Category Archives: Columns

Shooter Kills (Fill In Number) Again

by Woody

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Shooter Kills (Fill In The Number) Again

In the 1920s, the “Golden Age of Sports,” tennis legend William “Big Bill” Tilden defeated his rival William “Little Bill” Johnston so frequently in major matches that newspapers were said to keep a headline set in hot-lead type:

Tilden Beats Johnston Again

In this computer age, it seems American newspapers could save time by programming a save-get key with a different, somber headline:

Shooter Kills (Fill In The Number) Again1gunviolence

Fill in the number is wrong. Fill in the names. Fill in the faces, the individuals, the loved ones, the friends, the co-workers, the fellow citizens. Fill in the “There but for the grace of God go I.”

Wednesday, once again a headline needed to be filled in: Shooter Kills 2, Wounds 1 on live TV in Virginia.

Television reporter Alison Parker, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, were gunned down in cold blood by a madman. Vicki Gardner, who was being interviewed, was critically wounded. Before taking his own life, the maniac posted video of his heinous act on Twitter and Facebook.

Words fail me. But I will still try. This is a column I could write once a month. No, weekly. Shooter Kills (Fill In The Number) Again.

Shooter Kills 5, Wounds 2 at military recruitment center in Chattanooga

Shooter Kills 9, Wounds 1 in a Church in Charleston

Shooter Kills 5, Wounds 1 at Marysville-Pilchunck High School

Shooter Kills 13, Wounds 8 at Washington Navy Yard

Shooter Kills 20 Children And 6 Adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School

Shooter Kills 12, Wounds 58 at Aurora Movie Theater

This is just a short list of mass shootings in America in the last three years. Mass shootings make headlines, but according to the CDC all shooting-related deaths – homicides, suicides and unintentional – combined total more than 30,000 annually in the U.S.

In other words, the number of civilians killed by guns on U.S. soil in one year alone surpasses the 2,996 casualties suffered in the 9/11 terrorist attacks tenfold. As Pogo cartoonist Walt Kelly wrote: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

If that doesn’t numb you, those 30,000-plus annual gun-related deaths average out to about 82 lives lost each day, day after day ad nauseam.

No other country comes close to our killing fields, killing streets, killing movie theaters and killing schools.

I know this column will anger many of my readers, maybe even lose some of them. So be it. The NRA and its hard-line supporters have long been controlling the issue of gun control, derailing meaningful compromise and progress. Their thwarting all new measures has not helped thwart the shooting violence.

When our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, it took 30 seconds to reload a gun to get off a second shot. Today, in those 30 seconds a madman can squeeze off enough bullets – including bullets designed to pierce armor – to cause the headline: Shooter Kills 50.

Guns are designed to kill – animals of game, yes, but also people. Handguns are designed especially to kill people. And semi-automatic guns are designed to kill a lot of people, quickly.

Polls show the vast majority of Americans want gun-control legislation increased, but our lawmakers ignore us and kowtow to the powerful gun lobby. Since they refuse to listen to the public they serve, it is long past time to replace them with leaders who do hear us.

I don’t know about you, but henceforth my No. 1 issue when voting for any politician, from local supervisor to congressman to president, will be their stance on guns. All candidates aim to strengthening our economy and ensure national security; I want ones who don’t shoot down legislation aimed at lessening future shootings.

Democrat, Republican, Independent, if someone seriously and believably makes gun control his or her top priority at the risk of becoming an enemy of rich lobbyists, they have my vote.

We have a Constitutional right to bear arms, yes, but how many more “Shooter Kills (Fill In The Number of Lives Not To Be Fully Lived) Again” headlines must we bear to read?

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

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Back-to-School Good Samaritan

by Woody

 Woody’s acclaimed memoir

WOODEN & ME is available HERE at Amazon

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Back-to-School Good Samaritan

Too often a story becomes news because someone is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

David Pichon is the flip side of the coin.

“I just happened to be in the right place, at the right time,” David shares, adding an all-important third element, “in the right frame of mind.”1schoolsupplies

The right place was Walmart in Camarillo. The right time was mid-afternoon two Mondays past. The right frame of mind is something David, now 50, learned as a boy from his father: “If you can, you should.”

So when David, who stands 6-foot-4, was milling around waiting for a cashier’s check to be printed so he could pay his rent, saw 5-foot-2 Maya Geisler struggling to reach notebooks on the top shelf, he stepped in to help.

Realizing Maya had forgotten to get a shopping cart, David next went to retrieve one while she counted out notebooks for her incoming class of 24 second-graders at Somis Elementary School.

“I thought that was so nice,” Maya recalls.

The kindness was only beginning.

If you can, you should. On his way to see if his cashier’s check was ready, David asked a store clerk to let him know when Maya got in line for the register.

When she did, David appeared. Doing some second-grade math in his head, he quickly figured there weren’t enough supplies for a full classroom of students. He rushed back to the back-to-school aisle and loaded up a second shopping cart with more sets of crayons, pencils, and a full box of notebooks.

He then paid for the entire bounty.

“I just couldn’t believe how generous this stranger was,” Maya rejoins. “I started crying a bit.”

More tears flowed when David pushed the cart to her car and helped load the largess into the trunk.

“You’re never going to miss a few dollars spent helping someone else,” David says, understating his generosity. “Really, what I did wasn’t a big deal.”

Maya disagrees. A single mother with two boys, she admits money is “super tight.” To her, David’s deed was a very big deal.

Knowing only the first name of the Back-To-School Good Samaritan, Maya posted a brief summary of the random act of kindness on her Facebook page and mentioned the business van David drove off in: Sound Doctor 911. Sure enough, someone recognized her hero as the owner of the Camarillo store that installs automotive stereo systems.

Maya’s heartfelt 164-word message on Facebook struck a chord and quickly went viral. In just days it was shared 7,000 times.

“Teachers are contacting me full of love and genuine thanks,” David allows, noting he has received more than 2,000 emails. “I’ve heard from people in Australia, Thailand, Africa, and all across the U.S. The beautiful part is the way others are responding by paying it forward because they were inspired by me.”

David pauses for a moment, collecting his thoughts, and adds sincerely: “The attention I’m getting is really undeserved. I didn’t pull someone from a burning building.”

No, but he did step forward to help a teacher during these times of burning school budgets.

Maya, now in her 11th year as an educator after previously working in banking and nursing, estimates she spends about $600 out of her own pocket each year on supplies for her students and classroom.

“We do it because we love our jobs and our students,” says Maya.

She is the norm, not the exception.

His act of kindness for Maya was not the exception for David, either. He is a loyal supporter of Casa Pacifica and the Boys & Girls Club, and also donates blood regularly.

To be sure, he has a remarkable heart – all the more so when you learn that this father of four, and grandfather of one, has survived two heart attacks in the past 22 months.

“I think I’m still here so I can do more,” David allows. “None of us can fix the world, but we can all help fix our own neighborhood. Like I said, my father taught me, ‘If you can, you should.’ ”

He could, he did.

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

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

 

Tree-mendous emails

by Woody

Aussie emails are Tree-mendous

Trees have inspired much superb writing, such as Joyce Kilmer’s beautiful poem “Trees” that begins, “I think that I shall never see / A poem lovely as a tree” and ends, “Poems are made by fools like me, / But only God can make a tree.”

Also in stanza, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned: “I hear the wind among the trees / Playing the celestial symphonies;

“I see the branches downward bent, / Like keys of some great instrument.”1Tree

John Muir, among volumes on the subject, wrote: “It has been said that trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment rooted in the ground. But they never seem so to me. I never saw a discontented tree.”

While writing about trees is a familiar age-old practice, what about writing to a tree?

This is actually happening in Melbourne, Australia, where the city has assigned ID numbers and email addresses to its trees so that citizens can easily report problems such as dangerous dangling branches.

A tree-mendous thing followed: people began writing love-letter emails –and you just know trees, unlike people, greatly prefer emails over handwritten notes on, egads!, paper – by the thousands, to their favorite trees.

“My dearest Ulmus,” began one love note to a green-leaf elm. “As I was leaving St. Mary’s College today I was struck, not by a branch, but by your radiant beauty. You must get these messages all the time. You’re such an attractive tree.”

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Here is another. “To: Algerian Oak, Tree ID 1032705

“Dear Algerian Oak,

“Thank you for giving us oxygen. Thank you for being so pretty. I don’t know where I’d be without you to extract my carbon dioxide. Stay strong; stand tall amongst the crowd. You are the gift that keeps on giving. Hopefully one day our environment will be our priority.”

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From a student. “To: Green Leaf Elm, Tree ID 1022165  

“Dear Green Leaf Elm,

“I hope you like living at St. Mary’s. Most of the time I like it too. I have exams coming up and I should be busy studying. You do not have exams because you are a tree. I don’t think that there is much more to talk about as we don’t have a lot in common, you being a tree and such. But I’m glad we’re in this together.

“Cheers, F.”

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I especially like this sweet note from an admirer of a golden elm.

“Dear 1037148,

“You deserve to be known by more than a number. I love you. Always and forever.”

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Like Tree-No.1037148-Hugger, I have loved always and forever many trees in my life. If they had their own email addresses, here are some notes I would like to send them.

Dear Evergreen Beside My Boyhood Home Driveway,

Do you remember when I was small how I used to pretend you were a basketball defender and I would hoist shots over you with all my little-boy might? I imagine you are so tall now there is not a shooter alive whose shot you cannot block!

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Dear My Favorite Majestic Tree in Ojai’s Libbey Park,

Thank you for the cool shade you have provided me over the decades during the Ojai Tennis Tournament.

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Dear Mariposa Grove Sequoia Sempervirens,

I had never before seen trees like you / Tall as skyscrapers from a sidewalk’s view

Oxygen you give and my breath you take / Awesomeness like thee only God could make

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Dear “Two Trees”,

Thank you, thank you for your aesthetic beauty and for holding vigilant twin sentinel over Ventura.

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Dear Mighty Oak In My Grade School Friend Jim’s Backyard,

Thank you for so perfectly holding up the best tree house I have ever been in.

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Dear Birch In My Front Yard,

You stand a little bent and crooked, like an elderly woman in need of a cane, and yet you are still lovely and strong and I love the way your leaves filter the evening sunlight before it comes through the window. I look forward to hearing the wind play celestial symphonies on your downward branches for decades to come.

With love,

Woody

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Champagne for the Heart

by Woody

 My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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Compliments Are Champagne for the Spirit

A short while ago, I wrote about a party for Laszlo Tabori in honor of history’s third four-minute mile he ran 60 years ago. The theme of that occasion, and my column, was exemplified by this old Irish proverb:

’Tis better to buy a small bouquet / And give to your friend this very day,

Than a bushel of roses white and red / To lay on his coffin after he’s dead.

1twaincomplimentWhile the anniversary party was a grand bouquet, I have personally witnessed how a single flower in the form of a few kind words can make a person feel as though champagne is flowing through his veins. Considering compliments cost nothing, it seems a shame we are oftentimes stingy dispensing them.

As my son puts it: “Giving compliments does a lot more good than taking out the trash, and should thus be done more than once a week.”

At the risk of appearing self-serving, I hope sharing a few compliments I have received recently will serve to inspire others to give their own friends, family, and even strangers, a verbal splash of champagne to lift some spirits before they next take out the trash.

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Let me begin with the generous people who complimented me by responding to a request in this space a few weeks ago to sponsor sign-up fees, and buy new gift tennis rackets, for the USTA youth lessons program that began this week at Buena High School.

Led by a generous donation from Carolyn Hertel – who noted with her contribution, “Tennis is not only a sport for life, the people you meet are often friends forever” – readers served up more than $1,200 to give disadvantaged kids a better summer.

As program director Paul Olmsted told me: “Wow! With all the trouble in the world it is uplifting to know that there really are some generous people out there.”

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Among of the nicest compliments I have received as a writer was when a man came up to me at a restaurant, pardoned himself for the interruption, and proceeded to show me one of my columns he keeps in his wallet. I have figuratively folded up the memory for my own safekeeping when I need a lift.

In a span of just a few days another reader came up to me at a “Wooden & Me” book signing and shared that she routinely displays my columns on her refrigerator; a teacher told me she occasionally reads and discusses my columns with her high school class; and a woman at a service group I was a guest speaker at showed me a thick folder of my columns she has clipped out, explaining through tears how my words have affected her life over the years.

As Paul Olmsted put it, “Wow!” Each encounter took only a brief moment from the giver, but I can assure you the good feelings in the receiver have been lasting.

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Sometimes a first-rate compliment can be passed forward secondhand.

Larry Baratte, head swimming coach at Ventura College and a Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame inductee, attended the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Awards Luncheon as a guest two weeks past.

The event featured a Father’s Day theme and one of the speakers was John Wooden’s daughter, Nan. Larry had the opportunity to meet Nan and happened to mention me to her. This in itself was a kind thing to do, but even kinder was his reaching out to me afterwards with Nan’s immediate response: “Daddy loved Woody.”

Hearing those three words left me sitting speechless for five minutes, lost in memories with tears in my eyes but also champagne in my heart. Larry’s forwarded compliment not only made my day a masterpiece, to borrow one of my favorite Wooden-isms, it made my entire month a masterpiece.

Remarkably, despite my two-decade friendship with Coach and many visits in his home, I have never met Nan. This is something I must soon remedy. I need to find the right words, a small bouquet of a compliment, to put some bubbles of joy in her veins.

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

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Dads Forge Memories

by Woody

 My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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One Role of Dads is to Forge Memories

Dads have countless roles and surely one of the most important is to forge lasting childhood memories for their kids. In honor of Father’s Day, here is one of mine.

1dadsdayThe summer of 1969, a month before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would walk on the moon and two months before Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin rocked at Woodstock, my dad planned to take my two older brothers on an epic fishing adventure in Canada. Having just turned 9, I was deemed too young to tag along.

I felt more left out than Apollo 11’s third astronaut, Michael Collins, orbiting the moon in the Command Module.

T-minus two nights before our family Plymouth station wagon with faux wood side panels was to blast off, Pop’s friend, Mel Olex, who was to fill out the travel party, fell ill. It was not the first time Dr. Olex had come to my rescue: after separate accidents he put plaster casts on my broken leg and fractured wrist.

Now, he healed my broken heart because in his absence there was room for me. After all, food for four had already been packed. For me it was Christmas in June.

For Pop, now the only driver, it was a long haul from Columbus, Ohio, north across the border to Canada’s Lake Heron. We then hopped a motorboat to an isolated island where we stayed in a one-room rustic cabin at the Westwind Lodge. The name was fortuitous for it brought to mind a poem my Grandpa Ansel used to recite when he took us three boys fishing at farm ponds:

When the wind is from the north, / The wise fisherman does not go forth.

When the wind is from the south, / It blows the hook into the fish’s mouth.

When the wind is from the east, / `Tis not fit for man nor beast.

But when the wind is from the west, / The fishing is the very best.

Fishing at the Westwind Lodge thus promised to be the very best.

In the chill of dawn we would head out on the lake in a small boat with a temperamental outboard motor that leaked an ironically beautiful rainbow of ugly gasoline on the water’s surface.

By late afternoon we would have a collection of pike, walleye, perch and bass which the lodge cook filleted, breaded, fried and served us for dinner.

The first three days we returned to the Lodge for lunch before heading out for a second round of angling. This limited how far we could venture, so when Pop learned about a distant “Secret Cove” – doesn’t every lake have a “Secret Cove” that isn’t really a secret? – where northern pike the size of VW Beetles were reported to lurk, he got the cook to pack us lunches.

Next morning, Pop gave us our assignments: Jim was to make sure the rods and reels were all in the boat; Doug was in charge of the lunches and the cooler with the sodas; and I was told to put on my life jacket and try not to fall in the lake. Again.

We were starving by the time we finally found “Secret Cove” and decided to go ashore for lunch before catching some VWs with gills. We three boys bolted from the boat and soon learned an important lesson: when standing on an uprising smooth rock landscape, don’t pee facing uphill.

Pop (still in the boat): Hey, Dougie, where’d you put the lunches?

Doug (sneakers getting wet on land): I think they’re by the life jackets.

Pop: Nope. I don’t see them or the ice cooler anywhere. Dougie, you didn’t leave the lunches on the dock did you?

Doug: Stone silence.

Pop: (We boys would have gotten our mouths washed out with soap if we repeated what Pop said next.)

While I cannot state this as fact, I am convinced the true native name of that “Secret Cove” was “There Ain’t No Fish Here Cove.”

I am convinced of this, too: hippies at Woodstock didn’t have a more wonderfully memorable summer of ’69 than my big brothers and I did at Westwind.

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

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Help On Our Life Journeys

by Woody

 My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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Having Help Along Our Journeys

In addition to offering kind words of congratulations, a number of people have requested I share in a column my induction speech from last Sunday’s Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame ceremony.

Their wish is my day off. Here, then, is an abridged version, picking up midway and including a brief tale I shared in this space a few years ago but warrants retelling.

My personal Hall of Famers -- Greg, Lisa, and Dallas.

My personal Hall of Famers — Greg, Lisa, and Dallas.

“Four score and seven years ago . . .” Oops, not my speech.

“Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth.” Oops again, wrong speech although the right sentiment.

OK, here we go:

I am confident finding the right words in a press box under deadline pressure, but even with lots of time to think about it, words escape me in adequately expressing the thrill of being here with fellow 2015 recipients George (Contreras), Jack (Kocur), Eric (Reynolds) and Roger (Evans) – and also joining the likes of Eric Turner, Mike Larrabee, Jamaal Wilkes, Mike and Bob Bryan, and on and on.

None of us being honored tonight, and this includes you remarkable high school and college student-athletes of the year, got here by ourselves. We all had help along the way from parents and siblings, friends and teachers, teammates and coaches, from spouses and an endless string of others.

An example I like to share is Roger Bannister breaking the 4-minute barrier in the mile. Running is a solitary sport – but success isn’t.

Bannister would not have made history without Chris Brasher pacing him through the first two laps and Chris Chataway sacrificing himself to lead Bannister through the third lap.

In life, we all have people blocking the headwind for us and pacing our way.

I’m here because as a kid I got hooked reading Jim Murray’s sports columns and in college had him answer a letter with advice and as a young sportswriter had my writing idol befriend me.

I’m here because of sports editors who believed in me; and copy editors who caught my mistakes and colleagues who inspired me; and athletes and coaches who gave me their time.

I’m here because of Wayne Bryan’s and Coach John Wooden’s mentorship.

And, of course, I’m here because of my wife, Lisa, and daughter, Dallas, and son, Greg.

Let me close with this brief story. It happened in a small farm town in Ohio where a young girl wandered away from home and got lost in the family’s wheat field that had grown taller than she was.

We all get lost in our own "wheat field challenges" and need a helping hand.

We all get lost in our own “wheat field challenges” and need a helping hand.

Her family called out her name and searched frantically, but could not find her. Soon neighbors joined in and eventually half the townspeople were running through the wheat field trying to find the little girl, but with no success. The field was simply too big.

Darkness fell and so did the temperatures. If not found soon, the little girl would surely die from the bitter cold.

Finally, the little girl’s father called everyone in from the wheat field. No, he was not giving.

Rather, he had an idea. He gathered all the volunteers and had them join hands to form a long human chain. They then walked together, side by side by side, and combed through the tall, amber waves of grain.

In this manner they did not miss a single area as they had when searching separately as individuals. Within ten minutes, the search party of nearly one hundred individuals, now united as one, found the little girl curled up on the ground – shivering, but still alive.

We are all lost at times and need others to help us overcome our own “wheat field challenges.”

Other times we must offer the helping hand.

And so to everyone who has linked hands to help me along my journey, to the Hall of Fame Committee and to all my loyal readers, I say to you what Coach Wooden once wrote to me:

“Although it is often used without true feeling, when it is used with sincerity, no collection of words can be more expressive or meaningful than the very simple word – Thanks!”

Thanks!

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

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Column: Masterpiece Grads

by Woody

New Grads, Create A Masterpiece Day (And Repeat)

Dear Class of 2015, I am honored to have been invited (albeit by myself) to address you here today.

Michelangelo, when asked how he had created one of his masterpiece sculptures, replied simply: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”1angel

Creating your own masterpiece life, dear graduates, as you journey forward requires a similar process: You must see the angel – your passion – and then set it free.

For Michelangelo, this meant chipping away the pieces of marble that did not look like the angel or the horse or David. In our lives, this means chipping away the distractions and challenges and even the negative people who are preventing us from achieving our dreams.

In addition to being sculptors, you are also painters who create your masterpiece by adding brushstokes of color to the canvas. In other words, by adding determination and patience and love, to name just three key hues.

For good reason my dear mentor John Wooden advised focusing on creating your masterpiece day and not your masterpiece life. A masterpiece sculpture is created one chisel strike at a time; a masterpiece painting one brushstroke at a time; a masterpiece novel one keystroke at a time. So is a masterpiece life – private and professional – created one masterful day at a time, one after another, until they add up to masterpiece weeks, months, years.

To focus on a masterpiece life, or even a masterpiece year, is too daunting. Better to keep in mind this additional wisdom from Coach Wooden: “Little things add up to big things.”

A parable about a starfish emphasizes the big power of little acts. It was a beautiful Southern California morning and a beachcomber was walking along the sand that was littered with kelp and driftwood from a violent storm the night before. In the distance he noticed a man bend down to pick something up and then toss it into the ocean.

Every few steps, the man repeated this calisthenic: stop, bend, stand, toss. But what was he throwing, the beachcomber wondered: Driftwood sticks? Broken seashells? Skipping stones?

As the two morning walkers neared each other, the beachcomber finally realized the man was picking up starfish that, by the hundreds, had been washed ashore by the violent storm’s high surf and left stranded.

The beachcomber could not help but laugh at the other man’s futile efforts. “You’re just wasting your time,” he said. “There are too far many starfish for you to make a difference before they die.”1gradpic

“Maybe,” the man replied as he gently tossed another starfish into the waves. “But to this one I’m making a world of difference.”

As you venture out into the world, Class of 2015, keep an eye out for “starfish” who need your help.

Before closing, I would like to share a passage near the end of Ray Bradbury’s classic novel, Fahrenheit 451: “Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.”

These words remind me of a poem by my grandfather Ansel, handwritten on the title page of his medical college textbook Modern Surgery and dated Oct. 1, 1919, less than a year before Bradbury was born:

“The worker dies, but the work lives on / Whether a picture, a book, or a clock

“Ticking the minutes of life away / For another worker in metal or rock

“My work is with children and women and men / Not iron, not brass, not wood

“And I hope when I lay my stethoscope down / That my Chief will call it good.”

By finding your passion and work that you want to live on, dear graduates, and by creating your masterpiece day, over and again, in the end your Chief will call it good.

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

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Column: Messing With Hangers

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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Clothes On Floor Is Hanging Offense

How many times has your mother, wife or significant other, asked (pronounced “told”) you, “Will you please hang up your clothes!”?

Personally, I lost count at about six – age 6, that is.

Had I a quarter for every time I have heard that exasperated complaint I could hire a butler to pick up after me.1hangers

To be honest, I’m not all that bad at putting clothes away in dresser drawers.

And I’m flat out good at putting my clothes away on chairs. I can drape, layer and stockpile clothes enough for a week on a single chair and another week’s worth on the seat and handlebars of an exercise bike. A circus performer spinning plates on sticks should have such a gift of balance.

But I have yet to master the art of using clothes hangers. I haven’t checked my symptoms on Web M.D. but I think I might be afflicted with “hangerphobia” or perhaps even “hangerexia nervosa.”

Males are especially susceptible to both Oscar Madison-like maladies, although females are not immune. Teenage girls are proof of this; spiders and snakes frighten many less than handling do hangers.

Let’s face it, hangers can be very scary lurking in dark closets, hanging like one-legged bats with wings spread before attacking unsuspecting hands. Moreover, they often strike in pairs, groups and bunches.

Unlike socks that mysteriously disappear in the dryer, hangers, like rabbits, seemingly multiply overnight. Two explanations for this phenomenon are that hangers are reincarnated lost socks or perhaps hangers simply have no natural predators to thin the herd.

Well, they now have one – me!

Just once I would like to reach into my bedroom closet and grab a single hanger and pull it out without 13 cousin hangers clamping onto my wrist like a school of hungry piranha.

Hangers apparently thought Ben Franklin was talking about them when he said, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Separating the wire pretzels, which always seem in the midst of a spirited game of Twister, is no simple task. Rubik’s Cube is far easier to solve. Nerves of steel alone won’t suffice. Patience and reason are all but useless.

A short temper, however, helps. Brute force is what hangers most respect. A wild, shaking motion – similar to the one used to dislodge a piece of gum from your fingertip – is the most effective method for separating clustered hangers.

After you finish playing 52-hanger pickup, you must select the right hanger for the specific job. This is no small task as the variety of hanger designs is matched only by the curses they invoke.

Heavy and sturdy. Thin and frail. Metal, wood, plastic and composites of the three. Some swivel, some don’t. But all raise one’s blood pressure, especially the thief-proof hotel hangers.

Thin wire hangers are ill-suited for anything, sans perhaps T-shirts – and who hangs up a T-shirt? Drape a pair of jeans on one of these wimps and the sucker will bend and sag in the middle.

However, if you have locked your keys in the car, thin is in and this is your best choice for breaking in.

Plastic hangers are fine for most things except men’s jeans, but are also more expensive and, in my experience, prone to being hogged by one’s wife.

Chin-up bar gauged metal hangers rate 5 Stars for everyday use. In fact, three out of four dry cleaners recommend these.

Tailors, on the other hand, endorse the use of wooden hangers for sports coats and dress pants.

Another choice to prevent leaving a crease across pant legs is a hanger with a cardboard tube along the bottom. Unfortunately, the cardboard invariably bends or detaches, causing the pants to fall to the floor and get numerous creases.

My advice is to avoid these fragile hangers and skip the problem altogether by tossing your clothes directly onto the floor yourself.

Indeed, I find these hangers, actually all hangers, annoying – even more so than being asked (told), “Will you please hang up your clothes!”

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

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Column: Offering My 2 Cents

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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Nobody Asked, But Here’s My 2 Cents

Prince William and Kate didn’t ask me, but while Charlotte Elizabeth Diana is a lovely name, they missed a royal opportunity – all the more so with the planned release this year of the new movie “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” – by not naming their daughter Princess Leia.

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The late Huell Howser is still "California's Gold."

The late Huell Howser is still “California’s Gold.”

Nobody asked me, but watching reruns of the late and beloved Huell Howser’s “California’s Gold” makes me both sad and happy. He was an a-MAZE-ing talent.

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Those “Watch Your Speed” radar signs along some roads are a good idea except when there are two lanes each direction, often with cars traveling different speeds, because there is no way to know which car the radar is flashing a speed for.

Caltrans didn’t ask me, but it needs to paint a marker on the road to show where the radar is focused.

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Does anyone else find it silly when TV news reporters appear to be going though some kind of fraternity hazing by reporting in (pick one: a snow bank, sideways driving rainstorm, high surf crashing over a sea wall, hurricane winds)?

And how about the crazies who “photo-bomb” in the background during these live TV weatherperson initiations?

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Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev admitted guilt in the courtroom before his trial started so does anyone agree with Woody The Dunce that it seemed like a waste of money and time, such as sending the jurors on a field trip to the boat he was hiding in when shot and captured, to drag the proceedings out for weeks – and now doing similarly with the penalty phase?

The judge didn’t ask me, but if the U.S. Supreme Court hears about an hour of testimony for a case, I say this trial and penalty determination should have been limited to the four hours it takes many runners to complete the Boston Marathon.

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Christmas arrived in May for me when I received the kindest email from Paul Olmsted saying my annual “Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive” inspired him to personally give new tennis rackets to the first 50 kids ages 10 and under who sign-up for the upcoming USTA youth lessons program at Buena High School running from June 22 to July 13.

(To register a youth ages 6 to 17, or for more information, call 805-630-9269 or email olmstedp2001@yahoo.com.)

Olmstead, who played at Arizona State and is a former president of the Ventura Tennis Club and assistant coach at Ventura High, says he simply wants to help more kids take up the great sport.

Nobody asked me, but for $10 you can sponsor the signup fee for a kid in need and for and $25 you can also buy an extra gift racket. Checks made out to Ventura Tennis Club can be sent to Ventura Tennis Club, P.O. Box 3005, Ventura, CA 93006.

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The National PTA and National Education Association didn’t ask me, but it says here that Teacher Appreciation Week should have been a full seven days instead of limited to this past Monday through Friday – after all, most teachers spend part of their weekend grading papers and making lesson plans.

Therefore, I encourage everyone to extend the celebration a couple days by sending a letter or email to a teacher who encouraged you; inspired you; helped you turn your life around; in short, who made a life-changing difference in who you are today.

Another great way to say thanks is to make a donation – such as by going to donorschoose.org and searching by ZIP Code – and support a classroom in Ventura County.

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Here is a great thing about being an “adult” (my wife claims I am unqualified to know since I generally behave like I’m 12) – having a generous slice of leftover pumpkin pie for breakfast.

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A handwritten message on a Post-it Note that has been up for a full school year on an otherwise bare refrigerator in the apartment of four grad students I know always makes me smile when I visit: “Don’t forget to smile!”

Nobody asked me, but that’s good advice always.

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

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Column: Stan Smith, Part II

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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The Rest Of This Story Took A While

Eight weeks ago in this space I shared a cherished memory of being a 10-year-old ball boy for Stan Smith in 1970, two years before he would ascent to being ranked No. 1 in the world. After literally smashing his wooden racket while hitting an overhead smash on match point to win the doubles title with Bob Lutz, Smith gave me the crumpled frame as a souvenir.

Feeling 10 years old again with my boyhood idol, Stan Smith.

Feeling 10 years old again with my boyhood idol, Stan Smith.

To borrow the signature phrase from the late, great radio broadcaster Paul Harvey, “And now the rest of the story . . .”

Last week I was a guest at “An Evening With Stan Smith” fundraising dinner held at the spectacular home of Valerie and Alan Greenberg to honor the former Ojai champion during this year’s 115th annual tennis tournament.

In addition to my lovely wife, I brought along that old broken Wilson Jack Kramer Pro Staff model racket. I have always regretted not asking Smith to autograph it that long-ago summer day in Ohio.

In Ojai, on a spring night, I now hoped to remedy that.

“Hello Mr. Smith. I’m Woody and we met 45 years ago,” I said as introduction. “I was a ball boy at the Buckeye Boys Ranch tournament.”

“I remember you,” Smith warmly joked. “You’ve grown a little taller since then.”

It can be a dicey thing meeting one’s hero. The risk is that in person he or she will fall shy of the image you hold. My boyhood idol measured up even in my adulthood, which is saying something because Smith stands 6-foot-4.

For the next 15 minutes, Smith, still five-set-trim at age 68, regaled me one-on-one with stories of his Hall of Fame career. Of Wimbledon, where he slept in a narrow bed a foot too short for him en route to winning the singles title in 1972.

Of his days at USC, where he won the 1968 NCAA singles championship and partnered with Lutz – who was also on hand this night – to capture two NCAA doubles crowns.

And of Davis Cup play, specifically his match for the ages in 1972 in Bucharest against Ion Tiriac, against eight Romanian line judges, against a head umpire intimidated by the hostile home crowd, against death threats on the U.S. players.

Tiriac’s “out” balls were routinely called in and Smith’s “in” shots called out. Smith got two such bad calls on one single crucial point.

Still, Smith overcame it all and prevailed in five sets to clinch the Cup. Too, he overcame the urge to punch the gamesman Tiraiac rather than shake his hand at the net afterwards. Instead, Smith coolly told him he no longer respected him, turned, and walked away.

Wayne Bryan, emcee for the evening, began his warm introduction of Smith with a roasting that belonged in a comedy club. Smith laughed so hard I half-expected his trademark blonde mustache to slip off his quivering lip.

But when the microphone was in Smith’s hand, as with a racket, he gave better than he got, displaying a wicked sense of humor and playfulness and grace.

SmithAutograph

Finally autographed 45 years later!

Speaking of having a racket in his hand, when I showed Smith the old Pro Staff he smiled and instantly examined it. He explained how he personally nailed the butt cap secure and showed me where he twice tacked the old-school leather grip in place before tightly wrapping it on.

And then his right hand, a paw really for it is huge and strong, wrapped itself around the oversized 4-7/8 grip. All these years later his fingers instinctively found their familiar grooves in the overlapping seams and he squeezed gently, caressingly almost, and waved the Wilson magic wand ever so slightly to better feel its heft and balance. From his contented smile you could tell it was like he had been reunited with a dance partner from a long-ago Prom.

Then my boyhood hero returned to 2015 and, while I remained in 1970 a little longer, he signed the racket with a single double-tall script “S” next to “tan” which was above “mith”.

And now you know the rest of the story, finally completed 45 years later.

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

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”