Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.
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In honor of National Reading Month, which was designated in honor of Theodor Seuss Geisel, more famously known as Dr. Suess, who was born on March 2 in 1904, let me share a couple of personal book tales.
The other day, in a major bookstore on a prime shelf and displayed front-facing like a bestseller, I spotted my debut novel “The Butterfly Tree.”
“And what happened, then?” you might ask, reciting from a Dr. Suess book which continues: “Well, in Whoville they say that the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day”—similarly, I confess, did my head grow-grow-grow.
Shortly thereafter, however, a sharp needle popped my overinflated ego when I came upon another book of mine—my memoir “Wooden & Me” about my longtime friendship with Coach John Wooden – in a secondhand bookshop, in the rear of the labyrinth of stacks on a high shelf, only its spine visible sandwiched between two other orphaned books.
Out of curiously I looked inside to see how much it was selling for and despite being “signed by the author,” as noted in light pencil in the top right corner of the title page, it was marked at less than half the cover price new.
Adding a bruise, the author—me—had personalized the inscription “For Lorraine” and suddenly I did not like her even though I have no idea who she is.
It was all a good reminder of this cautionary maxim from Coach Wooden: “Talent is God given, be humble; fame is man-given, be thankful; conceit is self-given, be careful.”
Frankly, the surest anecdote for conceit is to grow up with two older brothers, or so I believe from boyhood experience. If I had a great youth basketball game and bragged about how many points I scored, Jimmy and Doug, five and three years my elders, would see to it I did not score a single basket the next time we played hoops in the driveway.
Similarly, when I won a tennis tournament and proudly put my first-ever trophy on display on the fireplace mantle in the family room, by day’s end it had it magically moved into my bedroom. When I later repeated the transgression, my brothers put much bigger football trophies on either side of my suddenly puny-looking one.
Lesson learned.
A number of years ago, when I was writing sports for a newspaper in Torrance, the advertising department ran a billboard campaign with me juggling a variety of balls, two golf clubs, a tennis racket and hockey stick, with the proclamation: “Columnist Woody Woodburn: He Writes. He Scores. South Bay’s Best.”
Because I was commuting from Ventura, no one in my family saw the billboards. Until, that is, the managing editor mailed me a framed photo of one. My wife and two kids were mildly upset I had not told them about the ads.
“You never asked me if I was on a billboard,” I joked in reply.
In truth, the thought of coming home and announcing, “Guess what? I’m on a couple of giant billboards!” never crossed my mind. Oh brother(s), no! That impulse was wrested from me at age ten.
Had these billboards been in Ventura, Jim and Doug, to make sure my head in real life did not grow three sizes, would have been tempted to climb up in the dark of night and paint a mustache on me or change “He Scores” to “He Stinks!”
And so, instead of being hurt by faceless Lorraine, I am just happy the signed book hadn’t originally belonged to Jimmy or Doug.
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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn
Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.
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Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.