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Holiday Newsletter:
2020 Was Unbelievable!
Dear readers and friends,
Welcome to my annual Holiday Newsletter. What an unbelievably amazing year 2020 has been for our family! I’m sure it has been likewise for you and yours.
To begin, my wife and I did not take a long-awaited trip to her homeland of Italy. We did not enjoy a romantic gondola ride through the canals of Venice. We were not left breathless by Michelangelo’s masterpiece ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. And we did not taste amazing wines in the hills of Tuscany.
I wish you could have seen the stunning red-lava views when we did not take a white-knuckle helicopter ride over the volcanoes on Hawaii’s Big Island.
In April, my son, a former college distance runner, did not return to the Boston Marathon and win it this time.
My son’s fiancé, meanwhile, did not become a Le Cordon Bleu chef and start her own catering company – her oxtail joloff for Thanksgiving was amazing, by the way – as a fun little side hustle.
In May, the party celebrating my 60th trip around the sun did not have a hundred friends and family members traveling from microbrewery to microbrewery throughout Ventura County tasting special limited edition beers created in my honor.
Also in May, I did not travel to Columbia University to accept the Pulitzer Prize.
Speaking of Pulitzer Prize winners, not seeing “Hamilton” on Broadway in front-row seats was everything you can imagine.
Our precocious granddaughter, Maya, did not receive an early acceptance to Yale; or to Harvard; or even to pre-school.
Our son-in-law, aka Mr. Environment, who cycles to his Green Job every day, did not win the Tour de France. It was almost as exciting as the time he did not make all 14 traffic lights without getting a single red on his ride home from the office.
“What is, Win seven episodes and $219,000?” That’s right, my wife did not appear on “Jeopardy!”
In a discovery almost as amazing as James Marshall discovering gold at Sutter’s Mill, while visiting an estate sale looking for a typewriter I did not find – and buy for just $2 – a 1909 T206 Honus Wagner baseball card worth $3 million.
Speaking of big money, Paramount Pictures did not buy the option for an undisclosed amount (between you and me, it was a lot!) for my new novel “The Mystic Table: A Journey of Seven Generations” which was not published by HarperCollins in 2020.
Not traveling to Wimbledon to watch the Bryan Brothers not play on Centre Court for the final time in their storied doubles career is a memory my entire family will never forget.
All of us, including 2-year-old Maya in child-carrier backpack, did not climb to the peak of Mount Rainer, or Mount Whitney, or Two Trees.
Not to brag, but unlike the rest of my family – and every teacher in America – I did not master using Zoom.
My wife and I will forever remember the time we did not renew our wedding vows to celebrate our golden anniversary (it was actually only our 38th, but stay-and-sheltering during the coronavirus pandemic has made this year seem like 12) under the Eiffel Tower on a warm evening with the moon rising and the gentlest of spring rains falling. It truly was not magical.
Lastly, my daughter did not travel to The Swedish Academy in Stockholm to accept the Nobel Prize in Literature for her debut YA novel “The Best Week That Never Happened.”
Yes, indeed, 2020 was The Best Year That Never Happened!
Happy 2021 to you and yours,
The Woodys
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Woody Woodburn 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. His books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.
Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …
- Personalized signed copies are at WoodyWoodburn.com