Tag Archives: Santa Paula

Facing a Tragedy, the “805” Unites

by Woody

1StrawberriesCoverWooden&Me_cover_PRFor a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” mail a check for $25 to:

Woody Woodburn

400 Roosevelt Court

Ventura, CA 93003

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Facing a Tragedy, the “805” Unites

A dear friend, having gone through hell and back, once told me a startling thing: she would not wish cancer upon an enemy, yet she was thankful for having had it.

Thankful? For tsunami-like waves of nausea caused by chemotherapy; for sickly weight loss and the loss of hair from radiation treatments; for bone-deep pain and ultra-marathon-like fatigue; for haunting fear?

Yes, she insisted, she was thankful for it all because through the tribulation she learned how strong she was. She found out who her truest friends were. And she had gained a new perspective on life.

As a result, she reframed her view of cancer as being a gift instead of a curse. Other cancer survivors have told me a similar thing.1help

As the days and weeks and now the first month have passed since the Thomas Fire metastasized across our county, consuming swaths of Santa Paul, Fillmore, Ventura, Ojai, and beyond, in pitiless cancer-like fashion, I have been reminded of my friend’s reframing.

I offer a similar reframing not callously, especially considering there were lives lost. Nor do I say it distantly, for my father’s hillside home of four decades was among those that became ashes and a standing chimney.

Rather, in addition to being a calamity, I can see the Thomas Fire as a cancer-survivor’s-like blessing. At the lowest of times, our communities stood their tallest. As homes were razed, we pulled together like an Amish barn raising.

Seemingly everyone became a Good Samaritan. Neighbors woke neighbors in the dark of a night eerily lighted by an orange glow and helped one another evacuate.

Strangers gave rides to strangers; trucked the horses of strangers to safety; opened their homes and offered spare beds to strangers.

So many donations of clothes came in to evacuation centers that new offerings finally had to be turned away.

A single illustration of generosity speaks as a wider example. Thirteen families, all renters at a mobile home park and all without contents insurance, lost everything they owned.

A humanitarian made a request at his church and on social media for replacement beds, blankets and bedding, sofas, dining tables, kitchenware, coffee makers, microwave ovens, TVs, air purifiers. Thirteen microwaves appeared the next day.

And everything else listed above, and more, for all 13 families was donated within 48 hours. Toys to give the affected children a semblance of a merry holiday also poured in.

Similar narratives were the rule, not the exception. Moreover, the Samaritan spirit continues.

It is not just people helping people, but businesses have been involved too. To mention one local business that has provided free services, free meals, free clothing, free this and free that, to those whose homes burned down – and to those who were evacuated long-term and also to the heroes who fought the fires – would be to leave out a hundred other businesses that did likewise.

The other day, I read a story shared by a man riding the “L” in Chicago that struck home. He was on his commute, on a bone-chilling Midwest day, and saw a homeless man seated across the train car.

The homeless man’s clothes were basically rags, his sneakers had holes, and blood seeped through his socks of which he wore three or four pairs in a losing effort to keep his feet warm.

A younger man entered the train, saw the homeless man, and did not hesitate to do something noble: he took off his own shoes – actually nearly new, expensive, heavy, black leather boots well-suited for Chicago’s harsh winters – and gave them to the older man in need.

There was more: the younger man pulled a pair of fresh socks from his briefcase and these he also gave the older man, along with some kind words.

Reading the story made my heart sing, and not just because of the obvious good done by one person for another.

The exchange also touched me because the young Samaritan reminded me of Ventura County, our “805” united as one.

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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 Kickstarter Front PhotoCheck 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” …

Grace and Hope in Time of Calamity

by Woody

1StrawberriesCoverWooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upFor a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” mail a check for $25 to:

Woody Woodburn

400 Roosevelt Court

Ventura, CA 93003

* * *

Grace and Hope in Time of Calamity

I write and file this column midweek, when the fierce and pitiless winds are at a lull, and so the drama will have resumed by the time you read this. All the same, these sentiments will surely have been reinforced when the devilish Santa Anas roared anew.

I write these words after returning from a middle-of-the-night evacuation and, blessedly, finding my home still standing.

I write this bleary-eyed – and with tears in my eyes.1venturastrong

I write this with a heart that feels like it has been stomped upon by a marching band wearing army boots, yet I write this also with a heart filled with love and pride and hope because of the way my longtime hometown has responded to the home-and-heirlooms-purloining Thomas Fire.

Ventura, perhaps as never before, has shown itself to be We-tura.

So, too, has this same spirit emerged in Sant-Us Paula and Our-jai, and all our local communities, as the Thomas Fire scorched a path like General Sherman marching from Atlanta to the sea during the Civil War.

Indeed, when I write “I” here it truly echoes of “we” because the Thomas Fire touched us all in similar ways.

As mentioned, I (we) had to evacuate when flames crested a hill from the north and encroached Foothill Road with our home mere yards across the two-lane blacktop on the south. At 3 a.m. I (we) knocked on front doors and honked car horns to make sure our neighbors were awake and we all got the hell out of Hell’s way.

I (we) had countless friends, co-workers and family members who likewise needed to evacuate and worried about them one and all, as well as about those we do not know at all.

I (we) felt an earthquake rattle my soul learning about dear and longtime friends who lost their homes in Clearpoint and, as the fire surged on, in Ondulando.

I (we) learned of more friends, further down the fire’s path, who similarly were suddenly made homeless.

I (we) worried about relatives – me, about my father’s home at the ocean’s-view-crest of Ondulando and, below in the same tract, my eldest brother’s home and the home of one of my nieces. These fears extended a mile away to my other older brother’s home that lay directly in the evacuated path of this vicious monster.

I (we) hoped against hope all my family members’ homes – along with everyone’s homes – would survive.

Finally, I (we) learned of these fates, one by one: My niece’s home escaped unharmed, as did my older brother’s home. Meanwhile, the fire made a Pickett’s Charge-like charge and overtook the backyard fence of my eldest brother’s home before being defeated.

As for the fate of my 91-year-old father’s home, a home he has lived in for 44 years, his home that holds so much of my late mom? Answer: a solemn shake of the head, “no.” It is gone. Memories from half of a long lifetime disappearing in flame and smoke in a cruel instant.

Thinking of my father and my (our) friends, co-workers, neighbors and everyone who lost their homes, I (we) feel “Home” Survivor Guilt.

Why did my (our) home survive and theirs did not?

1friemanThere but for the grace of god, and the direction of the fickle winds, goes my (our) home instead of theirs.

Grace certainly was on abundant display. Our family members and friends naturally offered one another helping hands and shelter, food and drinking water, hugs and compassion – and so did strangers offer these same things to strangers.

In other words, in Latin, E pluribus unum – “out of many, one.”

Firefighters, as always, were heroes. In truth, however, most everyone rose to the occasion, standing tall and together like our famous “Two Trees. ” It seems a fitting simile, for while our iconic landmark was charred by the Thomas Fire, what it symbolizes – standing side by side as We-Trees – remains unconquerable.

I (we) have never been more heartbroken for my hometown, and yet conversely my heart has never been filled fuller for We-tura.

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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 Kickstarter Front PhotoCheck 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” …