“I like the idea that it forces me to slow down. Like millions of people, (oh my, the sound of the bell!) I am in search of ways to slow down in my life. I have spent the past 35 years looking for ways to speed up and always striving to increase efficiencies. Now, i (sic) long for the opposite.

“I love to see my errors. No big bother waiting to correct my spelling or grammar. When I make an x (an “a” has been struck over with an “x”) error, it is there for all to see.

“I love the nostalgia of these machines. I x (an “o” has been x’d out) also was not aware of the very (there is that beuatiful (sic) ding again!) large following. It seems I am not alone in my quest to honor these wonderful machines. I am now the proud owner of not one, but three typewriters. TypewriterHands

“I imagine the people that first used these to write important documents or love letters or mundane business docments (sic). I am reading a book about this revolution, no surprisxe (sic), and it appears there are other books on the subject that I plan to read.

“I have alwasys (sic) wanted to write and the typewriter gives me an excuse and allows me to dream (an “a” is covered by a hard-struck “m”) and pretend I am writing some great work, even if it is only a simple letter.

“I love the sound of the keys hitting the paper. I love the history of them. I love that I can collect three of these special machines for about $200.

“I look forward to finding ways to share my joy with others in the future.

“Sincerely,

(Handwritten signature)

“Michael”

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

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Part 2: Typing Free Verse For Tips

April 22, 2018 by Woody

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Part 2: Poet Types Free Verse For Tips

Shannon, the vagabond street poet I met in New Orleans and wrote about last week in recognition of April being National Poetry Month, has collected half a dozen typewriters.

A couple of her manual machines, including a beloved Royal Aristocrat, are in distant repair shops waiting for her to pick up. Three more are stored with friends in different cities, also awaiting her return visit.

Her sixth portable, a white Smith-Corona Corsair made in the 1960s, is what she was typing on when I met her along a French Quarter sidewalk.

“It’s a conversation starter,” Shannon said, noting that a fair portion of her customers stop originally to ask her about her various vintage typewriters. 1TyprwriteMural

As an acoustic guitar is to a subway singer, so is a portable typewriter to Shannon. Indeed, her fingers create music on the keyboard:

Click-clack-click-clack-clack go the keys and typeslugs striking paper.

DING! goes the margin bell.

Ziiiiiip! goes the return carriage sliding back to the right to begin another line.

The composing done, Shannon’s performance is not yet complete. Using a disposable lighter she melts a red blob of envelope sealing wax, about the size of a quarter, onto the bottom left corner of the stationary. Next, while it is still molten, she uses a stamp to imprint the image of a full-leaved tree – in reverence, I took it, to Joyce Kilmer’s famous line: “I think that I shall never see / A poem lovely as a tree.”

Shannon’s poem written for me, you will see, was plenty lovely.

Surprisingly, she does not make carbon copies nor snap cell-phone photos of her poetry to keep for remembrance.

“I want to release my art into the world,” Shannon explained. “Letting go reflects the impermanence of my life.”

She did not say this darkly.

“I hope to do this my entire life,” Shannon said of writing poetry for tips. “I love to travel. I love to meet people. And I make a good enough living.”

Asked how much she is typically paid for a poem, she replied, perhaps inflating the figures to prime the pump: “Twenty bucks is the average, I’d say. Some pay only five or ten, which is fine.”

She flashed a toothpaste-ad smile and added: “I’ve gotten a hundred dollars a few times.”

I asked if she had a repertoire of poems that she alters, twists and shoehorns to fit the topics people choose. She was half-insulted: “Oh no, never. My poems are all original content.”

The topic I gave Shannon was “running.” Here is what she clack-clack-click-clack-DING!-ziiiiip composed and then theatrically read aloud:

RUNNING

I am devoted to the moment

My legs make good time

With my body, and I move

Forward, through the wind

I feel the breeze on my cheeks

My heart beats fast

Soil, earth beneath

I seem to ascend

My potential, limitless, without

Bounds, I am running

Free and nothing can stop me

But the racing of my heart

The only way I can get

My mind to silence

Is to go for a run

I’ll allow the world to

Fade away, I’ll consider only

My steps and I’ll tap in

To the great enigma of

Existence then

Running

Is freedom

It may not be of Robert Frost or Maya Angelou fame, but it is fairly wonderful all the same – all the more so for having been typed on the fly in less than 10 minutes with no rewriting or XXXX strikeouts.

Indeed, I tried to be generous and still believe the original poem I received from Shannon was a bargain at the price.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

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Poet For Hire, Name Your Price

April 14, 2018 by Woody

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Poet For Hire: Your Topic, Your Price

April is National Poetry Month, proclaimed to be the largest literary celebration in the world, and so I am naturally thinking of Whitman and Dickinson, Longfellow and Frost, Angelou and Shannon.

“Shannon?” you ask, confused if not bewildered.

Shannon is a poet I met in New Orleans, a street poet in the French Quarter, a poet for hire along a storefront sidewalk two doors down from a Cajun restaurant with a 30-minute wait. That was about 25 minutes longer than she needed to compose an original poem for me.

Shannon, seated in a folding chair behind a TV tray table, had her nose in a novel as the world walked by. Intrigued by the vintage typewriter before her – actually, I suppose the word “vintage” is redundant in the 21st century of laptops and tablets – I stopped. 1TyprwriteMural

Intrigued also by the handwritten sign hanging from the table, “Pick a Topic, Get a Poem!” I interrupted her reading.

“Any topic?” asked I.

Looking up from her paperback, she smiled and assured: “Yep, anything.”

“How much?”

“Whatever you like,” she answered.

“What if I don’t like the poem?”

“Then it’s free,” she said, sounding earnest. “Even if you like it, it’s free if that’s what you want.”

I decided I wanted a poem. I also decided that even if I hated the free verse I would pay something. Indeed, I imagined that was the brilliance in her marketing: very few people would stiff her for work already performed. Chatting later, she confirmed this was true.

Shannon, a comely 26-year-old, looked the part of a poet with her raven hair buzzed to the length of velvet on the right side, standing tall at attention in the middle, and falling like a crashing wave over her left ear.

While waiting for a dinner table to open, I learned this poet has taken a road less traveled by. At age 13, Shannon moved out of her house for her own safety and after high school fled New Jersey for vagabond excitement.

For a while she “ate fire” as a street performer and also did tricks with a Hula Hoop set ablaze. She eventually gave up fire eating and instead fed people as a short-order cook. Five years ago, she traded a gas stovetop for a QWERTY manual keyboard.

“Words have always been my love,” Shannon told me. “My grandma was a positive influence on that – she forced me to read. She wouldn’t buy me toys, but she’d get me as many books as I wanted.”

Armed with a secondhand typewriter off craigslist, Shannon became a wayfarer poet. She has traveled the country the past few years, from New York to Philadelphia, Nashville to Seattle, San Francisco to Santa Barbara to Ventura – “I set up by your beautiful pier,” she shared – to San Diego.

Shannon has journeyed largely by hitchhiking with occasional hops on grainer train cars and boxcars. Arriving in a city, she couch surfs with friends or sleeps in abandoned buildings – “Urban camping,” she calls it. When needed, she rents a room.

“I like the variety,” Shannon says of her circus-like existence.

For income, she writes poetry for tips along busy boardwalks and sidewalks, on subway landings and at farmers’ markets.

In the early going, Shannon says composing a poem took her 15 minutes or longer. Today, with a few years of deadline experience, her fingers dance on the keyboard confidently and without hesitation, producing word artistry in half the time.

In next week’s column, I will choose a topic and share the resulting original poem by Shannon.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

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Rose Rises From Thomas’ Ashes

April 7, 2018April 7, 2018 by Woody

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Rose Rises From Thomas Fire’s Ashes

On its homeward voyage, the Apollo 11 capsule – like all spacecraft returning from a lunar visit – crossed an ethereal Rubicon where the moon’s gravitational attraction yielded imperceptibly to the pull of Earth’s gravity.

It seems to me there is a similar invisible line where the gravity of grief and loss is overcome by the pull of healing and happiness. The aftermath of the Thomas Fire, a heinous monster that claimed two lives and more than 700 homes and also turned a million collective photographs into ashes, has reinforced this thought.

For some property victims, this Rubicon of Healing was crossed the moment they safely escaped the fire’s destructive path. For others, it came when they returned to their ruins and uncovered a keepsake piece of jewelry or a treasured heirloom miraculously intact among the cinders.

For many, however, the Rubicon of Healing remains a point far off in the distance of their journey back from the dark side of the moon.

The Thomas Fire razed my childhood home in the wee hours of Dec. 5. Come dawn, however, I honestly felt I had bypassed the gravitational pull of overwhelming loss because all that truly mattered was that my father, who had lived in the house for 44 years, fled harm’s way. AudreyRoseHome

I was, it now seems obvious, in denial. More than being my dad’s house, it was my late mom’s dream home. She died 26 autumns past, come October, and yet the overpowering aura and warmth inside was still of her.

The living room, decorated in her favored blue, was of her. The kitchen, where she rolled out pasta by hand, was of her. The dining room, with her cherished Wedgewood china displayed in a hutch, was of her. Her piano, her books, on and on, her presence in every room.

Every room gone now, burned, cinders and soot.

Because I have the memories, I did not want to see the ashes. Alone among my family, I chose not to go see our home that was no longer there.

I made a similar choice half a century ago. I was two months shy of turning eight and Grandpa Ansel was the only grandparent I had known. I refused to join the procession walking by his open casket because I wanted to remember Grandpa as I had always seen him, alive not dead.

So, too, it was with my childhood home. I stayed away.

But the gravitational pull of loss did not stay away. Finally, the day after Easter, I returned. I drove high into the foothills of Ondulando, turned into a familiar cul-de-sac I no longer recognized, walked up a short driveway leading to where a two-story white house with a front balcony supported by square pillars once stood proudly.

Now, nothing. A moonscape. Even the cement foundation has been removed.

Actually, next to the “nothing” there is something. At the left side of the backyard, near where a hot tub had been, a round fire pit made of red brick remains.

In truth, it ceased being a fire pit a quarter-century back. The first spring following my mom’s death, my dad filled it with potting soil and planted a rose bush. Specifically, a light pink hybrid tea variety named after actress Audrey Hepburn and commonly called simply the “Audrey Rose.”

My mom’s name was Audrey.

In the fire pit-turned-planter on the day following Easter, in a vision filled with symbolism and metaphor, there it was rising from the ashes most literally: our Audrey Rose bush in full bloom.

The gravitational pull of healing took full hold.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

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“March For Our Lives” Monsoon

March 31, 2018 by Woody

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A “March” Monsoon of Raindrops

It is said that when a raindrop lands on the peak of the Continental Divide, two fates are possible: it will either roll downhill eastward and flow into watersheds that eventually drain into the Atlantic Ocean, or gravity will pull the raindrop downward to the west and it will ultimately reach the Pacific Ocean.

In truth, one lone raindrop alighting on the backbone of the Rocky Mountains will not travel thousands of miles. However, when that single raindrop combines with another and others and countless more, together they fill streams and flow into rivers and wash into the ocean.

Floodwaters washed across America from sea to shining sea this past Saturday. In fact, the surge was global with “March For Our Lives” rallies held in an estimated 800 cities and towns in the U.S. as well as in the U.K., France, Japan, India, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, even Antarctica. 1KenMarch

The March For Our Lives movement seeking gun reform legislation was initiated by teenagers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where 17 students and faculty were shot to death on Valentine’s Day.

Ventura High students Samantha Pedersen, Micah Wilcox, Sam Coats and India Hill organized a local March For Our Lives event for county residents at Ventura’s Plaza Park. I had planned to attend the morning gathering, but at the last minute something came up making it problematic to do so. With hundreds expected to march, one less person – one less raindrop – would surely not matter.

A text message from my son, who hours earlier marched in New York City’s Central Park, encouraged me to postpone my conflicting obligation and go to the rally. It proved wise advice. Being a raindrop in the monsoon was a goose-bumps experience.

Plaza Park was an ocean of humanity fully filled with high school students, who are the backbone of the March For Our Lives movement, alongside young children and adults of all ages.

Based on my experience with sports crowds that are accurately counted by tickets, the published estimate of 1,000 marchers was understated by half at least. Consider this: while an army of participants remained gridlocked like the 405 at rush hour while waiting to exit Plaza Park’s southwest corner to begin marching, the leaders of the parade had already finished and returned full circle. In other words, the stream of marchers was one mile long and two and three abreast.

Along the route, drivers honked car horns in support of the marchers and their handmade signs, including these:

“Arms Are For Hugs, Not Killing” and “Arm Us With Books Not Bullets, Love Not Lead.”

“Marching For My Grandchildren” and “We Call BS.” 1march

“I Want To Read Books, Not A Eulogy” and “Bullets Are Not School Supplies.”

A girl of perhaps age five, wearing a pink knitted pussy hat, had a poster reading simply, but powerfully, “Keep Me Safe” and an older youth’s sign featured a caped crusader and this warning: “Voting Is Our Superpower.”

To naysayers who call the marches a one-day gimmick, I offer this: the effort and time expended to drive or take a bus or plane to a city holding a rally, park and walk fair distances to the actual event site, and then march and listen to speeches far exceeds what is required for a short trip to the voting booth in November.

As I was leaving the Ventura event, a vanity license plate on the car parked next to mine summed up what the March For Our Lives raindrops must do as they continue to merge and flow: “PRRSIST.”

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

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“Picking Up Orange Peels” Part 2

March 24, 2018March 24, 2018 by Woody

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“Picking Up Orange Peels” Part 2

One of a writer’s loftier goals is to move a reader, so it humbles me that my column two weeks past achieved this – literally.

Indeed, a number of people emailed to say they were inspired to get moving. Specifically, to go “plogging” – a term derived from the Swedish “plocka upp” – and “pick up” litter while out on a run or brisk walk.

“It was definitely exercise – bending over 34 times to retrieve the 34 items I bagged and brought home with me,” shared local resident Shay Collier. “This was a 3-mile walk through my neighborhood, which I do most days. I didn’t change from my normal speed, but had no problem spotting the trash as I quickly moved along.”

Shay even itemized her “plocka upped” garbage: “Plastic water bottle, ballpoint pen innards, half a lead pencil, rubber glove, kid’s lemonade box, empty green pet poop bag, rubber band, round metal washer, yellow packing wire, red plastic tube, 3 cigarette butts, 5 pieces of snack wrappers, 15 miscellaneous pieces of paper . . . ” 1plogging

Shay’s one-day dirty laundry list brought to mind my own “plogging” experience over the course of a full year along a one-mile section of my daily running route.

Specifically, my personal “Adopt-A-Highway” was a busy two-lane road with a wide dirt berm where it borders a lemon orchard. While this stretch smells citrusy wonderful during picking season, it had also become an ugly dumpsite.

Truth be told, pushing a wheelbarrow while I ran would have been helpful for this proved to be a far greater Sisyphean challenge than I had anticipated. No sooner would I push the boulder three steps up the mountain when newly tossed litter knocked me two steps backward.

Undeterred, a handful at a time I tackled the routine litter first: fast-food bags and paper wrappers; soda cans and beer bottles; and plastic grocery bags, which came in handy for carrying extra trash.

Next, I went after other small things like DVDs and CDs; batteries and books; an alarm clock and a couple of dead cell phones; clothes and shoes; Barbie dolls with broken limbs and stuffed animals in need of sutures; wrenches and screwdrivers and saw blades; a football helmet that I wore home while running; and a wallet, with money still in it, that I was able to return to its owner.

With the bigger junk – a television, stereo system, drum set, car muffler, bike frame – I took a different approach. I carried these heavy items a mere 50 or 100 yards each day before resuming my run. Eventually, however, one by one I got them home to toss out curbside or take to the e-waste recycling center.

Some stuff was simply too big and heavy to lug home, even incrementally. A loveseat, for example, I struggled to move ten yards up the embankment to roadside. A few days later, however, I was able to flag down a trash truck. After explaining my project to the driver, he helpfully hauled the small couch away.

Too, there were a couple of road-kill coyotes and one full-grown pig that must have caused major fender damage while meeting its demise. For these, I phoned Animal Control.

All told I “plocka upped” everything from A to Z, including the kitchen sink. I am exaggerating, but barely, for I did clear away a bathroom sink!

Returning full circle to Shay Collier. On account of my mentioning that John Wooden had a different term for “plogging,” calling it “picking up orange peels,” she concluded her litter list serendipitously: “. . . and yes, an orange peel!”

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
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Youth Serves Notice as Leaders

March 17, 2018March 17, 2018 by Woody

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Plea For The Greatest Generation 2.0

Dear Youth,

I nearly addressed you “Dear Students” but that seems too limiting – and there is to be no limiting you, as you showed the world earlier this week.

Even the nametag “Youth” seems too small, ignoble even, for you proved yourselves quite noble by marching out of your high school classrooms nationwide in protest of gun violence as well as in solemn remembrance of the 17 students and staff members slain a month ago at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

I also considered beginning “Dear Future Leaders” but this, too, fell short because your leadership does not lie ahead – it is needed now. On Wednesday morning, you delivered.

And that is the reason for this brief note. One day is, to flip one of your marching messages upon its ear, not #Enough. Our nation needs more of your leadership daily here on out. 1walkout

Nay, the world needs your leadership. When I say “world” I mean it literally, as in the globe, as in Earth. Real and deadly as gun violence is, a greater enemy requiring your focus and fight is climate change.

A madman – or mad boy, as is often the case – with a rapid-fire firearm can wipe out a classroom of kids in mere moments or kill dozens in a movie theater or church or concert venue. Climate change, however, has the potential to wash away entire cities; destroy crops on scales so grand as to cause famine; even, and surely, to cause wars.

The people who tell you climate change is a “hoax” are the same who derisively call you “kids” and scornfully say you are too young and naïve to be telling your adult leaders “Enough is enough” and “No more” while demanding stricter gun legislation to make you safer at school.

In other words, these naysayers of youth are older people who will not be affected by the climate change monster when it gains more momentum and power if nothing is done soon – now! – to slow or even shackle it.

Youth, your grandparents and great-grandparents have been called “The Greatest Generation” for bravely defeating the Nazis in World War II. Their heroism was indeed colossal, but no less heroic measures are demanded of you now. If you can rid your schools – and churches, theaters, arenas – of gun violence, you will in turn be a truly great generation.

And if you can halt the rising tide on climate change, I dare say you will be The Greatest Generation 2.0.

I, for one, believe you are tall to the task. You have found your voices; now you must raise them, higher and louder and tirelessly. You must continue to march, not just on your campuses and in the streets, but to the voting booths.

Yes, most importantly, even more than with speeches and Tweets and postings on Instgram and Facebook, you must make your voices heard at the ballot box.

To those who tell you to pipe down because you are just kids, keep in mind that some of our Founding Fathers were not much older than you. James Monroe was only 18 in 1776 while Alexander Hamilton but 19. Nathan Hale was 21 and James Madison just 25. Being a leader and world-changer has no minimum age requirement.

Indeed, few forces are more powerful than youth armed with courage and conviction. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “When duty whispers low, ‘Thou must,’ The youth whisper, ‘I can.’ ”

Emerson was wrong, slightly. Dear Youth, Thou must not whisper your reply, you must bellow!

Sincerely with hope and confidence in you,

Woody

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
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‘Plogging’ Craze is Beautiful

March 10, 2018 by Woody

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Woody Woodburn

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‘Plogging’ Craze is a Beautiful Thing

What’s old is new again.

In the 1970s, kids routinely raced around the Cabrillo Racquet Club grounds in rural Saticoy after Saturday morning clinics enthusiastically picking up discarded aluminum cans and paper wrappers as if they were Easter eggs. Coach Wayne Bryan called it a “competition” which made us kids call it fun.

Meanwhile at Balboa Middle School, Coach Harold McFadden called picking up trash that blew over from the lunch area “doing the right thing.” As a result, the school janitor never had to clean up the basketball courts or playing fields. 1plogging

Here is further evidence of why I believe great coaches must have a specific “anti-litter” gene: for as long as I’ve known him, Buena High’s legendary Joe Vaughan has picked up trash on his daily runs and the same could be said of John Wooden during his morning four-mile walks. Coach Wooden called it “picking up orange peels” although it applied to any litter he saw along his route.

Old is new, what fell out of style becomes trendy, and picking up trash while on the go is now so popular it has a hip name: “plogging.”

Despite often taking place on the run, “plogging” is not derived from the word “jogging.” Rather, the term was originally coined in Sweden and comes from “plocka upp” which translates to “pick up.”

Once a fringe activity called simply “trash running” outside of Scandinavia, plogging is gaining momentum as a worldwide fitness/environmental craze combining good-for-leg-strength squats with the feel-good Boy Scout virtue of leaving the campsite better than you found it.

As a result, sidewalks and roadways are becoming noticeably cleaner in countless cities, as are hiking trails and running paths.

Indeed, organized running clubs are even following Wayne Bryan’s method of turning plogging into a fun competition among themselves.

Furthermore, a growing army of runners are routinely carrying collection bags with them and making plogging a part of their workout. Many runners even set goals of how much litter they can collect; keep track of their PRs for trash picked up; and post photos on social media of their garbage bounties.

The Swedes may claim credit for launching plogging, but I think they are unjustly stealing our West Coast thunder. For the past 33 years we have held an annual California Coastal Cleanup Day to “plocka upp” trash from our beaches as well as lakes, rivers and creek beds. The effort is not only for beautification, but also preservation of the environment to prevent or minimize harm to wildlife.

California Coastal Cleanup Day has been no small success. To give you some measure, more than 60,000 volunteers turned out last Sept. 16 and their combined statewide efforts plocka upp-ed more than 2 million cigarette butts and 1 million plastic bottles; nearly 1 million each food wrappers and plastic bottle caps; half a million each plastic straws, glass bottles, and plastic grocery bags; and by reported count 381,669 metal bottle caps and 351,585 plastic lids.

That’s merely the top 10 different items of recyclable trash and debris cleaned up on one single day. Imagine the tonnages removed over the combined 33 annual California Coastal Cleanup Days, including all the remaining unlisted categories of litter.

Now imagine if we could individually expand the annual California Coastal Cleanup Day into a daily habit, and not just at the beaches but everywhere.

Old is new. The late McFadden and Wooden were daily ploggers, as are Coaches Bryan and Vaughan still. Let’s all emulate them in cleaning up our own little corners of the world.

Running or walking, let’s all plocka upp some orange peels today.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

This, That and Some Poetry, too

March 3, 2018 by Woody

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For a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” mail a check for $25 to:

Woody Woodburn

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This and That, and Some Poetry, too

“To begin, begin,” wrote the English poet, William Wordsworth. This seems wise advice for all of us to chase our dreams and passions beginning now.

Endings are also important as Jordan Bohannon of the University of Iowa proved a few days past. The sophomore point guard had made a school record-tying 34 consecutive free throws before clanking the would-be record-breaker off the front of the rim – on purpose.

The reason: he did not want to erase Chris Street’s name from the record book. Street died in a car crash in 1993 while his streak was still ongoing.

“That’s not my record to have,” Bohannon explained. “That record deserves to stay in his name.” 1wordsworth

The selfless act brings to mind the name Ralph Waldo Emerson and his words: “What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.”

Despite Millennials frequently being attacked as selfish and coddled and worse, I think Bohannon is a fine example that the right stuff lies inside our youth. Indeed, they are proving so with their #NeverAgain activism following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

Speaking of the gun-control debate, my in-box overflowed in support of the need for expanded legislation with only one email parroting the NRA’s status quo. My favorite came from reader Bill Waxman in poetic form:

“From Sandy Hook to Broward County

“Parents again are paying the bounty

“But every time the answer’s the same

“We’ll play the finger pointing game

“And all Congress offers is prayers but no cures

“Because the kids weren’t theirs, they were yours.

“Elected to serve the lobbyist’s greed

“Never mind what the country really needs

“Sitting in their Washington tower

“Slaves to the power of the donated dollar

“Nestled in the pockets of the NRA

“Ignoring the lives that were lost today

“From my cold dead hands, the jingoist screams

“While grieving parents bury their dreams

“The laws of nature have all been shattered

“We forgot to protect what really mattered

“Prayers and condolences ring hollow and fake

“They do nothing to soothe the national ache.

“The debate will turn back to building the wall

“Blind eyes turned to the bodies that fall

“The same spineless group will run in November

“Hoping the rest of us just won’t remember

“Their lack of courage, their lack of cares

“Since the dead were yours, for they weren’t theirs.”

Another original poem, a happier haiku, came in my in-box from reader Linda Calderon:

“Sunrise: God peeling

“back night – revealing day’s bloom,

“petal by petal.”

Linda’s words bring to mind another quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.”

In addition to marveling at the peeling back of night, I think we should stare more often at the Pacific sunsets we are so blessed to have with the Channel Islands in the foreground.

Let me end with something else of beauty, more than 300 quilts made and collected by the Ventura Modern Quilt Guild, which it is gifting to those affected by the Thomas Fire and Montecito mudslide.

Making this project all the more beautiful, it is not just a local effort: quilts have been donated from 49 states and seven different countries! (To sign up go to: www.Venturamodernquiltguild.com)

The late, great poet Maya Angelou said, “When you leave home, you take home with you.”

To those who lost their homes, a lovely handmade quilt will make their new residences a little more homey.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

By Day’s End, It Was Nearly Perfect

February 24, 2018 by Woody

Is your Club or Group looking for an inspiring guest speaker or do you want to host a book signing? . . . Contact Woody today!

* * *

For a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” mail a check for $25 to:

Woody Woodburn

400 Roosevelt Court

Ventura, CA 93003

* * *

By Day’s End, It Was Nearly Perfect

The airplane was coming in damaged and ablaze.

The pilot needed to land on the aircraft carrier’s flight deck, a tiny postage stamp in the middle of the ocean, and additionally had to snag the tailhook on the arresting wire to keep from skidding off.

Moreover, the pilot would have only one try. If he came in at the wrong angle, the wrong incline, the wrong speed, there would be no time for a second approach.

There actually proved nearly not time enough for one attempt: mere seconds after the pilot landed perfectly and escaped the cockpit quickly, the plane became a fireball.

The heart-skipping adventure was related to me by my luncheon seatmate, himself a hero in a “Vietnam Veteran” hat and buddy of the pilot, before I was to get up and share stories about John Wooden. I think my seatmate rightly should have been given the microphone as the day’s guest speaker.

The top block of Coach Wooden’s famous Pyramid of Success is “Competitive Greatness” which he defined thusly: “Be at your best when your best is needed.” Hearing the harrowing fireball tale, I told my seatmate: “That is truly being at your best when your best is needed!”

As generally happens when I am asked to give a talk, I wind up on the receiving end. This time, not only did I leave with a new tale to share about true “Competitive Greatness” but I also departed with a new book – “Coach Wooden and Me” by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, an unexpected gift from my storytelling seatmate, Tom McEachern. 1perfectDayWiiden

Making Tom’s thoughtfulness all the more special was that it mimicked a kindness Coach Wooden once did me. As I was leaving his home at the end of an afternoon visit, he excused himself to go to his study and returned with a book as a gift.

I thanked Coach, but embarrassingly told him he had already given me too many gifts in the past. I insisted he keep the book and that I would happily stop at the bookstore on my way home to buy my own copy.

Smiling wryly, Coach said: “Well, Woody, I can’t very well give it to anyone else because I’ve already signed it to you.”

We shared a laugh before Coach rejoined: “I still want you to stop at the bookstore to buy an extra copy and give it to a friend for no reason.”

In other words, in Wooden-ism words: “Make friendship a fine art.”

Tom had not known this story before buying me a gift book, but after hearing me share the anecdote during my talk he did a second Wooden-like thing: he had me sign an extra copy of my memoir “Wooden & Me” to give to one of his friends for no reason.

Later that same day, another Wooden-ism I shared with the audience returned to mind: “You cannot live a perfect day until you do something for someone else who will never be able to repay you.”

Inspired by Coach, and by Tom, and most specifically by a young man in Chicago – who I mentioned in this space a month ago after he gave the expensive winter boots off his own feet to a homeless man with tattered sneakers – I gave a nearly new pair of running shoes to a local homeless man because his shoes had deteriorated so greatly they afforded less protection than flip-flops.

Truth is, I received far more than I gave.

On this same day still, and returning full circle to books, a friend told me she was donating some new books to a Little Free Library on my behalf.

I am not sure it is possible to live a perfect day, but this one was definitely a very, very good one.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

WOODY WOODBURN

Writer, "Streaker" & Speaker

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