Monthly Archives: May 2015

Column: A Few Things I Know

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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A Few Things I Now Know

After blowing out enough birthday candles to grill dinner over earlier this week, here are a few things I have come to know . . .

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1-MurFace

Like most dogs, Murray is nothing less than magnificent!

Despite all the great things said about them, dogs are still underrated.

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Chocolate is overrated. Just kidding.

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Don’t save the good china for special occasions only.

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People, not things, matter.

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Batteries in a smoke detector only get low enough to cause ear-piercing warning BEEPS! in the middle of the night, never during the day.

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The final 25 percent of power in a cell phone battery goes faster than the first 75 percent.

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Never pass up a chance to look at the ocean, a sunrise or sunset, stars on a clear night or a masterpiece painting such as Starry Night.

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Breaking bread together really does help break down barriers.

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You will pretty much never regret spending money to travel – even a “bad” trip will give you some good memories to last a lifetime.

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Robert Frost was right: take the road less traveled by.

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The hassles of air travel – security lines, flight delays, lack of leg room, etc. – are greatly overemphasized when you consider how miraculous it is that you can pretty much decide on a destination in the morning and be anywhere in America by this evening or in the world by tomorrow.

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Travel by Clipper ship, Conestoga wagon or even a Model T, now those had hassles.

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Who you travel with is far more important than where you travel.

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Spend as much time as you can with people who lift you up and as little as possible with those who pull you down.

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Double-knot your shoelaces.

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Procrastination isn’t one of the seven deadly sins so don’t beat yourself up over it – at least not until tomorrow.

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Maya Angelou was right: when you leave home, you take home with you. Also, try to be the rainbow in somebody’s cloud.

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Batman is the greatest superhero ever – well, behind moms.

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Call me old-fashioned, but I think guys shouldn’t wear hats indoors and should open doors for women.

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James M. Barrie, author of “Peter Pan”, was right: “Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.”

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Roller coasters and high diving boards are more thrilling when you are a kid – but just barely.

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A lot of movies are longer than they should be and most hugs are too short.

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The experts who say you can’t be your kid’s friend, even when they are young, are dead wrong. That’s my experience anyway.

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If you can choose one thing to be world class at, make it the fine art of friendship.

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The African proverb is right: “There are two lasting gifts you can give your child: one is roots, the other is wings.”

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Writing a thank-you note is always a few minutes well spent.

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Kindness is more powerful than penicillin.

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It’s not really a favor if you make the recipient feel like you are doing a favor.

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My friend Wayne Bryan is right: “If you don’t make an effort to help others less fortunate than you, then you’re just wasting your time on Earth.”

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A positive attitude will positively carry you a long way.

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It takes worn out running shoes to finish a marathon; worn out brushes before you can paint a masterpiece; and well-worn pots and pans to create a seasoned chef.

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“Like” is, um, like, an overworked word; “love” an underused one.

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Gratitude is an underworked emotion.

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John Wooden was right about most things, including: Things turn out best for those who make the best of the way things turn out; Study and work hard, but make time for play too; and, Make today your masterpiece.

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We should all make a wish and blow out a candle 365 times a year because every day is a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be celebrated.

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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-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

 

 

Column: Masterpiece Grads

by Woody

New Grads, Create A Masterpiece Day (And Repeat)

Dear Class of 2015, I am honored to have been invited (albeit by myself) to address you here today.

Michelangelo, when asked how he had created one of his masterpiece sculptures, replied simply: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”1angel

Creating your own masterpiece life, dear graduates, as you journey forward requires a similar process: You must see the angel – your passion – and then set it free.

For Michelangelo, this meant chipping away the pieces of marble that did not look like the angel or the horse or David. In our lives, this means chipping away the distractions and challenges and even the negative people who are preventing us from achieving our dreams.

In addition to being sculptors, you are also painters who create your masterpiece by adding brushstokes of color to the canvas. In other words, by adding determination and patience and love, to name just three key hues.

For good reason my dear mentor John Wooden advised focusing on creating your masterpiece day and not your masterpiece life. A masterpiece sculpture is created one chisel strike at a time; a masterpiece painting one brushstroke at a time; a masterpiece novel one keystroke at a time. So is a masterpiece life – private and professional – created one masterful day at a time, one after another, until they add up to masterpiece weeks, months, years.

To focus on a masterpiece life, or even a masterpiece year, is too daunting. Better to keep in mind this additional wisdom from Coach Wooden: “Little things add up to big things.”

A parable about a starfish emphasizes the big power of little acts. It was a beautiful Southern California morning and a beachcomber was walking along the sand that was littered with kelp and driftwood from a violent storm the night before. In the distance he noticed a man bend down to pick something up and then toss it into the ocean.

Every few steps, the man repeated this calisthenic: stop, bend, stand, toss. But what was he throwing, the beachcomber wondered: Driftwood sticks? Broken seashells? Skipping stones?

As the two morning walkers neared each other, the beachcomber finally realized the man was picking up starfish that, by the hundreds, had been washed ashore by the violent storm’s high surf and left stranded.

The beachcomber could not help but laugh at the other man’s futile efforts. “You’re just wasting your time,” he said. “There are too far many starfish for you to make a difference before they die.”1gradpic

“Maybe,” the man replied as he gently tossed another starfish into the waves. “But to this one I’m making a world of difference.”

As you venture out into the world, Class of 2015, keep an eye out for “starfish” who need your help.

Before closing, I would like to share a passage near the end of Ray Bradbury’s classic novel, Fahrenheit 451: “Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.”

These words remind me of a poem by my grandfather Ansel, handwritten on the title page of his medical college textbook Modern Surgery and dated Oct. 1, 1919, less than a year before Bradbury was born:

“The worker dies, but the work lives on / Whether a picture, a book, or a clock

“Ticking the minutes of life away / For another worker in metal or rock

“My work is with children and women and men / Not iron, not brass, not wood

“And I hope when I lay my stethoscope down / That my Chief will call it good.”

By finding your passion and work that you want to live on, dear graduates, and by creating your masterpiece day, over and again, in the end your Chief will call it good.

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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-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Column: Messing With Hangers

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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Clothes On Floor Is Hanging Offense

How many times has your mother, wife or significant other, asked (pronounced “told”) you, “Will you please hang up your clothes!”?

Personally, I lost count at about six – age 6, that is.

Had I a quarter for every time I have heard that exasperated complaint I could hire a butler to pick up after me.1hangers

To be honest, I’m not all that bad at putting clothes away in dresser drawers.

And I’m flat out good at putting my clothes away on chairs. I can drape, layer and stockpile clothes enough for a week on a single chair and another week’s worth on the seat and handlebars of an exercise bike. A circus performer spinning plates on sticks should have such a gift of balance.

But I have yet to master the art of using clothes hangers. I haven’t checked my symptoms on Web M.D. but I think I might be afflicted with “hangerphobia” or perhaps even “hangerexia nervosa.”

Males are especially susceptible to both Oscar Madison-like maladies, although females are not immune. Teenage girls are proof of this; spiders and snakes frighten many less than handling do hangers.

Let’s face it, hangers can be very scary lurking in dark closets, hanging like one-legged bats with wings spread before attacking unsuspecting hands. Moreover, they often strike in pairs, groups and bunches.

Unlike socks that mysteriously disappear in the dryer, hangers, like rabbits, seemingly multiply overnight. Two explanations for this phenomenon are that hangers are reincarnated lost socks or perhaps hangers simply have no natural predators to thin the herd.

Well, they now have one – me!

Just once I would like to reach into my bedroom closet and grab a single hanger and pull it out without 13 cousin hangers clamping onto my wrist like a school of hungry piranha.

Hangers apparently thought Ben Franklin was talking about them when he said, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Separating the wire pretzels, which always seem in the midst of a spirited game of Twister, is no simple task. Rubik’s Cube is far easier to solve. Nerves of steel alone won’t suffice. Patience and reason are all but useless.

A short temper, however, helps. Brute force is what hangers most respect. A wild, shaking motion – similar to the one used to dislodge a piece of gum from your fingertip – is the most effective method for separating clustered hangers.

After you finish playing 52-hanger pickup, you must select the right hanger for the specific job. This is no small task as the variety of hanger designs is matched only by the curses they invoke.

Heavy and sturdy. Thin and frail. Metal, wood, plastic and composites of the three. Some swivel, some don’t. But all raise one’s blood pressure, especially the thief-proof hotel hangers.

Thin wire hangers are ill-suited for anything, sans perhaps T-shirts – and who hangs up a T-shirt? Drape a pair of jeans on one of these wimps and the sucker will bend and sag in the middle.

However, if you have locked your keys in the car, thin is in and this is your best choice for breaking in.

Plastic hangers are fine for most things except men’s jeans, but are also more expensive and, in my experience, prone to being hogged by one’s wife.

Chin-up bar gauged metal hangers rate 5 Stars for everyday use. In fact, three out of four dry cleaners recommend these.

Tailors, on the other hand, endorse the use of wooden hangers for sports coats and dress pants.

Another choice to prevent leaving a crease across pant legs is a hanger with a cardboard tube along the bottom. Unfortunately, the cardboard invariably bends or detaches, causing the pants to fall to the floor and get numerous creases.

My advice is to avoid these fragile hangers and skip the problem altogether by tossing your clothes directly onto the floor yourself.

Indeed, I find these hangers, actually all hangers, annoying – even more so than being asked (told), “Will you please hang up your clothes!”

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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-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Column: Offering My 2 Cents

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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Nobody Asked, But Here’s My 2 Cents

Prince William and Kate didn’t ask me, but while Charlotte Elizabeth Diana is a lovely name, they missed a royal opportunity – all the more so with the planned release this year of the new movie “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” – by not naming their daughter Princess Leia.

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The late Huell Howser is still "California's Gold."

The late Huell Howser is still “California’s Gold.”

Nobody asked me, but watching reruns of the late and beloved Huell Howser’s “California’s Gold” makes me both sad and happy. He was an a-MAZE-ing talent.

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Those “Watch Your Speed” radar signs along some roads are a good idea except when there are two lanes each direction, often with cars traveling different speeds, because there is no way to know which car the radar is flashing a speed for.

Caltrans didn’t ask me, but it needs to paint a marker on the road to show where the radar is focused.

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Does anyone else find it silly when TV news reporters appear to be going though some kind of fraternity hazing by reporting in (pick one: a snow bank, sideways driving rainstorm, high surf crashing over a sea wall, hurricane winds)?

And how about the crazies who “photo-bomb” in the background during these live TV weatherperson initiations?

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Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev admitted guilt in the courtroom before his trial started so does anyone agree with Woody The Dunce that it seemed like a waste of money and time, such as sending the jurors on a field trip to the boat he was hiding in when shot and captured, to drag the proceedings out for weeks – and now doing similarly with the penalty phase?

The judge didn’t ask me, but if the U.S. Supreme Court hears about an hour of testimony for a case, I say this trial and penalty determination should have been limited to the four hours it takes many runners to complete the Boston Marathon.

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Christmas arrived in May for me when I received the kindest email from Paul Olmsted saying my annual “Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive” inspired him to personally give new tennis rackets to the first 50 kids ages 10 and under who sign-up for the upcoming USTA youth lessons program at Buena High School running from June 22 to July 13.

(To register a youth ages 6 to 17, or for more information, call 805-630-9269 or email olmstedp2001@yahoo.com.)

Olmstead, who played at Arizona State and is a former president of the Ventura Tennis Club and assistant coach at Ventura High, says he simply wants to help more kids take up the great sport.

Nobody asked me, but for $10 you can sponsor the signup fee for a kid in need and for and $25 you can also buy an extra gift racket. Checks made out to Ventura Tennis Club can be sent to Ventura Tennis Club, P.O. Box 3005, Ventura, CA 93006.

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The National PTA and National Education Association didn’t ask me, but it says here that Teacher Appreciation Week should have been a full seven days instead of limited to this past Monday through Friday – after all, most teachers spend part of their weekend grading papers and making lesson plans.

Therefore, I encourage everyone to extend the celebration a couple days by sending a letter or email to a teacher who encouraged you; inspired you; helped you turn your life around; in short, who made a life-changing difference in who you are today.

Another great way to say thanks is to make a donation – such as by going to donorschoose.org and searching by ZIP Code – and support a classroom in Ventura County.

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Here is a great thing about being an “adult” (my wife claims I am unqualified to know since I generally behave like I’m 12) – having a generous slice of leftover pumpkin pie for breakfast.

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A handwritten message on a Post-it Note that has been up for a full school year on an otherwise bare refrigerator in the apartment of four grad students I know always makes me smile when I visit: “Don’t forget to smile!”

Nobody asked me, but that’s good advice always.

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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-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Column: Stan Smith, Part II

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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The Rest Of This Story Took A While

Eight weeks ago in this space I shared a cherished memory of being a 10-year-old ball boy for Stan Smith in 1970, two years before he would ascent to being ranked No. 1 in the world. After literally smashing his wooden racket while hitting an overhead smash on match point to win the doubles title with Bob Lutz, Smith gave me the crumpled frame as a souvenir.

Feeling 10 years old again with my boyhood idol, Stan Smith.

Feeling 10 years old again with my boyhood idol, Stan Smith.

To borrow the signature phrase from the late, great radio broadcaster Paul Harvey, “And now the rest of the story . . .”

Last week I was a guest at “An Evening With Stan Smith” fundraising dinner held at the spectacular home of Valerie and Alan Greenberg to honor the former Ojai champion during this year’s 115th annual tennis tournament.

In addition to my lovely wife, I brought along that old broken Wilson Jack Kramer Pro Staff model racket. I have always regretted not asking Smith to autograph it that long-ago summer day in Ohio.

In Ojai, on a spring night, I now hoped to remedy that.

“Hello Mr. Smith. I’m Woody and we met 45 years ago,” I said as introduction. “I was a ball boy at the Buckeye Boys Ranch tournament.”

“I remember you,” Smith warmly joked. “You’ve grown a little taller since then.”

It can be a dicey thing meeting one’s hero. The risk is that in person he or she will fall shy of the image you hold. My boyhood idol measured up even in my adulthood, which is saying something because Smith stands 6-foot-4.

For the next 15 minutes, Smith, still five-set-trim at age 68, regaled me one-on-one with stories of his Hall of Fame career. Of Wimbledon, where he slept in a narrow bed a foot too short for him en route to winning the singles title in 1972.

Of his days at USC, where he won the 1968 NCAA singles championship and partnered with Lutz – who was also on hand this night – to capture two NCAA doubles crowns.

And of Davis Cup play, specifically his match for the ages in 1972 in Bucharest against Ion Tiriac, against eight Romanian line judges, against a head umpire intimidated by the hostile home crowd, against death threats on the U.S. players.

Tiriac’s “out” balls were routinely called in and Smith’s “in” shots called out. Smith got two such bad calls on one single crucial point.

Still, Smith overcame it all and prevailed in five sets to clinch the Cup. Too, he overcame the urge to punch the gamesman Tiraiac rather than shake his hand at the net afterwards. Instead, Smith coolly told him he no longer respected him, turned, and walked away.

Wayne Bryan, emcee for the evening, began his warm introduction of Smith with a roasting that belonged in a comedy club. Smith laughed so hard I half-expected his trademark blonde mustache to slip off his quivering lip.

But when the microphone was in Smith’s hand, as with a racket, he gave better than he got, displaying a wicked sense of humor and playfulness and grace.

SmithAutograph

Finally autographed 45 years later!

Speaking of having a racket in his hand, when I showed Smith the old Pro Staff he smiled and instantly examined it. He explained how he personally nailed the butt cap secure and showed me where he twice tacked the old-school leather grip in place before tightly wrapping it on.

And then his right hand, a paw really for it is huge and strong, wrapped itself around the oversized 4-7/8 grip. All these years later his fingers instinctively found their familiar grooves in the overlapping seams and he squeezed gently, caressingly almost, and waved the Wilson magic wand ever so slightly to better feel its heft and balance. From his contented smile you could tell it was like he had been reunited with a dance partner from a long-ago Prom.

Then my boyhood hero returned to 2015 and, while I remained in 1970 a little longer, he signed the racket with a single double-tall script “S” next to “tan” which was above “mith”.

And now you know the rest of the story, finally completed 45 years later.

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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-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”