Category Archives: Columns

Column: Venting Some Anger

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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Reasons to Count to 10 . . . or 100

If you were expecting 700 words of nice this morning, phone your sweet grandma. I’m in a sour mood. But before getting angry, let me share Thomas Jefferson’s “Ten Rules For A Good Life” I recently came across:

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

One of Thomas Jefferson's 10 Rules For A Good Life: "When angry, count to 10 before you speak; if very angry, count to 100."

One of Thomas Jefferson’s 10 Rules For A Good Life: “When angry, count to 10 before you speak; if very angry, count to 100.”

Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.

Never spend your money before you have it.

Never buy what you do not want because it is cheap; it will never be dear to you.

Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.

Never repent of having eaten too little.

Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.

Don’t let the evils that have never happened cost you pain.

Always take things by their smooth handle.

When angry, count to 10 before you speak; if very angry, count to 100.

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After counting to 10, let me say I get angry when adults complain about today’s youth being lazy/rude/entitled/fill-in-the-negativity. The 88 high school seniors honored at this year’s 32nd annual Star Scholar Awards are evidence that Millennials are awesome.

And while the Star Scholars stand out for their academics, volunteerism, athleticism, artistic talents and more, consider this: for each of them honored there were countless other worthy of nomination.

Here is another example of our amazing youth: over the past 17 years, students from Buena High have donated 11,000 hours restoring the Anacapa Island landscape to make it more hospitable for seabirds.

For these efforts the National Park Service has recognized Buena’s Environmental Club with the national Hartzog Volunteer Youth Group Award.

And while Ventura County is indeed special, rest assured every county across this great nation has its own star scholars and young volunteers.

The future is in good hands.

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After counting to 30, let me say I get angry when the Ventura County Board of Supervisors rushes through a proposal, such as it did by scrapping a three-member ethics commission that ruled on campaign finance complaints and replaced it with the appointment of two people – one who will investigate and a czar who will rule.

The law – co-authored by supervisors Steve Bennett and Kathy Long, and passed by a slim 3-2 vote – is troubling because it raises conflicts of issue, most especially because one of the two appointees has previously campaigned for and given money to Bennett.

Most agree campaign finance reform is a good thing, but this change is like trying to improve officiating in college basketball by allowing one of the coaches to handpick an alum from his school to call all the fouls.

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This statistic made me count to 50 in anger: on one single day this past January we had 1,147 homeless children, women and men in Ventura County.

Granted, this is 20 percent less than two years ago but that is meaningless to these 1,147 fellow humans.

We can, and must, continue to do better.

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I had to count to 70 after reading about a 6-year-old girl and her 10-year-old brother who were picked up by Maryland police and held for more than five hours before their parents could even see them.

The siblings’ “crime”? Walking home from a park.

“Two kids that are unaccompanied and they’ve been walking around for about 20 minutes,” said the man who called 911.

It is not an isolated incidence of lunacy. A mother in South Carolina was jailed for letting her 9-year-old play alone in a park and a Florida mom was arrested because her 7-year-old was alone on a playground, to mention just two recent stories.

There weren’t enough jails to lock up the all the parents in the 1960s and ’70s who let their kids explore the world.

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I have to count to 100 every time a law enforcement officer (or volunteer cop) mistakenly shoots a person with a handgun when he or she meant to use a stun gun.

Who had the bright idea of making a stun gun in any way resemble a handgun in the first place?

How about forcing manufacturers to design stun guns shaped like flashlights – then a cop’s mistake of devices won’t be deadly.

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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: Beauty in Imperfection

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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Imperfection Can Be Beautiful

“How long does it take you to write a column?”

It is a question I am often asked when speaking to a classroom of kids or a service group of adults or book club. I really have no good answer other than, “About twice as long as it should because I’m a painfully slow writer – but usually not long enough because my deadline seems to arrive before I’m completely satisfied.”

Navajo blankets often have a "spirit outlet" imperfection purposely woven into them to add even more beauty.

Navajo blankets often have a “spirit outlet” imperfection purposely woven into them to add even more beauty.

This is as true now with a week to turn in a column as it was in the press box with as little as 20 minutes to write from game’s end to deadline. Indeed, I have found truth in Leonardo da Vinci’s observation: “Art is never finished, only abandoned.”

And yet historians suggest da Vinci had a difficult time abandoning his art fully, as it is believed he worked on the Mona Lisa, off and on, for possibly 16 years, including 12 years on the lips.

Thank goodness for deadlines that force a writer to abandon his or her art. Indeed, a deadline is penicillin for the bacteria writer’s blockitis and paralysis by perfectionism.

“Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self-solitude is the enemy of well-being,” said the prolific writer John Updike.

Volitare was more succinct, noting: “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”

Nonetheless, I still believe that in writing – as in most endeavors – time and effort are the ally of the good becoming better. Certainly I think a column I spend many hours on, and rewrite and polish and rewrite, will rise above one I bang out in a couple hours.

“Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable,” advised Lord Chesterfield. “However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.”

John Wooden put it similarly: “Perfection is an impossibility, but striving for perfection is not. Do the best you can. That is what counts.”

I recently learned that the Shakers, renowned for their furniture design and craftsmanship, had their own vaccine for Type-A perfectionism – they deliberately introduced a “mistake” into the things they made in order to show that man should not aspire to the perfection of God. Flawed, they believed, could be ideal.

Perhaps many of us can take a lesson here from the Shakers. Maybe we don’t figuratively need a gold star and “Perfect” written in red ink atop the page of everything we undertake. Maybe instead we need to be proud of doing our best.

Maybe we need to see our creativity when we draw outside the lines. Maybe we need to embrace the effort when we don’t set a new PR in a 5K or marathon.

Maybe we need to ignore advertising that makes us believe that only a wrinkle-free, gray-free, fill-in-the-blank-free appearance is beauty perfection.

Similar to the Shakers, the Navajos purposely weave a single imperfection into their handmade blankets. To their eyes this makes the blankets more, not less, beautiful.

In his terrific book, “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 keep the Shakers and Navajos in mind with my writing – and other undertakings – and embrace imperfections. However, I won’t intentionally weave a mistake into my columns as I am confident my “spirit outlet” will occur on its own.

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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: Stranger Becomes a Friend

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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Downside of ‘Hello’ is ‘Goodbye’

“A stranger,” Will Rogers said, “is just a friend I haven’t met yet.”

Three years ago, Jongsoo was a stranger to me.

And then we met, crossing paths at the Ventura Aquatic Center community park. I was on my daily run going one direction around the soccer fields and he walked, aided by a cane, in the opposite. “Hi,” I said as we passed.

My joyful friend, Jongsoo, and me before saying goodbye.

My joyful friend, Jongsoo, and me before saying goodbye.

“HELL-OHHH!” Jongsoo replied in all capital letters with the “o” drawn out and punctuated with an exclamation mark.

Jongsoo not only greeted me with “HELL-OHHH!” whenever I saw him in the days and months that followed, often a few times a week, he would sing it with the same enthusiasm on each ensuing loop, sometimes a dozen times in one afternoon, as if every encounter was the first.

Soon we were exchanging a hug with the day’s first “HELL-OHHH” and high-fives thereafter. Jongsoo’s carbonated joy always added a lightness to my stride and heart.

Too, he made me laugh. For one thing, Jongsoo often walked with a transistor radio, sans earphones, blaring loud enough to scare away birds. Moreover, he sometimes did a few dance steps for my amusement.

The sight of Jongsoo and me trying to converse had to amuse all who saw us, an odd couple to be sure: he two decades older than me; me a foot taller; and neither of us understanding much of what the other was saying despite our pantomimes.

One day early on, Jongsoo was limping more than usual and through gestures I asked about his leg. He answered by displaying a scar that looked like a great white shark had taken a bite out of his hip and thigh. Through charades it became clear the shark had been a car.

Last week, Jongsoo gave me a note, in English, explaining he was leaving in five days and would not return for at least a year.

“Thanks for cheering me up whenever I see you at the park,” it also read. “Thank you for being my friend.”

The following afternoon I handed Jongsoo a return note of thanks with some questions about him. One, two, three days passed and I did not see him at the park. I feared I would not get to say goodbye to my friend.

Why had I not realized sooner that Jongsoo must be living with someone who could translate for us? Mad at myself, I recalled what sports writer Frank Graham once wrote about Bob Meusel, a gruff outfielder with the New York Yankees who in his fading playing days warmed up slightly: “He’s learning to say hello when it’s time to say goodbye.”

On the final day before Jongsoo would fly back to South Korea, as I was nearing the end of my run and about to leave the park, a VW Beetle honked and pulled into the parking lot. Jongsoo had insisted his daughter, Kim, drive him over one last time in hopes of catching me.

“HELL-OHHH!” Jongsoo sang.

“An nyoung!” I said back, after asking Kim for the Korean translation.

From Kim I learned that her father is 76 years old, has three children and his arranged marriage is closing in on its golden anniversary. He has been staying in Ventura with Kim, who came to American in 1994 to earn a doctoral degree in Special Education and remained here to teach, and her husband Cory, a software engineer.

I also learned that a taxi had struck Jongsoo five years ago in Seoul; his hip socket and part of his shattered femur needed to be replaced. How he now walks for one to two hours daily is remarkable and inspiring. Surgery and chemotherapy for colon cancer also did not slow him down for long.

After giving my friend a hug, I asked Kim how to say goodbye in Korean.

“An nyoung!” I said again, for the salutation she explained is the same going as arriving.

I learned to say hello when it was time to say goodbye – but now I’ll be ready to say hello when goodbye ends and Jungsoo and I meet again at the park.

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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: Good News Nuggets

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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There’s Good News This Morning

Gabriel Heatter, a popular radio commentator for the Mutual Broadcasting network during the World War II era, liked to focus on uplifting stories and greeted his audience with the sign-on: “Good evening everyone, there’s good news tonight.”

In honor of Heatter, who passed away 43 years ago this week: Good morning everyone, there’s good news today.

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Nearly everyone in the Turkish town of Bagcilar, near Istanbul, secretly learned sign language in order to surprise their deaf neighbor with a magical day when his sound barriers were broken down.

My friend Connie, owner of Mrs. Figs' Bookworm, helped put on a wonderful "One City, One Book" talk featuring Garth Stein.

My friend Connie, owner of Mrs. Figs’ Bookworm, helped put on a wonderful “One City, One Book” talk featuring Garth Stein.

Thanks to a production crew and cameras hidden inside baby strollers, purses and even an apple on a fruit stand, the uplifting gift to a young man named Muaharrem was captured on video.

The fun begins when Muaharrem – and his sister Ozlem, who is in on the surprise – leaves home on what he thinks is a normal day and encounters a pedestrian on the sidewalk who signs, “Good morning.”

Next, a baker behind the shop’s counter greets Muaharrem with sign language: “We’ve got hot bagels.”

Back outside, a man purposely spills a bag of fruit just as Muaharrem approaches. After Muaharrem stops to help pick up, the man gives his thanks by signing, “I’d like to offer you an apple.”

By now Muaharrem appears stunned, as if he has entered some Bizzaro World, and asks his sister: “Do you know him? Is he hearing impaired?”

Answers Ozlem: “I don’t know.”

The choreographed fun continues when a woman on the sidewalk “accidentally” bumps into Muaharrem and apologizes in sign: “Sorry, my mistake.”

Inside a taxi, the driver signs, “Hi, welcome.” Muaharrem remains bemused until he is dropped off in the public square and greeted by all his neighbors. The ruse is revealed, he is overcome by emotion.

Granted, it was all done for an Internet advertisement for Samsung’s new video call center for the hearing impaired, but for the town members it was done from the heart.

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The Internet hasn’t killed books just yet.

Camarillo’s fourth annual “One City, One Book” literacy event, in chorus with Mrs. Figs’ Bookworm, last Sunday featured a talk by Garth Stein, author of “The Art of Racing in the Rain.”

Almost as wonderful as Stein’s engaging, enlightening and humorous hour-long talk is that the Camarillo Public Library’s conference room was filled to Standing Room Only.

Indeed, 300 book readers in one place is good news that required the bestselling author to spend a full second hour signing copies of “The Art of Racing in the Rain” as well as his new novel “A Sudden Light.”

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In the dark of night, in Eugene, Oregon, a family of four – with a fifth member on the way – was sleeping in its car in a public park that was about to close for curfew.

Robert Wood, his pregnant wife and two young sons were en route moving from Alaska to Eugene and trying to save money while looking for living quarters.

When police officer David Natt discovered the Wood family and heard its story, he made them leave the park . . . but first he gave them money – collected in advance from a local church – for two nights in a hotel until their new housing was available.

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One corner of Philadelphia is certainly living up to the “City of Brotherly Love” nickname thanks to one customer who walked into a small pizza parlor and left $1 to pre-purchase a slice to be redeemed by the next homeless person who enter and couldn’t afford a meal.

Mason Wartman, owner of Rosa’s Fresh Pizza, wrote the purchase down on a Post-it note and stuck it on the wall behind the register. Word spread and soon the kind deed – and Post-its – multiplied as more customers “paid-it-forward” by buying a guaranteed slice of pizza for anyone in need.

To date, 10,000 pizza slices have been bought for needy neighbors!

Mother Teresa said, “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” Remarkably, by feeding one person it is possible to inspire feeding a hundred people – or even 10,000. That’s good news.

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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: A Stew of Thoughts

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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Thoughts on This, That, the Other

Nobody asked me, but here goes anyway. . .

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I don’t understand the appeal of the new Apple Watch that requires a person to also carry an iPhone in order to activate all the watch’s features, such as tracking physical activity and alerting a person via vibration when texts arrive.

1dicktracyApple didn’t ask me, but alert me when it finally makes a wristwatch that is a phone – you know like Dick Tracy had 80 years ago!

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Congratulations to Ventura County four-peat champion Westlake High School for placing 20th in the state Academic Decathlon.

Nobody asked me, but I would like to see academic all-stars get the same media coverage when they decide which college they will take their talented minds to as blue-chip prep athletes receive on national signing day.

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Hollywood and theater chains didn’t ask me, but how about if they cut the 20 minutes of coming attractions by half and show some of the Oscar-nominated Best Short Animated Films we never get to see?

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I hadn’t watched a national evening news broadcast on one of the three major networks for a while and when I did recently my takeaway on all the fluff was this: #WalterCronkiteIsSad.

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If somebody asked me if I wanted a bacon and raspberry jelly-topped hotdog on a Krispy Kreme doughnut bun I would think they were messing with me.

But “The Krispy Kreme Donut Dog” really is a mess of a concoction offered at Fawley Stadium in Wilmington, Del., home of the single-A Blue Rocks.

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Add Krispy arteries: Not to be outdone, for $7 fans attending Phoenix International Raceway can buy a 900-calorie “CARBuretor Crunch” which is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich encrusted in Cap’n Crunch and topped with bacon.

Only 131 days until the 2015 Ventura County Fair opens!

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Nobody asked me, but my personal list of Best Clam Chowder in Ventura County has a new No. 1 with Garman’s Pub in Santa Paula leapfrogging Beach House Fish at the Ventura Pier, Lure Fish House in downtown Ventura, and Andria’s Seafood at the harbor.

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I love how a friend of mine recently had a $7 breakfast at a small-town diner and left a $20 bill, noting of the waitress’s reaction: “Her 13-dollar smile made my day!”

A few days later another friend asked a Girl Scout how many boxes of cookies she had left and, told 84, bought all of them. I would have loved to see that $336 smile.

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Congrats and good luck to 805 community treasure Josh Spiker for taking over the Tri-Running store in Camarillo which he has coolly renamed Mile 26 Sports.

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Congratulations also to the 805’s Mustang Marketing, and thanks to all who contributed, for giving more than 300 sleeping bags to the homeless.

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Charlie Sifford, The Jackie Robinson of Golf who recently passed away at age 92, once told me when I asked if he regretted being born too soon to play on the then-segregated PGA Tour in his prime, answered: “I don’t regret being born too soon, I’m just thankful I was born at all.”

A great lesson in perspective for all of us.

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Speaking of thankfulness, a story earlier this week in my favorite newspaper included this quote from a grandmother, who has been living in a crowded trailer with her daughter and four grandchildren, after a county assistance program helped the family move into a four-bedroom house in Simi Valley:

“To us, this is a mansion. Running water, we are very rich.”

How rich does her gratitude make you feel?

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Art Linkletter was only half right with his old show “Kids Say The Darndest Things” – so do senior citizens.

During the Q&A portion of my recent talk about John Wooden at “The Californian” Ventura Convalescent Hospital, after questions about basketball and Coach’s religious beliefs, a woman raised her hand enthusiastically and asked: “Can I go to the bathroom now?!”

Quoting one of my favorite Woodenisms, I said: “Be quick, but don’t hurry.”

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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 stands tall

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is also available here at Amazon

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Ojai to Wimbledon, Stan Smith shined

Nearly two decades before fictional Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella built his “Field of Dreams,” a Court of Dreams was laid down in the middle of an Ohio cornfield for the inaugural 1970 Buckeye Open – now the ATP Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati.

The green hardcourt was built and they came – Arthur Ashe, Charles Pasarell, Tom Gorman, an aging Pancho Gonzales, and that year’s eventual singles champion, Bob Lutz.

However, it was Lutz’s doubles partner out of the University of Southern California, Stan Smith, who made the quickest – and most lasting – impression upon me.1stansmith

I was a 10-year-old rookie ball boy working the very first match of the pro tournament. Like Smith, my forte was at net where I was quick and confident. But unlike the tall, lanky, blond Californian, I was not falling prey to my own miscues. The opening set was over quickly as Smith didn’t win a game.

In the second set, however, the three-time All-American from USC and 1968 NCAA singles champion found his form. Unleashing aces instead of double faults, put-away volleys and laser-guided passing shots instead of unforced errors, Smith won the second set as fleetly as he had lost the first. Ray Ruffels, a lefty out of Australia, suddenly became Ray Ruffled as Smith ran out the match, 0-6, 6-0, 6-0.

Walking off the court my new idol paused to sign “Good luck, Stan Smith” on the brim of my tennis hat. A week later I got more than an autograph. I scored one of Smith’s rackets – a custom Wilson Jack Kramer Pro Staff model, weighted “Heavy” with an oversized 4-7/8 grip.

On match point of the doubles final, Smith hit an overhead a fraction high of the sweet spot and the wooden racket head collapsed like a dry leaf. Still, the shot had enough power to win the point and give the title to Smith and Lutz.

Before shaking hands with their opponents at the net, Smith handed me his splintered racket. It was like having Babe Ruth give you a cracked bat before his home-run trot.

Behind a serve that came out of the treetops and a net game so monstrous that Romanian star Ilie Nastase nicknamed him “Godzilla,” the mustachioed Smith soon rose to No. 1 in the world. He won the 1971 U.S. Open. He won Wimbledon in 1972. He won the prestigious year-end WCT Finals twice.

Too, Smith was Mr. Clutch in Davis Cup play, going 15-5 in singles and 20-3 in doubles (13-1 with Lutz) while setting a record by personally clinching the Cup five times.

Stanley Roger Smith was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987 but his credentials date back to The Ojai Tennis Tournament “Where Champions Are Discovered” and where he won the 1964 Boys’ Interscholastic singles title and added three Collegiate singles crowns, two Collegiate doubles titles and one Open Doubles championship.

More than a half-century after his first appearance at The Ojai, Smith will be back at this year’s 115th edition of the prestigious event. On April 23 he will attend the traditional Thursday Night BBQ and on April 24 will be the guest of honor at a special reception from 5:30 to 7:30 at the Ojai Vineyard Tasting Room to raise funds for capital improvements to the tournament. Tickets can be purchased online at: www.ojaitourney.org.

“The main goal, of course, was to play on the main Libbey Park courts,” Smith, now 68, recently recalled. “That was really special.”

The Pasadena native who now resides in Hilton Head Island, S.C. where he runs his own junior tennis academy, continued: “And the orange juice stand was the other highlight. It’s funny how certain things stand out in your mind.”

Funny indeed. When he was losing that six-love set to Ray Ruffels, this is what stands out in my mind: Stan Smith argued a line call – that had gone in his favor and ultimately gave the point to his opponent.

I think of that whenever I look at that broken keepsake racket hanging on my wall to this day.

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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: Sweet and Sour Tale

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is also available here at Amazon

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True Tale of the Sweet Meatloaf

News item: The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee recently recommended that no more than 10 percent of daily calories – roughly 12 teaspoons – should come from added sugar.

Americans currently consume more than twofold that sweetness, which sounds like a lot unless you compare it to the 1960s when 1sugarcrsipkids’ diets consisted of the four basic food groups: meat, potatoes, dairy, and sugar. The ratio most commonly followed was five percent, five percent, ten percent and eighty percent.

A typical breakfast in The Sixties consisted of Super Sugar Crisp, Frosted Flakes, Cocoa Puffs, Froot Loops or cardboard-like Wheaties, the latter requiring adding six heaping spoonfuls of sugar on top in order to reach food group nutritional goals.

Indeed, if there wasn’t syrupy undissolved nectar at the bottom of the cereal bowl afterwards, you had not added enough sugar. Similarly, Tang – the drink of astronauts! – and Nestles Quick were best mixed by tripling the directions for the number of spoonfuls recommended.

Since my two older brothers, younger sister, and I could never agree on one cereal, when we went to Grandpa Ansel’s house for the weekend we were greeted with a mega-pack of single-serving boxes featuring a dozen different kinds. We would “draft” the mini-boxes by taking turns. Trades – and fights – followed. Only Risk and Monopoly were more contentious.

Cold cereal also made a great lunch when we grew tired of bologna on white Wonder Bread, peanut butter and jelly on white Wonder Bread, or hotdogs on white Wonder Bread.

Too, many a night at the dinner table when Pop said we had two choices – “Take it or leave it!” – regarding liver and lima beans or some other culinary punishment, we proved him wrong with a third choice: Cereal!

This is not to suggest Mom was a bad cook. She was terrific. I have yet to taste the equal of her spaghetti sauce, although Pop recently revealed her secret ingredient, I kid you not: a little sugar.

In The Sixties the granulated white stuff was considered as magically healthy as penicillin. Mary Poppins even advised in song: “A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.”

Mom’s meatloaf – despite containing no sugar so far as I know – was legendary. This is not hyperbole. For some reason, perhaps the gross humor of three young sons rubbing off on her, when serving meatloaf Mom always mentioned she had mixed it with her bare feet, much like a winemaker stomping grapes.

This family joke – “gag” is perhaps the more appropriate word choice – soon had us boys delightedly asking, with feigned hope, if Mom had played tennis earlier in the day. To which she would playfully answer: “Yes, three sets, and I didn’t wash my feet afterwards so the meatloaf should be especially tasty tonight!”

One afternoon my best friend Dan was over and when dinnertime neared he phoned home to see what his mom was cooking. I asked my mom the same question. It was a tactic we routinely employed to decide where we wanted to eat. This time my house had the best menu.

1meatloafWhile washing our hands I mentioned that I hoped my mom hadn’t washed her feet before making the meatloaf and naturally Dan looked at me quizzically. When I explained how she mixed the meatloaf with her stinky toes, he of course did not believe me.

As we sat down at the dinner table, as if on cue, one of my big brothers asked Mom how smelly her feet were today. Mom, also as if rehearsed for this very moment, enthusiastically replied she had played an extra set of tennis because she knew Dan might be staying for dinner and she wanted the meatloaf to be extra delicious.

Dan, queasily but earnestly, asked: “Uh, Mrs. Woodburn” – in the 1960s kids didn’t know grown-ups’ first names, much less address a parent by one – “you don’t really use your bare feet, do you?”

Mom replied deadpan: “Why of course I do, Dan. Doesn’t your mom?”

I am certain it was not the first time Dan had Super Sugar Crisp for dinner.

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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: Payphone Slot Machine

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is also available here at Amazon

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Hung Up On Saving a Sweet Dime

Anyone with a Facebook page or their own blog will find this hard to believe, but in the 1960s there were no personal computers. Also no VCRs, much less DVDs or DVRs. No microwave ovens or cell phones.

Largely no parental supervision, either.1payphone

Indeed, The Sixties seems a prehistoric era. We “dialed” numbers on rotary phones, listened to “records” and newfangled “eight-track” tapes, and if your car broke down or ran out of gas you had to find a telephone booth (Google it) which cost a dime to make a local call.

Usually a dime. My oldest brother discovered that if you hung up a payphone the very millisecond someone answered on the other end, the automated switchboard perceived the call had not gone through and your dime would drop into the change slot.

Hence, Oldest Brother told Mom that when she answered the phone and no one was there, it meant he needed to be picked up from school, football practice or a friend’s house.

One problem. This required Mom to know where Oldest Brother was. In The Sixties, 99.2 percent of parents did not concern themselves with such trivial matters as knowing the whereabouts of their children between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.

My two older brothers and I could go next door to use power tools unsupervised, ride our bikes without helmets across town to the comic book store, or hop on a boxcar with hobos and so long as we were home by eight o’clock there would be no questions asked. Most likely, we would not have even been noticed missing.

Frequently as not, when Oldest Brother phoned home and quickly hung up Mom went to the wrong place to pick him up. She would waste a dollar of gasoline driving around town to find Oldest Brother, who was thrilled to have saved a dime.

More than once Mom went to the right place to get Oldest Brother only to learn had not called for a ride home yet – his “secret code” had been a wrong number hang-up. Amazingly, these miscommunications never seemed to ruffle Mom.

Even running out of gas, in a downpour, did not get Mom steamed up. It helped that the faux-wood-paneled station wagon sputtered dead at an intersection with gas stations on three of the four corners. An attendant across the street saw Mom wave in distress out the driver’s window and came running through the rain to the rescue with a gas can.

Amazingly, Mom happily escaped this “I Love Lucy”-like madcap situation without even getting wet. She made us three boys in the backseat swear to secrecy because Pop was forever admonishing her for acting as though “E” on the gas gauge stood for “Enough.”

As you might imagine, the moment Pop came home from work that evening we rushed to tell him all about our adventure; he just shook his head because he knew Mom had not learned her lesson.

Back to Oldest Brother’s hang-up ploy. The biggest problem came after he taught Middle Brother and me how to turn the payphone into a slot machine with a dime payout. Now Mom had no idea who had hung up on her, much less where we were.

1-pixieAll this hassle to save a dime might seem nuts, but back then ten cents bought a Snickers, or a six-pack of mini-Coke bottles made out of paraffin and filled with colored sugar water, or a roll of chalky Necco Wafers, or ten Pixie Stix paper straws filled with granulated sugar flavored grape, lemon-lime or cherry.

So when the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee recently recommended that no more than 10 percent of daily calories – roughly 12 teaspoons – should come from added sugar, I had to shake my head. In The Sixties, only 10 percent of a kid’s calories didn’t come from sugar.

Today, Americans gulp down an average of 22 teaspoons of added sugar daily, nearly twofold the new recommendation – or about the amount my brothers and I ate between calling home and when Mom finally picked us up.

To be continued next Saturday…

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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: Homeless Compassion

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is also available here at Amazon

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Homeless Deserve Compassion

It was a recent evening, lovely even by California standards, and after enjoying dinner at an Italian restaurant my daughter and I were walking to a theater. Along the way, predictably, we encountered a homeless man encamped on the sidewalk.

Also, predictably, he was begging for spare change.1-homeless

Predictably, too, my daughter instead offered him a take-out box containing half of a savory dinner, complete with plastic utensils she had thought to ask our waiter to include in anticipation of this scene.

“What is it?” the unkempt and unshaven man asked.

“Pasta and chicken,” my daughter answered, adding: “It’s delicious!”

The man, wearing a knit cap despite the unseasonably warm evening, shook his head like a child who has been offered Brussels sprouts and waved his hands as though shooing away a pigeon. “Nah, I don’t think I’d eat that,” he said dismissively.

As we walked on, slightly stunned at the rejection, my daughter observed: “At least he was honest about it so we can give it to someone who will enjoy it.”

Curmudgeonly, I said: “If it was a Big Mac you know he would have been thrilled.”

Perhaps I was correct, but certainly my daughter was because on the very next block she succeeded in doing what Mother Teresa urged: “If you can’t feed a hundred people, feed just one.”

Truth is there are a hundred, and hundreds more, locally who need to be fed – and clothed and given a warm and dry place to sleep, especially on those nights far harsher than the one recalled above.

So I was dismayed by a Feb. 15 guest column in The Star under the headline: “How to end homelessness? No extra services.” The writer argued that the efforts of local faith leaders and their materialistic solutions to end homelessness will only worsen the problem, not help it.

Among the writer’s contentions is that “the majority of the chronically homeless have substance abuse and/or mental illness issues they simply refuse to deal with responsibly.”

But therein lies the Rubik’s cube: it is no simple matter for anyone struggling with mental illness or substance abuse – even those with the financial means to afford the best help – to deal with these challenges responsibly.

Indeed, to complain, as the commentary did, “If they would just get clean and sober,” is to diminish not only the problem but the individuals, as though mental illness and addiction are a choice.

Compassion, on the other hand, is a choice. Treating the down-and-out with respect, not scorn, is a choice. Offering a helping hand is a choice. Choices we must make.

To be sure, help and services will too often seem in vain. But if there were an easy fix, it would have happened already. I would rather have a citizenry that tries and fails to help the homeless than one that fails to try.

Just this week Pope Francis did something so small to help the poor that it is actually huge: a space off of St. Peter’s Square has been transformed to offer homeless men and women shower facilities daily and free haircuts and shaves every Monday. The biggest offering – a little dignity.

Closer to home, Scott Harris is also trying to help the least among us in a way that often goes overlooked. His local firm, Mustang Marketing, is holding a “Sleeping Bag Drive.” Used bags donated to its office at 3135 Old Conejo Road in Thousand Oaks by March 15 will be dry cleaned before being given out. Better yet, every $25 donation will pay for the purchase of a new sleeping bag. (Information: 805-498-8718)

“When it’s all said and done,” Harris says, “no one should go to bed cold. We can make a difference.”

Nor should anyone go to bed hungry. Walking back to our car after the show, my daughter and I again passed the homeless man who had wrinkled his nose at her pasta and chicken leftovers. He was eating a fast-food hamburger. Happily, someone else had made a small difference more to his liking.

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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: Pooh Bear and Heartbreak

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is also available here at Amazon

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Pooh Bear No Match For These Tears

When my daughter was very young and in daycare, I would frequently pick her up and take her out on a lunch “date.” We always had a wonderful time, but when I would drop her off again so I could go back to work, she always cried.

And cried and cried, so much so that her grandmotherly caregiver eventually suggested it might be best to stop these noontime excursions.

Celine and Dallas lighting up Paris with their smiles.

Celine and Dallas lighting up Paris with their smiles.

The next time I dropped Dallas off after a lunch outing, I tried something crazy and gave her one of her favorite stuffed animals to remind her of me, and our bedtime reading ritual, as she went down for her afternoon nap.

Winnie the Pooh worked like a charm. The tears stopped and our dates continued.

Fast forward just over a dozen years. After hugging Dallas goodbye on move-in day her freshman year in college, I handed her a small stuffed Winnie the Pooh. Through her tears came a smile.

I needn’t have worried, of course. Minutes after we left, Dallas’ very first new college friend walked into her dorm room. This human Winnie the Pooh’s name was Celine. She lived across the hallway and came bearing an extra Popsicle.

Instant friends, they became roommates the following three years, and lasting friends who after graduation visited each other around the globe from Los Angeles and San Francisco to London and Paris, the latter where Celine moved to pursue a career in fashion.

Early Monday morning my daughter called me, heartbreak like I’ve never heard in her voice: “Celine is dead, Daddy.”

Celine was in India for a friend’s wedding and while riding in a taxi was hit by a bus. Twenty-six is far too young to lose your life and 27 is far too young to lose a best friend.

Talking to Dallas on the phone numerous times daily since – in truth, mostly listening to her because really a parent is hopelessly impotent to help in any other way in such a tragic time – I have been reminded of those long ago nights reading to her about another friendship, from A.A. Milne’s classic “Winnie the Pooh,” and specifically the passage where Christopher Robin tells Pooh Bear:

“If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together, there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

Celine, in a way, gave this same gift to Dallas, who recalls: “Freshman year of college, when I broke up with my first real boyfriend, I remember fleeing to her room, sobbing, and she hugged me as I cried.

“Another time, when I was feeling down on myself because ‘no boys were ever going to like me, ever!’ she played me the song ‘Somebody’s Baby’ by Phantom Planet, saying it made her think of me because I was ‘so awesome that guys probably just assume you’re already taken.’ I still smile and think of her when I hear that song. Celine saw the very best in me, even when I didn’t see it in myself.”

The last time my daughter saw Celine was before Dallas’ birthday this past May. They caught up for brunch before Celine caught her flight back to Paris.

“I had a cold and I remember wondering whether I should cancel,” Dallas remembers. “I didn’t want to spread my germs to Celine, or to anyone else my path would cross on my commute into the city. But we were able to see each other so rarely that I thought, ‘To hell with it, I’m going!’ And I’m so grateful I did. We had a lovely visit, chatting in the sunshine over hot coffee and tea and scones, and before we hugged goodbye in the BART station I remembered to snap a photo.”

One could not wish to see two happier faces in a final selfie together.

Here is what Christopher Robin also tells Pooh Bear: “But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart . . . I’ll always be with you.”

He should have added, “Here, Pooh, have a Popsicle.”

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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”