Monthly Archives: June 2013

Column: Capturing Time

by Woody

Old Shoebox Is A Time Machine

 

            While the Great Pyramid of Giza served as arguably history’s earliest time capsule dating back to 2584 BC, the Crypt of Civilization – a stainless steel vault welded shut in 1940 in a basement at Oglethorpe University in Georgia – is considered the first official one in modern times.

 

            An estimated 15,000 registered time capsules have since been created, including in Tulsa where in 1957 a brand new Plymouth Belvedere (filled with other artifacts of the day) was buried to be opened down future’s road.ClockPic

 

Closer to home, in 1966 the City of San Buenaventura marked its Centennial with a time capsule buried by City Hall’s front steps and in 1976 a second vessel was added commemorating the U.S. Bicentennial, both to be opened a century thereafter.

 

            Inside my home is a newer time capsule. Specifically, in my son’s bedroom closet, top shelf, back corner, where a Nike shoebox has gathered more than a decade’s dust. The box is painted orange, his favorite color as a boy, with black spots to make it look like a cheetah. The lid reads: TIME CAPSULE 2000.

 

            The 10-year-old boy has grown into a young man and together we open it for the first time in 13 years. The time capsule in truth is a time machine. I can imagine no single assignment led by his fourth-grade teacher Therese Yasukochi – “Miss Y” to her students – that could have proved a worthier keepsake.

 

            Inside, on top of all the other items, is a size-5 orange-and-black Nike racing shoe. This is fitting because competitive running was already then his passion – and remains so to this day.

 

            Also prophetically are 30 index cards with color-pencil drawings for the cover and each chapter of the book “Island of the Blue Dolphins.” He obviously included these because this was far more than an assignment, but rather a calling that would see him minor in Painting in college.

 

            Too, there is a Nike wrist sweatband – of significance because the boy wore one every single day, sunup to sundown, through the end of middle school. A basketball card for the “2000 VYBA Bulls” reveals the vital stats of “Point Guard Greg Woodburn – Age 10; 4 Feet 9 Inches; 70 Pounds; Favorite Player Kobe Bryant.”

 

            Also within: a snapshot of his new puppy, a cute boxer puppy named Gar; a hand-drawn family tree; a short essay written in excellent script, if not spelling to match, about a field trip to the Olivas Adobe ranchero (“We took a toor of the house. After that we made adobe briks and got reel muddy!); an origami crane made with orange (of course) paper; and Lego Star Wars.

 

“My 4th Grade Album” is a time capsule within the time capsule. “The first day of school” wrote “Miss Y” on the first page below a picture of the boy, sitting at his desk and smiling like it is Christmas morning. Other photos are of fun and friends and field trips, including the “reel muddy” fun mess at Olivas Adobe.

 

I bring this up, and went looking in my son’s closet in the first place, because Ventura’s City Hall is filling a time capsule to commemorate its Centennial. The airtight 14-inch steel cube, scheduled to remain sealed until 2113, will join the previous two beneath the landmark building’s front steps.

 

“Help us capture time,” invites Richard Newsham. “It’s a perfect way to write yourself and your family into history and make a connection with future generations.”

 

The deadline for the public to donate artifacts (to Room 206 at City Hall) is July 10. Items already collected include yearbooks and original artwork, poetry and personal letters, scans of historic documents and, of course, an iPhone. You can also email suggestions of what you think should be included to Newsham at rnewsham@ci.ventura.ca.us.

 

Obviously, I think a newsprint (which might be extinct by 2113) copy of The Star is a must – and, selfishly at that, a Saturday edition when my column runs. There is no question that this time capsule, like all time capsules, is a wonderful undertaking. My only quibble is that they should not be sealed for 100 years before opening.

 

I think 13 years is about perfect.

 

*

 

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” is available for pre-order at: www.WoodyWoodburn.com

 

Column: Murphy’s (& Woody’s) Law

by Woody

 

What hath Murphy’s Law wrought?

 

            Seven years ago, after a successful 150-year run, Western Union sent the last telegram in U.S. history. The first telegram, sent by Samuel Morse famously read: “What hath God wrought?”

 

            On July 14, India’s state-owned telecom company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited will send the world’s last telegram. I don’t know what it will say, but “God hath wrought text messaging” is my suggestion.

 

            Or, perhaps, Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. STOP.”

 

            Woody’s Law, meanwhile – one of them, anyway – states that when something expensive breaks it will occur a few weeks after the warranty expired.

 

            Perhaps even more frustrating, and more frequent, is when something still under warranty breaks I will have lost the warranty form, sales receipt, original packaging or whatever else the company in question demands in order to honor its contract.

 

            Such was the case a couple days ago when a seven-year-old mattress guaranteed for 20 years suddenly turned as soggy as mashed potatoes. Couldn’t the company at least pay for my visit to the chiropractor to have my wrenched back adjusted?

 

*

 

            Other people had worse encounters this week with Mr. Murphy. Marissa Powell, for example.

 

Asked a question about women in America earning less pay than men for equal work, Miss Utah USA’s train of thought derailed like an Amtrak in a hurricane; her eyes seemed to spin like the colored pinwheel when a computer freezes; and when her mind finally rebooted her response included: “We need to see how to . . . (panicked pause) . . . create education better.”

 

            Not the most stellar answer in pageant history, but Rick Perry, for one, better not be laughing at her expense. I mean at least she was running for Miss USA and not President USA.

 

            Mr. Woodburn certainly is not laughing at Miss Utah. I have the luxury of reading over, re-writing and editing my words before they go to print for public scrutiny and still I often seem to need “education better.”

 

*

            Speaking of spinning rainbow pinwheels, another of Woody’s Laws is that your computer will freeze up right before you decide to save two hours worth of work.

 

*

            Sometimes, thankfully, Murphy’s Law takes a punch on the nose.

 

            Ventura College gets many things wrong, from cutting popular classes to locking the running track from public use, but it got it totally right and set a lofty example for all California community colleges – in fact, all universities – by recently inducting Beck Santillan Hull into the VC Athletic Hall of Fame. She became the first in her position ever honored by a California school. Let’s hope she is not the last.

 

            Hull did not make headlines by swinging a tennis racket or golf club or swishing 3-pointers. Rather, she was an athletic-specific counselor who made sure Pirate athletes hit the books as hard as the weights and excelled in the classroom so they would be eligible for the playing fields and courts.

 

The life lessons Hull instilled over her 28-year career at VC will have a positive impact on the lives of student-athletes – “my kids” she affectionately called them – long after their newspaper sports clippings have yellowed with age.

 

*

 

The CIF-Southern Section, meanwhile, suffered brain-freeze when it named Rio Mesa/Thousand Oaks high product Marion Jones to its “100 Greatest Athletes” list.

 

Including the disgraced sprinter who was stripped of her Olympic medals for using performance-enhancing drugs is shameful. If she cheated on the world stage, why should we believe she ran clean in high school?

 

*

 

            Sometimes I get the last laugh on Woody’s Laws. Such as midweek when our three-year-old hot-water tank burst.

 

            Sure, it happened at nighttime when a plumber would charge extra to come out – but it didn’t happen while we were gone so that the garage would have become a Great Lake instead of merely a pond before being discovered.

 

            And, of course, I couldn’t find the 10-year warranty – but our plumber had it on file so no worries!

 

            Well, one: the manufacturer has since “improved” the model and hit us with an “upgrade fee.”

 

Murphy’s Law gets the last laugh. STOP.

 

*

 

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” is available for pre-order at: www.WoodyWoodburn.com

 

 

 

 

 

Column: Readers & Trees

by Woody

Readers Branch Off With Tree Memories

 

A great many readers responded to my recent column about a majestic old tree I saw get cut down, including Jim O’Grady quoting my great predecessor in this space:

 

“In 2006 Chuck Thomas wrote a column titled: ‘County’s most endangered
species’ bemoaning the replacement of so many trees for condos,” O’Grady wrote. “He ends his piece with the following parody of Joyce Kilmer’s poem ‘Trees’:

 

I think that we shall never see, / A condo as lovely as a tree; / And when each orchard is a mall, / We may never see a tree at all.

 

Figures Chuck would outshine my 700 words in just one stanza.

 

*

 

“I think ‘Trees’ should be required reading for everyone,” echoed Virginia Scotland. “At breakfast I asked my adult son did he remember a favorite tree?

 

“He said when he was a small lad he remembered an almond tree we had in our back yard when we were living in Lindsey, Calif. and all the orange trees surrounding us and walking on all the fallen blossoms like walking in the snow.

 

“I am 86 years old and I still remember climbing up pepper trees so full of ants and think this is where the term ‘ants in your pants’ started.”

 

Scotland concluded, and so very rightly: “We are so fortunate to live in Ventura, a little slice of heaven with ocean and agriculture on all sides and plenty of trees.”

 

 *

 

 

Ed Campbell of Ventura also had a grove of tree memories to share:

 

“I recall all the many, many trees that have influenced my life. The first tree that comes to mind is a Jacaranda. A young boy in 1946, age 7, fell from this tree, then about 20-feet tall, now some 70 years later 35-plus-feet tall, and very much alive. I ended up with a neck injury and now fused vertebrae – and a broken bit of pride as when I fell, I hit my wagon wheel below and broke it off.

 

“Most memorable tree during my youth was a five-crown walnut tree in our back yard. It so loved me when I climbed on its long flexible braches and shook of the ripe walnuts in the fall.”

 

Campbell’s love of trees continued into adulthood.

 

“Around 1985 I planted two white pine trees on our side yard in CT with my two little girls,” he shared. “When I last ‘Goggled’ the old homestead they were about 30-feet, and doing fine, and I am sure home to may birds.”

 

             More recently, he planted a pair of Red Leaf Forest Phoebes at his Ventura home. “Some 10 years later and about 20-feet tall, they are the pride of the block,” he says. “They are an eastern tree, therefore the leaves turn brown from blood red in the fall; come mid-February, tiny pink flowers pop open, to be followed by tiny heart shape leaves of red, the full glory by May 1, with lots of shade.”

 

*

 

            “Your column about the ancient tree that was felled brought back many
happy memories, including camping in the Redwoods as a child with my family,” wrote Joy Hamlat of Camarillo.

 

“My mother will turn 100 soon. I am in the process of going through things
at what has been the Oxnard family home since 1954. In the yard at the old family home is a large Jacaranda tree with a rugged trunk that I couldn’t begin to reach around. I have a photo of my younger brother, Jeff, and me beside the tree almost 60 years ago when the tree was only a skinny twig!

 

“Each morning, I deliver breakfast to many hungry sparrows and doves who

 

flock to the bird feeder hanging from the tree.”

 

            Joy concluded with a story about a different tree – her Family Tree. Last month she celebrated the addition of two new branches: the birth of a grandson to her daughter and a grandson to her son.

 

“It amazes me,” Joy writes, “that almost exactly a century spans the difference
in age between my mom, born June 12, 1913, and the two new little ones in May 2013.”

 

            Talk about a beautiful growing tree.

* 

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Woody’s new book, WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” is available at: www.WoodyWoodburn.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Column: Dads, Sons and Daughters

by Woody

Ignorance, Bliss, Dads, Sons and Daughters

 

Father’s Day arrives tomorrow, so it seems apropos to begin today with a hallmark quote from yesteryear. Actually nearly 140 yesteryears ago when Mark Twain famously observed: “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”

 

Charles Wadworth expanded on Twain’s thought, noting: “By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong.”

Dallas and Greg, who make being a dad so great!

Dallas and Greg, who make being a dad so great!

 

Clarence Budington Kelland, a 20th century novelist who once described himself as “the best second-rate writer in America,” made a first-rate compliment about his own father: “He didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.”

 

Similarly, from Mario Cuomo: “I watched a small man with thick calluses on both hands work fifteen and sixteen hours a day. I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example.”

 

From attribution unknown comes this eloquent pearl: “One night a father overheard his son pray: ‘Dear God, Make me the kind of man my Daddy is.’ Later that night, the Father prayed, ‘Dear God, Make me the kind of man my son wants me to be.’ ”

 

The rock band Yellowcard offers this lovely lyric about the power of a dad as a role model: “Father I will always be / that same boy who stood by the sea / and watched you tower over me / now I’m older I wanna be the same as you.”

 

PBS book talk show host Barry Kibrick told me of raising his two sons: “I never worried about over-praising them and building up their self-esteem too much because there are plenty of people in the world who will try to tear them down.”

 

Author Jan Hutchins had a similarly wise dad, sharing: “When I was a kid, my father told me every day, ‘You’re the most wonderful boy in the world, and you can do anything you want to.’ ”

 

Or, as my good friend, author and coach Wayne Bryan advises parents: “Shout your praise to the rooftops and if you must criticize, drop it like a dandelion. On second thought, don’t criticize at all.”

 

Hall of Fame baseball player Harmon Killebrew apparently had a Hall of Fame Dad, the son recalling this: “My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, ‘You’re tearing up the grass.’

 

“ ‘We’re not raising grass,’ Dad would reply. ‘We’re raising boys.’ ”

 

A great attitude for dads of daughters, too.

 

Speaking of girls, John Mayer strikes the right chord with these lines of song: “Fathers, be good to your daughters. You are the god and the weight of her world.”

 

            As for fathers and sons, 19th century French poet Marceline Desbordes-Valmore asked rhetorically: “Are we not like two volumes of one book?” German poet Johann Schiller knew these two “volumes” need not share similar DNA, noting: “It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.”

 

Getting further to the heart of the matter, John Wooden, who believed “love” is the most important word in the English language, said: “The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”

 

Another basketball coach, Jim Valvano, shared one of the secrets to his success when he noted: “My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person – he believed in me.”

 

On the topic of “gifts,” a Jewish Proverb states: “When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry.”

 

Here’s some good advice from Bill Cosby when it comes time to open a gift Sunday: “Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope.”

 

*

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Woody’s new book, WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” is available for pre-order at: www.WoodyWoodburn.com

 

 

 

Column: Grand Grad Advice

by Woody

Peer Muses Share Graduation Wisdom

 

            Art Linkletter, who had a teaching degree but left the classroom to make his career as a comedian on radio and later a newfangled invention called television, was perhaps at his best when interviewing children on “Kids Say the Darndest Things.”

 

            In truth, the show could have been called “Kids Say the Funniest Things.”

 

            This grainy black-and-white flashback came to mind the other day when, while researching something I cannot even now recall, I by chance – more specifically by wonderful, happy, serendipitous chance – happened across a website filled with insight and beauty and sage truth. Gradpic1

 

            The web page could be called “Kids Say the Wisest Things.” Instead, it is more appropriately and elegantly titled “Calliopeia” in honor of Calliope – the “Fair Voiced” or “Beautiful Voiced” muse of epic poetry in Greek mythology.

 

The daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne, Calliope is believed to have been Homer’s muse and the inspiration for the Odyssey and the Iliad, no less. Her lofty pedestal rose into the ozone.

 

Thanks to “Calliopeia” and its posted epigrams – “a pithy saying or remark expressing an idea in a clever, memorable and amusing way” – written by high school senior English students for their teacher “Bobbi,” Calliope today serves also as the muse for graduation wisdom. This is all the more fitting since Calliope is generally depicted holding a writing tablet or a book, or both, and wearing a crown of gold. In other words, she seems dressed to give a high school commencement address.

 

Here, then, is some advice for a dear friend of mine who graduates from a local high school next week – and indeed for the members of every high school and college and middle school and elementary school Class of 2013.

 

Ashley, with the first clarion call:

 

“Love is the purest bliss and the most agonizing heartache. A life without love is not lived, only endured.”

 

How can an 18-year-old be such a wise old soul?

 

The genius of Aubrey’s imagery and insight:

 

“Friendship is the jelly on the toast of life. Love is the blanket that keeps your heart from growing cold.”

 

Comfort food and warmth goes a long way, especially when shared with a friend.

 

Lorianne is undoubtedly another kind, warm friend:

 

“Friends are like the ties in a quilt. The more you tie, the better the quilt stays together.”

 

Robert Fulghum doesn’t say it any prettier in his essay “These are the things I learned (in Kindergarten)” with the line, “When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.”

 

Derek, humble and noble:

 

“Love is the word we use to encompass all of the good feelings that we can’t describe.”

 

That extremely aptly describes the indescribable.

 

And Kerrie equally describes love as attentively, and as purely, as any poet: “Love is what helps you notice the stars and forget about the darkness of the night.”

 

Hilary’s empathy is a lesson for us all:

 

“If I cannot mold myself to how I wish to be, how can I expect others to be entirely to my liking?”

 

I, for one, wish to be more like her.

 

The sage perception of Jared the cultivator:

 

“People do not nearly esteem highly enough the dirt that makes the flowers beautiful.”

 

Shakespeare’s prose, “The earth gas music for those who listen,” could sing a duet with the high school bard’s astute thought.

 

Jenny’s words similarly cause me pause: “A rose looks beautiful in a vase but lives in a garden.” This contemplation, like the emotions of a graduation ceremony, brings me near tears and nearer to enlightenment.

 

And lastly, Marissa, the old soul, reminds us: “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the weak voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I’ll try again tomorrow.’  ”

 

            At the end of the day, thanks to these poetic students who are also great teachers – and, in truth, thanks to all the courageous young people in all the Classes of 2013 – I know our tomorrows will be in good hands. The fair-voiced Calliope would be pleased.

 

 

*

 

Woody Woodburn’s new book, WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” is available for pre-order at: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1138392258/wooden-and-me-book-and-e-book

 

            Woody writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com