Friendships & Holiday Ball Drive

November 26, 2017 by Woody

For 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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Friendships kick off Holiday Ball Drive

Brent Muth has a favorite quote from the old “Our Gang” TV show, spoken by Stymie: “You only meet your once-in-a-lifetime friends . . . once in a lifetime.”

Brent was a lucky Little Rascal for he met his first once-in-a-lifetime friend early on, while in kindergarten. It was not long before he and Mike Sandoval were, as Brent puts it, “thick as thieves.”

Recess, club soccer, chess club, basketball; Brent and Mike were inseparable from Poinsettia Elementary through Balboa Junior High through Buena High.

As seniors, in 1988, their Bulldogs varsity basketball team lost only three games. Brent credits his best friend for the season to remember: “Mike was the greatest athlete/game player I’ve ever known. When Sandoval was on your team, you always felt that somehow, some way, you were going to win.” 1friendshipWooden

Oftentimes, friendships wane after high school. Not theirs. Even with Mike off to Stanford and Brent taking a winding educational road to Fresno State, they remained brotherly close. Mike was the best man at Brent’s wedding; Brent is a godparent to Mike’s daughter, Megan.

One of the many special things about Mike, Brent shares, was this: “He was not just my best friend – he was that special best friend to a lot of people.”

Specifically, Mike was also the best friend to the other three members of their “Our Gang”-like group of five guys who grew up together: Mark Franke, Adan Valencia, and Craig Rasmussen.

Tragically, the gang lost its leader in 2009 when Mike passed away from a blood clot after undergoing Achilles tendon surgery. He was 39.

Last year, Brent donated a basketball in tribute to his fallen comrade to my annual Holiday Ball Drive. This year, he had a grander idea. He recently invited the ol’ gang of Mark and Adan and Craig, plus a bunch of other friends, to his home for a backyard party of sports competitions. He called it “Ballapalooza.”

“Bring a ball,” Brent told his guests and they did, collectively donating more than 20 new basketballs, soccer balls, and footballs in Mike’s honor to “Woody’s Annual Holiday Ball Drive” to bring joy to disadvantaged youth.

Brent is a Phys Ed teacher and knows about kids without. Early in his career, he worked in a low-income school district and would routinely go to a big-box sporting goods store to buy athletic shoes for his most disadvantaged students.

Brent’s stories echo the inspiration behind the Holiday Ball Drive. About 20 years ago, I was at a local youth basketball clinic when NBA All-Star Cedric Ceballos presented autographed basketballs to a handful of lucky attendees.

A few of the hundreds of balls generous readers donated to “Woody’s Annual Holiday Ball Drive” last year.

Leaving the gym afterward, I happened upon a 10-year-old boy who won one of the prized keepsakes – which he was dribbling on the rough blacktop outdoor court, and shooting baskets with, while perhaps imagining he was Ceballos.

Meanwhile, the real Ceballos’ Sharpie signature was wearing off.

Curious why the boy had not carefully carried the trophy basketball home and put it safely on a bookshelf, I interrupted his playing to ask.

“I’ve never had my own basketball,” he answered matter-of-factly between shots.

That Christmastime, thinking of that boy – and other boys and girls who do not have their own basketball to shoot, soccer ball to kick, football to throw – my Holiday Ball Drive was born.

Once again, I am encouraging you to drop off a new sports ball – or balls – at any local Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, youth club, or church and they will find a worthy young recipient.

Or drop balls off (weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Dec. 20) – or have mailed-shipped to by Amazon.com and the likes – at Jensen Design & Survey at 1672 Donlon St. (near Target on Telephone Road in Ventura) and I will take it from there.

Also, please email me about your gift at woodywriter@gmail.com so I can add your generosity to this year’s tally.

Who is your own Mike Sandoval, the once-in-a-lifetime friend – or special teacher, coach, mentor, role model – you can honor with a “Ballapalooza” donation to a kid in need? Together, Our Gang can spread a lot of holiday cheer.

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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 Photo 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 available at WoodyWoodburn.com
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Whispers Amid the Noise

November 18, 2017November 18, 2017 by Woody

For 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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Whispers Among a Cacophony of Noise

Fifth and final in a series of columns chronicling my recent father-son road trip to the FDR Presidential Library & Museum in Hyde Park, NY, and more.

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New York City is cacophony of honking car horns and shouting pedestrians, of street vendors hawking their wares and jackhammers at work, of rumbling subway trains and ambulance sirens.

Central Park offers an escape from this a never-ending assault on the eardrums. Here the cacophony is a symphony of songbirds and human singers, of laughing children at play and street performers playing the violin or guitar.

Central Park even has secluded spots so serene not only can you hear yourself think, you can even hear a whisper.

In his play, “The Winter’s Tale,” William Shakespeare wrote: “Is whispering nothing? Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?”

My son Greg at one end of "The Whisper Bench" in Central Park's Shakespeare Garden.

My son Greg at one end of “The Whisper Bench” in Shakespeare Garden.

In the Shakespeare Garden, nestled beside Belvedere Castle within Central Park, a whisper is everything. And one need not be check to cheek with noses meeting to hear sweet offerings.

Created in 1913 and originally called Garden of Heart, the four-acre site was renamed three years later on the 300th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. The flora includes a white mulberry grown from a graft of a tree planted, it is claimed, by the great playwright himself in 1602.

Furthermore, bronze plaques with corresponding quotations from Shakespeare’s works appear along the winding pathways to identify various plants featured. As example: “What’s in a name? / That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet. – Romeo and Juliet.”

Fittingly, a statue of the famous lovers, in embrace and about to touch lips, is on the grounds.

And near the garden’s crest is a lovely bench made of polished granite and 20 feet long. It is officially named “The Charles B. Stover Bench” and was dedicated to the “Founder of Outdoor Playgrounds.”

The Stover Bench is better known as “The Whisper Bench.”

It is an appropriate nickname because two people, seated at opposite ends, can pivot outward and lean down and speak – indeed, whisper – into the nautilus shell-shaped corners and be heard clear as a bell by each other.

Of the 9,000 benches in Central Park, The Whisper Bench is one of a kind. And, yet, Grand Central Terminal has a marvel of a similar kind.

Amidst the hustle, bustle, and noise inside the historic train station, my son and I found a spot quiet enough to enjoy a violinist performing for donations in a hat.

Mere strides away, up a gentle-sloping walkway, we visited an even more hushed spot, a Whisper Bench-like place.

“The Whispering Walls” similarly possess a magical acoustic property. Standing at diagonal corners in this high-domed atrium and facing the wall, as if being punished in a child’s timeout, two people can whisper and be easily heard by the other a full 20 paces away. Mystically, the heard voice is amplified deeper and richer than the original whisper.

The domed ceiling and one corner of "The Whispering Walls"

The high domed ceiling and one corner of “The Whispering Walls”

As I observed earlier in this series, the unexpected theme this road trip took on was Eleanor Roosevelt. It was ER’s wisdom, “Do one thing every day that scares you,” that inspired me at travel’s beginning; her presence was naturally loud at the FDR Presidential Library & Museum; and her whispers carried through to Shakespeare Garden and Grand Central Terminal.

Charles Stover, he of The Whisper Bench, was a co-founder of the University Settlement House that assisted immigrants and even featured the first kindergarten in New York City in 1886. Interestingly, Eleanor Roosevelt, at age 18, was a volunteer instructor there.

ER’s aura was also in the ether at The Whispering Walls. It seems she and her husband, as did other VIPs, had access to a hidden underground railway leading from Grand Central Terminal to a secret entrance and elevator up to the Waldorf Astoria hotel.

It is easy to imagine ER pausing to whisper into one of the four enchanted corners to be heard by FDR diagonally across the way. Perhaps she quoted Shakespeare: “This above all: to thine own self be true.”

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

Wowed in Person and in Marble

November 11, 2017 by Woody

For 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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Inspiration in Person and in Marble

Fourth in a series of columns chronicling my recent father-son road trip to the FDR Presidential Library & Museum in Hyde Park, NY, and more.

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The New York City theater was, quite honestly, underwhelming.

Located in Hudson Yards, SIR Stage37 seems more like a warehouse than an event site for the prestigious The New Yorker Festival. The ceiling is lofty, but unfinished; the floors, cold cement; the stage, temporary. Seating consisted of a few hundred folding chairs fastened together in rows with plastic zip ties.

As a word to the wise has it, however, don’t judge a book by its cover.

“The Thinker” in bronze by Rodin

Or a book talk by its digs.

“Book talk” is actually a misnomer. This was a moderated conversation with three authors. Specifically, two winners of the Pulitzer Prize and this year’s honoree of the esteemed Man Booker Prize.

Indeed, the timing of my trip to visit my Manhattanite son was explicitly chosen so as to attend this discussion featuring Colson Whitehead, Jennifer Egan, and George Saunders. The trio did not disappoint.

To the contrary, I dare say this was the most enjoyable, most enlightening, most inspiring talk by an author – or authors – I have had the privilege of attending. And I have been to dozens.

Lacking the space to delve into their discussion, here are some book jacket-like blurbs about the event’s three protagonists.

Whitehead’s newest novel, “The Underground Railroad,” is the most compelling book I have read this year – perhaps in the past few years. Without question, it merited its 2017 Pulitzer honor.

But here is what really struck me: Whitehead seems as splendid in person as his words are on the page. He was immensely interesting and authentically charismatic, and also humble, seated on stage.

All of the same can be said of Egan, who won the Pulitzer in 2011 for “A Visit from the Goon Squad.” Her new novel, “Manhattan Beach,” is on my to-read list.

Saunders, meanwhile, recently won the Man Booker Prize for “Lincoln in the Bardo.” It is one of the most innovative novels I have ever read.

Saunders, who teaches at Syracuse University, came across as Everyone’s Favorite Professor. He was warm and humorous, affable and insightful. After answering questions posed directly to him, Saunders would engage his stage mates for their thoughts, no small thing.

I am certain that writers and non-writers alike left the warehouse theater feeling inspired to be better at whatever they do, be it selling insurance or playing the guitar, gardening or performing surgery.

“The Tempest” in marble by Rodin

I am confident of this because while I am no artist, I left the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, a half-hour subway ride from Sage37, feeling as buoyed as I had been by listening to Whitehead, Egan, and Saunders.

Most especially, I was inspired by two temporary exhibits: “Leonardo to Matisse” and “Rodin at The MET.”

The former features approximately 60 magnificent drawings, in ink and pencil and crayon, by Leonardo da Vinci and Henri Matisse and a handful of other virtuosos. It is difficult to imagine a better example showing that masterful things can be accomplished with the simplest of tools.

Marking the centenary death of Auguste Rodin, more than 50 bronzes, marbles, plasters, and terracottas by the French master are on display. “The Thinker,” in bronze, is an iconic masterpiece in the show but I favored his works in marble.

In “Orpheus and Eurydice,” the ancient Greek lovers emerge smooth and luminous from the raw and rough white rock that remains behind and below them. It is a striking example of Rodin’s words: “I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don’t need.”

“The Tempest,” meanwhile, seems to release sound from stone. Rodin sculpted a shrieking woman, her face and shoulders surging forward from the marble while her streaming braids anchor her – or even pull her back – to the stone. Imagine a female Olympian coming up for a gulp of air while swimming the butterfly stroke.

Conversely, my breath was taken away. Gifted artists, and authors, do that to me.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

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Inspired by “First Lady of the World”

November 5, 2017 by Woody

For 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

* * *

Inspired by “First Lady of the World”

Third in a series of columns chronicling my recent father-son road trip to the FDR Presidential Library & Museum in Hyde Park, NY, and more.

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Road trips tend to take on their own themes, oftentimes unexpected ones. So it was with my recent travels to New York City.

The theme that emerged, the brightest thread that continued to reappear in the tapestry, was Eleanor Roosevelt.

It was her wisdom, “Do one thing every day that scares you,” that spurred me to ask dozens of strangers for cuts in line so as not to miss my flight from LAX to JFK Airport.

Two days later, at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum, our nation’s longest-serving First Lady again made her presence felt.

My son and I were greeted by many surprises at the Library & Museum, from the emotional exhibit on the Japanese American internment camps resulting from FDR’s Executive Order No. 9066, to a large artwork hunk of the Berlin Wall.

Author Eleanor Roosevelt's prolific typewriter

Author Eleanor Roosevelt’s high-mileage typewriter

But the biggest surprise, we both agreed, was that by the end of our four-hour tour we were most impressed not with FDR, but with his four-term First Lady.

“ER” – as Eleanor Roosevelt is commonly referred to throughout the Library & Museum – came into sharp focus as a champion fighting injustices.

For example, ER fought her husband – fiercely, albeit futilely – on his Executive Order No. 9066. She did so not only privately, but also publicly by visiting internment camps.

She declared, loudly: “These people were not convicted of any crime but emotions ran too high, too many people wanted to wreak vengeance on Oriental looking people.”

Too, ER boldly battled against segregation and race-based wage differentials.

“No one can claim that . . . the Negroes of this country are free,” the First Lady said, and further demanded: “One of the main destroyers of freedom is our attitude toward the colored race.”

As a heroine for women’s rights, ER succinctly noted: “It is the person and not the sex which counts.”

Following FDR’s death in 1945, ER remained a force on the world stage until her own passing in 1962. For example, she served as United States’ first Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952. President Harry Truman called her the “First Lady of the World.”

In addition to my son checking off another presidential library visited, I surprisingly ended up adding to my own collection of famous authors’ homes visited.

My registry includes the names John Steinbeck, Edgar Allen Poe, Thornton Burgess, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, William Faulkner and Jim Murray.

Typewriters used by these wordsmiths hold for me a special interest and magic. Looking at their QWERTY keepsakes, I can almost hear the clickity-clack-clicking echoes of the past.

A few of the 28 books “ER” authored on display

More magic. Burgess’ antique (circa 1910) Underwood No. 5 on display is the exact model I inherited from my paternal grandfather.

And I once had the thrill of typing on my hero Murray’s 1946 Remington Rand, which he used throughout most of his career.

So it was electric to see the 1904-1905 Smith & Corona Inc. manual typewriter that ER used to write the thick of her books, articles and newspaper columns.

I had previously not thought of ER as a writer, but that was my great ignorance. Her “L C Smith Super Speed” model, now under glass, is in remarkably pristine condition considering its high mileage. Indeed, she wore out miles of ink ribbons.

Here is how prolific ER was: she authored 28 books; penned nearly 1,000 magazine articles; and wrote serialized columns, both daily and weekly, from 1933 and 1962.

Douglas Wood, an author whose home I have not visited, writes in his memoir “Deep Woods, Wild Waters” about “the ‘spirit of place’ that infuses itself like the scent of pipe smoke into the words and pages of … books.”

Even more so than of its namesake, the FDR Presidential Library & Museum to me is a “spirit of place” infused with the words and deeds of Eleanor Roosevelt.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

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Writer, "Streaker" & Speaker

Monthly Archives: November 2017

Friendships & Holiday Ball Drive

Whispers Amid the Noise

Wowed in Person and in Marble

Inspired by “First Lady of the World”