Category Archives: Columns

Column: Trophies Don’t Tarnish Kids

by Woody

Trophy Generation is older than you think

 

“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

 

            Some complaints never change, although if Socrates made his above cavil today he would surely add, “And why do kids always get awarded trophies?” Trophy

 

            Interestingly, this latter grievance about the Millennial Generation and Generation Z is often made by men remarried to young “trophy” wives or women wearing jewels they didn’t get for winning a 5K race or tennis tournament. Indeed, Boomers and Gen X might be the real Trophy Generations. But I am getting ahead of myself.

 

            It has become a regular occurrence writers and TV talking heads to publicly take today’s youth to task for being raised on praise, feeling entitled, being lazy, loving luxury (and video games), having bad manners and gobbling up their junk food.

 

These generalities are, to quote Wonderland’s Alice, “stuff and nonsense.” Sure, plenty of kids are spoiled punks – and thus it has always been as Socrates suggests – but so are a lot of adults.

 

            Most recently, Ashley Merryman, co-author of “NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children” went all Socrates on kids in an Op-Ed essay in the New York Times headlined: “Losing Is Good For You.”

 

            Merryman un-merrily opened her missive: “As children return to school this fall and sign up for a new year’s worth of extracurricular activities, parents should keep one question in mind. Whether your kid loves Little League or gymnastics, ask the program organizers this: ‘Which kids get awards?’ If the answer is, ‘Everybody gets a trophy,’ find another program.”

 

            You would think trophies are as dangerous as extra chunky Jif is to a school kid with a peanut allergy.

 

            Merryman continued: “Today, participation trophies and prizes are almost a given, as children are constantly assured that they are winners.”

 

            And: “If I were a baseball coach, I would announce at the first meeting that there would be only three awards: Best Overall, Most Improved and Best Sportsmanship. Then I’d hand the kids a list of things they’d have to do to earn one of those trophies. They would know from the get-go that excellence, improvement, character and persistence were valued.”

 

            Here’s the thing: kids aren’t stupid despite what some clueless adults think. Kids know that excellence, improvement, character and persistence are valued. They also know that receiving a participation trophy at an AYSO season-ending banquet doesn’t mean they were their team’s superstar.

 

The same may not be said for many adults who equate driving a flashy, expensive car with being an MVP. And isn’t the workplace replete with participation trophies like reserved parking spaces and Christmas bonuses awarded for time on the job rather than job excellence?

 

If prizes should be given only to “Best Overall” or for true “excellence,” then aren’t today’s adults showered with undeserved trophies considering everyone who finishes a marathon – even if they walk the entire way – receives a medal the size of a hubcap? How is this different than a Little League “participation trophy” or a “participation certificate” in a school spelling bee?

 

Another curmudgeonly “Hey-kids-get-off-my-lawn!”-like complaint Merryman and her ilk make is that today’s youth feel entitled to good grades. I’m guessing that Merryman – like most every employee between the ages of 30 and retirement in all professions – feels they have been greatly wronged upon receiving anything less than a sterling annual work review.

 

Merryman concludes: “. . . we need to refuse all the meaningless plastic and tin destined for landfills. We have to stop letting the Trophy-Industrial Complex run our children’s lives. This school year, let’s fight for a kid’s right to lose.”

 

A plastic trophy isn’t meaningless – nor all meaning. It’s merely a nice memento, like a team photo or 10K finisher’s medal.

 

This school year, let’s fight for a kid’s right to have adults lose the Socrates-like contemptuous chip on their shoulders.

 

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME is now available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.

 

Column: Different Slant On Autographs

by Woody

A Different Slant On Autographs

 

The Black Death had a rival scourge in the Middle Ages. Call it The Black Ink because according to historians the pursuit of autographs dates back to this period. It seems the hunt for signatures of the famous came about after the hunt for religious relics waned.

 

Centuries after bubonic plague had been largely erased, Albert Einstein weighed in with his scientific view on the autograph terming it the last vestige of cannibalism.Hancock

 

After 25 years of watching the signature savageness as a sports columnist, including seeing grown men push children out of the way in pursuit of autograph, I think Einstein was being too kind.

 

But something really cool happened last weekend that changed my viewpoint. An autograph show was held in a hotel lobby in the historic town of Gettysburg and instead of home-run heroes and Hall-of-Fame slam dunkers and Olympic gold medalists, the “heroes” signing their signatures truly were heroes. Specifically, they numbered nearly half of the 79 current surviving recipients of the Medal of Honor – our nation’s highest military award.

 

If I collected inked autographs, these warriors’ John Hancocks would be on my Most Wanted List.

 

Instead, over the years I have collected autograph of a different slant: oddball stories from athletes I’ve interviewed. Let me share a few.

 

“I am frequently asked to sign Pennzoil cans,” shared Arnold Palmer, who has done countless TV commercials for the petroleum product.

 

Similarly, Hall of Fame pitcher – and Advil pitchman – Nolan Ryan said he often gets asked to autograph bottles of the pain reliever.

 

“I enjoy people, so I don’t mind autograph requests at all,” legendary broadcaster Vin Scully began. “Why not sign? They’re paying me a compliment by asking.”

 

And what are some of the stranger “compliments” he’s had?

 

“I’ve signed a lot of baseballs as you can imagine, but also golf balls and even a hockey puck which is sort of strange, I should think.

 

“Paper napkins seem popular,” Scully continued, “even dirty napkins. I think it’s all they have on hand. I don’t expect them to keep it, but I sign anyway because hopefully they will keep the moment.”

 

“I’ve signed dollar bills for homeless people who you know were going to spend it and not save it,” echoed Olympic gymnastics champion Kerri Strug. “And I’ve signed first-graders’ body parts with pencils – which is hard to do.”

 

Skin is popular from head to toe. I’ve seen Magic Johnson sign a bald head with a black Sharpie marker and Muhammad Ali do so on kids’ arms, legs and feet. But the most memorable thing I saw Ali autograph was a jogging bra . . .

 

. . . being worn by the young woman.

 

Speaking of dirty laundry, Olympic softball gold medalist Kim Maher added this footnote to my signature collection: “A kid handed me a sock to autograph – a gross, dirty sock!”

 

Did the former Buena High star sign it?

 

Maher: “Oh, yeah, of course.”

 

Olympic marathon champion Frank Shorter can relate: “Over the years I’ve been asked to sign some pretty grungy running shoes.”

 

Echoed Billy Mills, America’s last Olympic gold-medal winner in the 10,000 meters in 1964: “I was asked by a school fundraiser to send an autographed pair of shoes. ‘The worse-smelling the better,’ they said.” He sent a pair he’d worn only a couple times.

 

More memorable laundry. “The oddest thing I’ve been asked to autograph is a diaper,” Carl Lewis replied, chuckling at the memory. The nine-time Olympic gold medalist went on: “Luckily it wasn’t on the baby at the time – the mom pulled it out of a bag. I’d have had to draw the line at signing a dirty diaper, I think.”

 

Fellow Olympic sprinter Jon Drummond might have crossed that line, noting: “I was once asked to sign a baby’s diaper – while the baby was wearing it.”

 

Bottom line, did he sign?

 

“Yep,” Drummond answered. “If they kept the autograph, I hope they changed the diaper before it was too late.”

 

What would Einstein think?

 

I think a soiled napkin suddenly seems like a nice keepsake.

 

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME is now available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

 

Column: Thoughts On This & That

by Woody

This, That and Some Other Thoughts

 

            Warning: Pepto-Bismol is advised before sampling this smorgasbord of thoughts and comments guaranteed to cause anger and indigestion to some readers.

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            If you have ever badly sprained your ankle and had to soak your foot in a tub of ice water, you know how the initial freezing shock turns into a burning pain before your foot eventually goes numb.

 

            I fear that mass shootings in America are now so common, so routine almost, that our shocked hearts are becoming numb.

 

            Surely we are numbskulls if we cannot find some common-sense common ground to fight this insanity, and quickly before the next senseless shooting – or three or six or . . .

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            Tennis legend “Big Bill” Tilden used to defeat “Little Bill” Johnston with such regularity in the 1920s that newspapers reportedly kept the headline “Tilden Beats Johnston – Again” set in type to save time.

 

            Sadly, TV stations today probably similarly keep “Mass Shooting” and “Shooting Rampage” graphics programmed into save-get keys.

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            Did I miss the story in the sports section about Major League Baseball holding an “Ugliest & Scraggliest Beard Contest” among its players this season?

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            I have to agree with the naysayers who have jumped on Michelle Obama’s case for suggesting we all drink one extra glass of water a day to improve our health. Our First Lady should have added: “And drink one less Big Gulp of sugary soda pop!”

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            If TV weather men and weather girls insist on patting themselves on the back as if they personally gave us beautiful skies and nice temperatures, then I insist they start taking the blame for the stuff that causes floods, droughts and wildfires.

 

            And by the way, isn’t it well past time they were called “weather WOMEN.”

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            If you have or know a young reader, or reader-in-training, mark your calendar three weeks from today – Oct. 12 – for the seventh annual StoryFest from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the park area of the Ventura Unified School District’s Education Service Center at 255 W. Stanley Ave. in Ventura.

 

            The fun-and-free event will feature storytime readings aloud for children (who will all be given a book to take home), food and entertainment, as well as information about education and heath services offered by co-coordinators Ventura Education Partnership and First 5 Ventura Neighborhood for Learning.

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            Speaking of literacy, congratulations to the Ventura County Writers Club for celebrating its 80 th anniversary of working to find a cure for the dreaded affliction “writer’s block.”

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            Video game industry CEOs can cite a few studies until they are blue in the face that there is no connection between shooting/killing games and violent behavior, but anecdotal evidence – the latest being that Washington Navy Yard assassin Aaron Alexis was reportedly addicted to violent video games – shouts otherwise.

 

For one thing, studies on violent video games contain statistics – and we know what Mark Twain said: “There are lies, damned lies and statistics.”

 

For another, the military employs video simulators to train and desensitize soldiers.

 

            Also, if what we watch doesn’t affect our thinking and our actions, then why is video advertising on TV screens, smartphone screens and movie screens so effective?

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            If the NRA changed its aim, and name its to the National Reefer Association, is there any doubt marijuana would be quickly legalized? I mean, if the National Rifle Association can help make it legal for the blind to carry guns in public in Iowa, wouldn’t pot be an easy slam dunk?

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            Look-alikes: Washington Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan and Ventura County Supervisor Steve Bennett.

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            Last week I saw nearly 3,000 small American flags dramatically displayed row after row after row on Pepperdine University’s Alumni Park lawn overlooking the Pacific Ocean, each flag honoring a life taken by the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

 

          Seeing a handful of flags at half-staff around town this week in honor of the 12 people murdered by a mad gunman Monday was no less heartbreaking and perhaps more maddening because unlike after 9-11 we are not rallying together to prevent the next similar tragedy. 

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME comes out later this month and is available for pre-order at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

 

 

 

Column: Pop’s Winning Smash

by Woody

Octogenarian Out-Smashes Nadal

 

            Today’s theme is tennis, but only loosely. So if you are not a sports fan keep reading anyway. The plot includes stinging suspense and fright in the night.

 

To begin, poor Novak Djokovic. You had to almost feel sorry for the world’s top-ranked tennis player in the finals of the U.S. Open. At times during his recent 6-2, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 loss to Rafael Nadal inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, Djokovic looked like a guy swinging a broom at an angry wasp inside a family room.

 

            In other words, Djokovic looked like yours truly. Remarkably, no light fixtures or picture frames were harmed in my showdown; more remarkably, the wasp eventually was by a two-handed swat.

Pops "The Bat Slayer," right, with grandson Greg and me.

Pops “The Bat Slayer,” right, with grandson Greg and me.

 

            While visiting my dad later that day, before I even mentioned my Man vs. Wild victory he nonchalantly one-upped me by a mile.

 

Switching channels between an old Western, a baseball game and the U.S. Open, Pop turned down the TV volume from its normal “Jet On A Runway” to “Leaf Blower” so I could hear as he filled me in on what he’d been up to the past few days.

 

            After current events were exhausted, I nudged him into retelling some of his favorite old stories. This is kind of like putting on an old Bill Cosby album – you know the routines by heart, but you smile and laugh each time anew anyway.

 

Only a month ago, I would have told you I knew every single one of my dad’s stories word for word. Then out of the blue in a span of 48 hours I heard two new ones that had escaped my ears for 53 years: my dad had been a mailman a couple years during the Christmas rush while in college and that he nearly got a big tattoo of a panther on his shoulder while in the Navy but decided not to for fear of hepatitis.

 

The latter story was prompted by a heavily tatted football player on TV, so now as my dad casually asked, “I told you about the bat, right?” I naturally assumed the Dodgers game on the screen had reminded him of yet another story I had never before heard.

 

Perhaps the bat in question was related to his boyhood, like the time he met Babe Ruth but didn’t have a baseball to get autographed? Maybe in the attic he had just found a baseball bat signed by Ted Williams?

 

 “No, you didn’t tell me about the bat,” I replied.

 

I was right about the attic, but wrong about what had triggered the story. It had been the tennis match (I’ll soon explain the connection) on TV, not the baseball game. The bat in question was a . . .

 

            . . . BAT! Of the pointy eared, sharp-fanged variety.

 

            Pop had been watching a movie – he forgets which one, though it is as safe as gold in Fort Knox to say it was filmed before 1960 – and after seeing that it didn’t end differently on his 57 th viewing, went to bed. No sooner had he turned off the lights when a black bumblebee on steroids started zooming around overhead.

 

            A wasp in broad daylight made my pulse rev like racecar, but a bat in his dark bedroom didn’t make Pop’s 86-year-old heart with a decade-old stent so much as skip a beat.

 

            “I’ve never had a problem with bats,” he said surprisingly given that rats give him the heebie-jeebies.

 

            This bat soon had a problem with my dad.

 

After shooing it into the bathroom and shutting the door, Pop fetched a tennis racket from the attic. Specifically, a Jack Kramer wooden model more suitable for appraisal on Antiques Roadshow than battling a bat in the belfry – or bathroom.

 

            Armed with the old-school racket and limping slightly on an old leg that required total knee-replacement surgery a few months ago, my dad rushed the net so to speak by entering the bathroom.

 

            As I said, Nadal couldn’t have done any better. With one swing – “kind of an overhead smash” the victor recalled – it was game, set and match.

 

            “I gave it a pretty good pop!” Pop said proudly.

 

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME comes later this month and is available for pre-order at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

 

 

 

 

 

Column: Special Samaritans

by Woody

Serving Up Random Kindness

 

            Following a morning that included a dentist’s drill, a handful of cell-phone-talking drivers so recklessly rude they made me grit my numbed teeth, and a slow-moving line at post office, I was in a mood to write a column of rants.

 

            This changed when I was in line at the supermarket and a woman with a hand basket of items kindly told a young mother with a full cart, and a fussy baby, to go in front of her. This same woman soon allowed another person to leapfrog her, and then a third who also seemed in a rush.SpecialNote

 

            “I’ve never seen anyone let more than one person go ahead of them,” said the cashier, smiling in admiration.

 

            Thus clouds yielded to sunshine, which brightened further with a few feel-good stories that arrived on my computer screen via links on Twitter, Facebook and The Star’s on-line edition. The latter chronicled more than 500 Cal Lutheran University students who, as part of CLU’s “You Got Served” program, spent a day cleaning up hundreds of pounds of trash nearby Olivas Links Golf Course and Harbor Boulevard in Ventura.

 

            Across the country in a pizza parlor in China Grove, NC, Ashley England and her family “Got Served” a surprise when the dinner bill arrived.

 

Ashley, in a story reported by North Carolina’s WBTV, explained that her 8-year-old son Riley has special needs resulting from a severe form of epilepsy. His seizures, which number up to 100 per day, began at age 18 months and have robbed his ability to speak. The boy’s frustration at being unable to communicate leads to outbursts, like the one at the pizza parlor.

 

“He threw the phone and started screaming,” Ashely noted. “The past few weeks have been very hard and trying for us, especially with public outings. Riley was getting loud and hitting the table and I know it was aggravating to some people.”

 

Before she could calm the storm, a waitress came to the table – not to ask Ashley to take her son outside, but to tell her that another customer had paid her family’s dinner bill and also sent over this note: “God only gives special children to special people.”

 

The mystery Samaritan’s kindness made Ashley cry.

 

“To have someone do that small act towards us shows that some people absolutely understand what we are going through and how hard it is to face the public sometimes,” said the grateful mother.

 

            A similar anonymous kindness recently transpired at Tampa International Airport when a traveler had his credit card declined at the check-in counter.

 

Confused and in a rush to make his flight, and perhaps most of all “extremely embarrassed,” the man stepped out of line to check his credit-card balance.

 

Upon returning to the counter with the matter hopefully sorted out, he learned that a Good Samaritan had generously paid his baggage fee and left a note reading: “Hey, I heard them say your card was declined. I know how it feels. Your bag fee’s on me. Just pay it forward the next time you get a chance. Have a safe flight. :)”

 

Here is a third random act of kindness I read about this same day. While vacationing with his family a father was approached by a man trying to sell a flower for money to buy food for his own family, or so he claimed.

 

Remarkably, generously, and perhaps naively if he thought the money would go for food and not alcohol, the vacationing father gave the man a 100-dollar bill.

 

“Fifteen minutes later,” the vacationer was quoted in the on-line story, “we see the same guy walking on the sidewalk again. This time, he had at least 10 bags of groceries hanging from his arms, one of which contained diapers.”

 

Touched by the above examples, I went back to the supermarket and bought a turkey sandwich and Gatorade which I gave to a woman out front who looked down on her luck. I know we are encouraged to donate to worthy charities in order to discourage panhandling, but sometimes you just have to do a “You Got Served” deed right now.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME comes later this month and is available for pre-order at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

 

 

 

 

Column: Back to School with Batman

by Woody

Back to School with Batman

 

            Social media was all a-Twitter with outrage earlier this week when it was announced Ben Affleck has been cast as Batman in the upcoming sequel to “Man of Steel.”

 

            As someone who routinely wore Bat Gloves complemented by a bath towel safety-pinned around my neck to kindergarten, I am more steamed that Batman is guest starring in a Superman movie rather than the other way around.BatmanLunchbox

 

            But here is what really got my Bat Tights in a twisted bunch – the fact that my mom long ago tossed out the “Batman and Robin” lunchbox I used in first grade. On eBay these lunchboxes produced in 1966, the year the Batman TV series debuted, are now collectibles selling for more than $200 – higher if the Thermos is still intact. The fact that any of the Thermoses have survived nearly five decades boggles my mind because I am fairly certain I dropped mine and shattered its glass liner within five days.

 

            The lunchbox itself was far more durable. This was a good thing because while Batman had to contend with the Joker, Riddler and Penguin, my super villain was Adam – a lunch-stealing black lab about the size of a grizzly bear who lived along my walking route to school.

 

I should point out that my mom packed my lunch pretty much every school day of my elementary life. That is roughly 1,100 lunches. All of them, I believe, were Oscar Meyer bologna on white Wonder Bread along with either two Hostess Ho-Ho’s or one larger Ding-Dong.

 

My great friend Dan Means’ mom, meanwhile, always packed him a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich and Fritos. One memorable day in first grade, Dan had trouble opening the mini-bag of corn chips. His frustration growing, Dan gripped the opposite sides of the bag extra tightly and gave a mighty tug and . . .

 

. . . RIPPP! Whoosh! The entire sealed seam at the top gave way, sending Fritos flying everywhere, high and far, like confetti shot from a cannon. A few Fritos even got caught in the long florescent light fixtures high overhead that looked like ice-cube trays turned upside-down.

 

In my entire life I have yet to meet someone with a better laugh than Dan’s – it was half-cackle and half-emergency-asthma attack – and he never used it more enthusiastically than at that very moment.

 

Adam, however, was no laughing matter. I cannot tell you how many times I was lunch-jacked by him on my walk to school, though an estimate of two dozen might be on the shy side.

 

The first couple times Adam confronted me, I tried freezing in my tracks and commanding him to stop. This was as pointless as asking a mugger to put his gun away and leave nicely. The best thing to do was drop your lunch and run before Adam knocked you over while taking it. Trying to outrun Adam from the get-go was futile.

 

            You might think my bologna sandwich and Ho-Ho’s were safe inside my metal Batman lunchbox. You would be wrong. Somehow he managed to unlatch it. I reckon Adam could have cracked open a bank safe if there were Ho-Ho’s inside.

 

            Even kids who did not have to walk or ride their bikes past Adam’s house on the way to school were not safe from his lunch-jackings. Like a hungry dragon, if Adam was not sufficiently fed he came looking for villagers.

 

Adam routinely got loose and roamed a mile to school before the morning bell. At the sight of him the playground would erupt in frenzied terror with screaming kids scattering and fleeing this way and that like frightened beachgoers in the movie “Jaws.”

 

            After each incident, teachers would tally up the casualties and the principal would phone the mom of the family who owned Adam. Mrs. Young would then make, pack and bring the required number of replacement lunches.

 

            To be honest, except for the trauma of it, having your lunch stolen by Adam actually was not so bad – it was sort of a badge of honor. Plus, Mrs. Young packed homemade chocolate-chip cookies.

 

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME comes out in September and is available for pre-order at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Column: The Music of Friendship

by Woody

Rekindling the Music of Friendship

 

            The memory hadn’t flashed across my mind’s eye in three decades, yet here it was in sharp focus and brilliant Kodachrome color.

 

The year was 1975 and the yellow VW Bug was already old and the summer was hot and here’s the thing I most remember all these years later: There was no way to turn off the heater in my friend Jim’s car.

 

            Even with the windows rolled down we simmered like astronauts inside an Apollo capsule during re-entry with the heat shield glowing red-hot.

 

JamesBoz

The James Broz. Band — J.D., right, with son James.

 

            You remember funny things, like this: getting ice cream cones after a practice session and coming out to find Jim had locked the keys in the VW. We borrowed a coat hanger from the nearby dry cleaners and, as the ice cream melted, took turns trying to break in.

 

The next time it happened, which it did, we ate our ice cream first.

 

I can’t tell you what songs played on Jim’s car radio that summer, but my guess is they included Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Lodi” and “Motherless Child” by Eric Clapton and “Blue Sky” by The Allman Brothers Band and Paul Simon’s “Diamonds on the Soles” and “Can’t You See” by The Marshall Tucker Band.

 

I say this because those were all on the play list by The James Broz. Band on a recent August night inside a Ventura Harbor venue not much roomier than Jim’s VW Bug, although thankfully, much cooler.

 

The James Broz. Band is not brothers but rather a father and son – Jim and James Wolff. Actually, Jim goes by J.D. now, which keeps tripping me up.

 

Until last weekend, I believe I had seen Jim – I mean, J.D. – only twice in the past quarter-century. Both times he was playing drums in bands at large charity gatherings so we were unable to catch up.

 

(J.D. will join The Bryan Bros. Band for a few songs at Mike and Bob Bryan’s annual All-Star Tennis Festival fundraiser on Sept. 27 at Spanish Hills Country Club. Visit www.bbtennisfest.com for information.)

 

One of the great things about social media is its ability to reconnect lost friends. Through Facebook, I learned about the two-man James Gang’s small gig and showed up. I am so glad I did.

 

J.D. is as talented with guitar strings as he was with strings in a tennis racket and his son is no less musically gifted. Between songs J.D. kindly gave me a shout-out, although in the intimate gathering shouting was not required.

 

“I want to thank my ol’ friend Greg for coming out,” Jim said, using my given name before quickly adding: “I mean, Woody.”

 

There was no need for the correction – he’s grandfathered in.

 

JDphotos

Further evidence of J.D.’s talents!

Between sets we got to visit and it was like a time portal. Jim’s laugh is as unchanged as his fingerprints and I was reminded of a quote by the writer E.B. White: “I’ve never been able to shed the mental image I have of myself – a lad of about nineteen.”

 

For me, make that about 15.

 

Now in our 50s but both of us dressed like teens in jeans and flip-flops, Jim and I learned our sons have been to Africa on humanitarian sojourns and we each have a remarkable daughter and an amazing wife. I wanted to know more about his music; he wanted to talk about my new memoir.

 

We promised to get together, and soon, and we will.

 

Moments earlier Jim had sung Bob Dylan’s “My Back Pages” with the quintessential lyric, “Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”

 

Ah, we were so much younger then in that VW sauna, but that’s all right because it takes a long time to grow an old friend.

 

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME is available for pre-order at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

 

Column: Celebrity Shopping

by Woody

Celebrity Shopping Within Their Means

 

            News item: Billionaire media mogul Oprah Winfrey says she encountered racism in Switzerland, playground of the super rich and famous, when a sales clerk at Trois Pommes, a boutique in Zurich for the super rich and famous, refused to show the TV personality a handbag with a price tag of $38,000, telling the super rich and famous movie actress she couldn’t afford it.MoneyGold

 

“She said, ‘No, no, no, you don’t want to see that one,’ ” Winfrey quoted the clerk as saying. “ ‘You want to see this one. Because that one will cost too much; you will not be able to afford that.’ ”

 

The clerk slightly miscalculated: Winfrey, according to Forbes magazine, could afford it based on her $77 million income last year.

 

Here are a few similar, but unconfirmed, faux pas . . .

 

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Rather than a $38,000 wallet from Trios Pommes, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates has set out to “buy” the worldwide eradication of polio.

 

Twenty-five years ago, polio was endemic in 125 countries with an estimated 350,000 people – primarily young children – paralyzed by the disease annually. Immunization efforts have since reduced polio cases globally by more than 99 percent and saved more than 10 million children from paralysis.

 

Polio is now endemic in just three countries: Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Last year fewer than 250 cases were reported compared to 650 cases in 2011.

 

Gates is currently the world’s richest man with a reported net worth of “More Money Than God” – which in U.S. currency is $72.7 billion. Additionally, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has an endowment of more than $36 billion.

 

Still, in April when the foundation donated $1.8 billion to continue the surge against the scourge polio, the response Gates heard was: “No, no, no, why don’t you look at something more in your price range – like maybe trying to eradicate the sport of polo off the face of the earth.”

 

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            Tiger Woods was playing a round of golf with Donald Trump at Trump’s Trump National Golf Club on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, soon to be renamed Trump Peninsula.

 

The signature 18th hole alone cost $61 million to build, making it “the most expensive chunk of golf real estate on the planet” according to an actual quote from the man with the biggest chunk of ego on the planet.

 

Woods’ drive on No. 18 landed in green rough more tangled than Trump’s platinum hair. After taking three swings to get out of the pricey weeds, Woods, who according to Forbes magazine has a net worth of $600 million, angrily snapped his wedge in two and told Trump, “I want to buy your club.”

 

“No, no, no, you can’t afford it,” Trump replied, thinking Woods meant $264-million Trump National and not Trump’s $120 58-degree loft TaylorMade ATV Wedge with a KBS Tour 90 steel shaft.

 

*

 

TaylorMade ACM (American Country Music) superstar Taylor Swift attended a charity auction where she bid on a dinner date with pop idol/bad boy Justin Bieber. When Swift opened with $100,000 (plus all traffic fines and bail for Beiber if required), the auctioneer shouted, “No, no, no, you are a young woman who probably still has student loans and surely can’t afford this!”

 

“That’s fun money for me,” replied Swift, who ranks No. 6 on Forbes’ Celebrity Top 100 with $55 million in earnings the past year. “Besides, if I write another break-up song after the date I can write it off as a business expense.”

 

*

 

Oprah Winfrey encountered a second wrong-headed “No, no, no, you can’t afford it” comment while attending the 2013 Ventura County Fair and trying her hand at the softball throw.

 

“How many times do I have to knock all the milk bottles down to win that pretty handbag,” Winfrey asked the carney, who replied: “No, no, no, you can’t afford enough tickets to win the purse – why don’t you try for the little stuffed shark?”

 

Winfrey prevailed, winning the purse encrusted with faux diamonds and it only cost her $38,000 – $48 worth of fair game tickets plus $37,952 for orthopedic surgery to repair her rotator cuff.

 

*

 

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME is available for pre-order at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

 

Column: Celebrating Summer

by Woody

Turn! Turn! Turn! The Season is Summer

 

            Remember when you were six or 12 and summer was a three-month recess and the only interruption to your fun was being called inside for dinner?

 

Then adulthood arrives and carefree summers depart.

 

            One of my earliest summers of freedom was 1965. This was also the year The Byrds’ version of “Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There Is a Season)” hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts.

 

            I have this song stuck in my head because everywhere I turn, turn, turn, I see reminders that the season now is summer. I also hear, taste, smell and feel summertime’s touch.KidsPlaying

 

            Here are a few recent encounters, broken down into the five senses.

 

*

 

Sight.

 

            Four girls and a boy, all between the ages of about four and six, playing on the grass at a local park. Specifically, they are racing around a small mud bog created by a faulty sprinkler.

 

            The giggling grows louder. The kids grow wilder. One of the girls cuts a corner too closely and a sneaker gets sucked off in the mud.

 

            The laughter, of course, instantly doubles in decibels. Soon another shoe is snatched. Instead of an obstacle, the mud bog has become the main attraction.

 

            Did I mention the children are wearing nice clothes, not swimming suits?

 

            I should also mention they are being watched by the mother of one of them. More accurately, she is a contender for Mom of the Year. I say this because of her reply when I passed by and commented on – and laughed at – the messy delight.

 

“It’ll all wash off,” she said, smiling happily.

 

            What a beautiful attitude. And what a beautiful summer it promises to be for those five kids.

 

*

 

            Sound.

 

            Watching a collection of elementary school-age kids play different games at a summer day camp is fun, but listening to them is the real joy.

 

            For example, judging from the laughter and squeals of delight, even playing in mud can’t compare to throwing spongy playground balls at one another. Part of this is surely the novelty because many schools have banned dodge ball. Safety issues? In half an hour of battle no tears are shed, no Band-Aids required.

 

            Meanwhile, if you have never heard a game of outdoor musical chairs that begins with 30 kids and 29 chairs and one boom box, you are missing out.

 

            This, however, paled on the noise meter measuring the fun of a supervised water balloon battle!

 

            In other words, this 2013 day camp is a success because it duplicates the everyday summer life of kids growing up in the 1960s.

 

*

 

            Taste.

 

            A lot of things just seem to taste better in the summer. Hamburgers, hotdogs or basically anything fresh off the barbecue, for example. Watermelon, certainly. All county fair foods. Iced tea and lemonade, margaritas and beer.

 

            But it says here nothing improves more in tastiness during the summer (and this is saying something because it’s delicious year-round) than ice cream. Amazingly, ice cream may taste its very best not on a blistering summer day but rather on a dreamy warm midsummer night.

 

            Rocky Road, to my taste buds, is best of all.

 

*

 

            Smell.

 

            Just as hearing an old song can be a time machine of sorts, so too can scents.

 

Few things transport me back to my Wonder Years of summers as quickly and powerfully as the smell of sunscreen filling the air at the pool or beach.

 

*

 

            Touch.

 

            Speaking of the beach and swimming pools, one of summer’s special senses of touch can also be seen and heard: the “ouch-ouch-ouch” and “hot-hot-hot” mutterings of someone as you watch them quick-stepping barefoot across broiling sand or cement.

 

            Meanwhile, instead of the soles, summer romances touch souls and hearts with held hands and kissed lips.

 

Turn, turn, turn. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

 

And summer, taking the best from the verses in the Book of Ecclesiastes, is a time to laugh and dance and embrace and love and cast time away.

 

*

 

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME is available for pre-order at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

 

Column: Inocente’s Story is Powerful

by Woody

Artistic Perspective of Homelessness

 

             When you see a dandelion, do you see a flower? Or a weed?

 

            Or, perhaps, as happened a couple weeks ago when I was walking along a sidewalk on my way to a movie, you step over a dandelion without seeing it at all.

 

            Dandelions are a lot like the homeless. Perspective is everything.

 

            Along with about 200 others attending “Summer at the Oscars,” a fundraiser held by the nonprofit Ventura County Housing Trust Fund at the historic Camarillo Ranch, my perspective was brought into a sharper focus.

For more artwork by Inocente, visit www.inocenteart.com

For more artwork by Inocente, visit www.inocenteart.com

 

            My vision, however, was briefly blurry. Watery eyes will do that. Watching “Inocente” will do that.

 

            “Inocente,” which earlier this year won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short, is the best film of any length and genre I have seen in years. It is “Rocky,” only grittier; “Cinderella,” only more magical. It is 39 minutes of hard-to-watch reality with a happy ending.

 

Inocente Izucar, the teenage subject of the film, had a physically abusive father who beat her with extension cords. After escaping his torment, Inocente and her mother and three younger brothers lived a nomadic existence on the streets of San Diego. They slept in homeless shelters and crowded motel rooms. This was on good nights.

 

 “I don’t think children should have to wake up in the park,” Inocente says, knowingly, in the film.

 

The truth is, too many children do wake up in parks. And in shelters. According to the National Center on Family Homelessness, 1 in 45 children will experience homelessness during their lives. That is nearly one child per classroom.

 

This includes 4,000 kids locally, according to the Ventura County Office of Education. You might never guess which children; Inocente says she was able to keep her hardship a secret from schoolmates.

 

More perspective: 3.5 million people experience homelessness in the U.S. annually and more than 1.6 million of them are children. In California the figure for homeless kids is 226,000.

 

By any measure it is a huge problem. Countless people and agencies are fighting the good fight, including the Ventura County Housing Trust Fund. But all of our combined efforts need to be redoubled. And redoubled again.

 

Different things can unlock a brighter future for a homeless person: food and shelter, of course, but also counseling; clean clothes for a job interview; access to showers in order to keep a job.

 

For Inocente, the magic wand had horsehair bristles: a paintbrush. At age 12 she enrolled in an after-school program for disadvantaged kids called ARTS: A Reason To Survive.

 

For Inocente, art was a way to thrive.

 

Given her grim background, one might expect her paintings to be dark and foreboding. Rather, they are the opposite – happy and uplifting; hearts and bunnies; vibrant reds and sunshine yellows and brilliant blues.

 

Inocente’s obvious talent was one of the reasons she was selected as the subject for the documentary. Her first big art show, which she earned on merit, is part of the film’s storyline. Thanks to the spotlight of the Oscars, her career has taken off. She has had loftier art shows, including in New York City. Prints of her work typically run $200 with some reaching $1,000. A small original piece she donated to “Summer at the Oscars” sold for $2,000 and was likely a steal.

 

After growing up in a nightmare, 19-year-old Inocente is living her dream as an artist. Her dream of living in her own apartment is also a reality. Like her work on canvas, in person she radiates brightness. She gives you a new perspective of what a homeless person is – and can be.

 

Asked how the rest of us can best help the homeless, besides making donations to worthy causes, Inocente’s answer is simple: “Show them you believe in them.”

 

Taking the same sidewalk back to my car after the screening, the dandelion did not go unnoticed under my foot. This time I saw its yellow bloom and green stalk poking up through a crack. What strength to survive its cement hardship. And what beauty.

 

Indeed, it was not a weed. It was a sunflower by van Gogh. No, by Inocente.

*

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com or through his website www.WoodyWoodburn.com.