Monthly Archives: July 2019

Gifts Learned Through Sports

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

*

Sports and Learning

Go Hand-in-High-Five

            The Star’s annual high school Scholar-Athletes were announced last week and, as always, their academic deeds are every bit as impressive as their physical feats. Indeed, their GPAs and SAT scores are perhaps even more eye-popping than any RBIs and TD totals.

Headlined by female and male Scholar-Athletes of the Year Peyton Erickson (Ventura High, soccer) and Kevin Daniel (Royal High, tennis), the 26 honorees further add to their remarkable resumes a series of leadership endeavors, community service work and club activities.

While it might seem there must be pixie dust in the Gatorade potions they drink, in truth the magic elixir is sport itself. This was evidenced at the Laureus Youth Leadership Summit held in Los Angeles a week past with dozens of youths and also adults meeting to explore such topics as “What it means to be a young leader”; “Why sport is uniquely positioned to develop leadership skills”; and “How skills are transferred from sport to all areas of life.”

Speakers in the two-day conference included four-time Olympic gold medalist runner Michael Johnson and Olympic sabre fencing bronze medalist Ibtihaj Muhammad, but the real stars were the youth themselves who shared their own insights. For example, one exercise featured a chalkboard that began as a clean slate except for this prompt at the top: “Sports showed me…”

Throughout Day One of the summit, participants of all ages picked up sticks of white, blue, red or pink chalk and fully filled up the board. In printed letters as well as in script, sometimes using all caps for emphasis or underlines, here are some of the values of sport as written by young athletes and their mentors:

“How to play as a team. Make new friends. How a team can become a family.

“How to interact with others as family (heart). Family, work, life, opportunity, community. To have fun!!!

“It’s okay to make mistakes! (heart) Helps me improve my self-confidence. Feels like a painter painting a masterpiece.”

“The world (underlined). New experiences. Go new places.

“Seek out those who will help you achieve your GOALS!! I am capable of so much! Independence. Leadership.

“Hustle & Dedication. Motivation. Courage! Patience (underlined twice). Assertiveness. Inspiration. Discipline.

“Minor setback for major comeback! Not to give up. Dedication is key! HOW TO GET BACK UP again and again. Giving up is not an option.

“Youth leadership is harnessing a platform with vision, integrity and an open mind.

“The young people are NOT (underlined) the future, they are the NOW (underlined three times)!

“How to be an ambassador through play. It’s more than just a win or a loss. FUN!

“Help break racial barriers. It doesn’t depend on the gender you are. Brings others together. To not be a judgmental person. Helped me understand others, learn for others, listen to others.

“Do your best! Be curious & vulnerable. Sportsmanship. Passion.

“Teamwork makes the dream work! (heart) Learn who can help you achieve your dreams.

“Compassion and Love. Be yourself. Staying true to yourself is the way to live.

“How to be a better person. How to express myself and connect w/ multiple kinds of people. Give the same respect that I want to receive.”

Had I been asked to contribute to the colorful chalkboard, I might have quoted tennis legend Billie Jean King: “Sports teaches you character, it teaches you to play by the rules, it teaches you to know what it feels like to win and lose – it teaches you about life.”

The 2018-19 Star Scholar Athletes have each learned all this and now lead by example as well.

*   *   *

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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” …

 

Apollo 11 Pitched “Perfect Game”

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

*

Apollo 11 Pitched

A “Perfect Game”

A number of years ago, a press-box sage shared with me a story about a New York newspaper hiring a famous novelist to cover the 1956 World Series between the Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers.

All went well with the guest columns until Game 5 when the Yankees’ Don Larsen pitched the first – and still only – perfect game in the history of the Fall Classic. An hour after Larsen had jumped into the celebratory embrace of catcher Yogi Berra, the big-time author buried his face in his palms and muttered: “I can’t, I just can’t. It’s too big for me to write about.”

That famous October 8 date in baseball history comes to mind when I think of July 20, 1969 when Neil Armstrong leapt into history with one small step: “It’s too big for me to write about. I can’t.”

But I must try.

Neil Armstrong’s historic small step/giant leap on lunar surface.

The biggest stories are often best told in the smallest ways, macro being revealed in the micro, and so perhaps recalling NASA’s “perfect game” through the eyes of a 9-year-old boy has merit.

I was, of course, that young boy. Like nearly all American boys – girls, women and men, too – in the 1960s, I watched the Space Race unfold on television with Cape Canaveral launches and space walks and ocean splashdowns. Because of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, growing up to become an astronaut superseded being a fireman, cowboy or Major League baseball player as the No. 1 dream of most schoolboys.

Slumbering in dreamland is where I would have normally been when Neil Armstrong climbed out of the lunar module because on earth it was nearing 11 p.m. in Ohio, too late for 9-year-olds to be up even in summertime. But this was not a normal night. This was the night sci-fi writers like H.G. Wells and Jules Verne miraculously became authors of nonfiction.

Before camping in front of the television, I remember going outside and staring up at the moon with naked eyes and full imagination. My fantasy thoughts were in many ways more clear than the grainy, ghostly, black-and-white TV images to follow.

Fuzzy as the broadcast was, seeing Neil Armstrong hop down the spider-legged Eagle’s ladder, pause dramatically on the footpad, and then step onto the lunar surface remains as vivid in my mind a half-century later as when it happened “LIVE FROM THE MOON” (as the screen text declared) at 10:56 p.m. Eastern Time while I watched transfixed sitting on the floor six feet from a 25-inch TV screen.

My family had recently gotten its first color television, a Zenith console, and in all honesty “Bonanza” and “Star Trek”, both always popping with vibrant colors, paled to this historic moonwalk episode aired only in black and white.

“That’s one small step for (a) man,” Armstrong famously said, either forgetting the “a” or more likely it being swallowed by space static, “one giant leap for mankind.”

Another quote became nearly as famous, this one employed in myriad situations by the general public: “If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we (fill in the blank)?” Fill in the blank could be anything from make a toaster that doesn’t burn toast to forging world peace.

Putting a man on the moon in 1969 seems all the more impossibly magnificent as we look back through the prism of time because it was accomplished with slide rules and early generation computers that filled massive rooms. Similar computing power now fits into the smartphones owned by most 9-year-old kids.

On today’s golden anniversary, Apollo 11’s “perfect game” seems bigger than ever.

*   *   *

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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” …

Inspiring Memes Speak Volumes

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

*

600 Words About

1,000-Word Memes

            My late friend, mentor and longtime steward of this space before me, Chuck Thomas, believed in taking the day off now and again and filling his column with words borrowed from other people. In this same spirit, here are some quotes from inspiring memes I’ve come across in recent weeks that are worth 1,000 words – or, in this case, 600 words.

*

“Gardens are not made by singing, ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.” – Rudyard Kipling.

“Fill your life with adventures, not things. Have stories to tell, not stuff to show.” – unattributed.

“Kids don’t remember their best day of television.” – unattributed and featuring a photograph, snapped from behind, of two kids around age 6 or 7, walking side by side down a dirt path in the woods. Carrying walking sticks and sleeping bags, and wearing fishing hats and hiking boots, the boys are dressed for adventure from head to toe and echoed another meme: “Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.” – John Muir

“No road” – or dirt path – “is too long with good company.” – unattributed.

“There is absolutely no reason to be rushed along with the rush. Everybody should be free to go slow.” – Robert Frost.

“It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius.

“When you feel about quitting, think about why you started.” – unattributed.

“ ‘Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.’ – Lao Tzu … so be patient, but also persistent, as you pursue your dreams and passions!”

Similarly, a meme in three images showing a caterpillar turning into a cocoon and then emerging as a soaring butterfly states: “Give. Yourself. Time.”

“Never give up on a dream just because of the length of time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” – H. Jackson Brown.

A meme without a photo created a vivid image nonetheless: “ ‘Because I think I’m making progress.’ – Pablo Casals, one of the greatest cellists who ever lived, when asked why he continued to practice at age 90.”

“ ‘Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.’ – John Wooden … or worries about tomorrow either.”

“There are only two days in a year that nothing can be done: one is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow.” – Dalai Lama .

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” – Jane Goodall.

“The difference between who you are and who what you want to be is what you do.” – unattributed.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” – Mary Oliver.

“Each and every day: share something you have learned, and learn something worth sharing.” – Greg Woodburn.

“ ‘And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” – John Steinbeck … good plus good, day after day, adds up to very good; to even better; and to great!”

“Tip your server. Return your shopping cart. Pick up a piece of trash. Hold the door for the person behind you. Let someone into your lane. Small acts have a ripple effect. That’s how we change the world.” – unattributed.

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” – Gloria Vanderbilt, although a similar quote is attributed to Plato.

Lastly, an unattributed meme filled with sunshine in both image and words: “Be the reason someone smiles today.”

*   *   *

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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” …

Steinbeck’s (Like) Typewriter

by Woody

*

#TBT stands also for

Throwback Typing

            Throwback Thursday, more often designated simply with the hashtag #TBT, is popular on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter when social media users post nostalgic photos once a week.

In that same spirit, this is a #TBT column. Instead of a photograph from yesteryear, the nostalgia involved is that I wrote the first draft of this column on a typewriter instead of my laptop computer. #TBT is for Throwback Typing.

This old-school exercise came about because I recently received a truly glorious gift for my birthday – a 1949 Hermes Baby portable typewriter in mint condition.

John Steinbeck’s Hermes Baby at San Jose State University.

Gray, black and silver with a single fire-engine red racing stripe, it is the same model John Steinbeck took on his famous road trip around America while writing “Travels with Charley.” His Baby, etched with “The Beast Within” on the back, is on display in the Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University. Ever since seeing it a handful of years ago, I have been smitten.

“Suisse”-made, the Hermes Baby made its debut in 1924 and was anything but beastly. In fact, it was the first true mini-typewriter with a four-row keyboard. Indeed, the Baby is a marvel in sleek compactness, almost exactly the rectangular size of my Apple Notebook, albeit nearly three inches in height instead of less than an inch thick.

My Hermes Baby on display … at home in Ventura.

Compared to the 1912 Underwood No. 5 that I inherited from my grandfather, which is about as heavy as an anvil, the Baby is featherlight. Too, its keystrokes require only a light touch rather than finger pounding.

All the same, the keyboard forces me to slow down. This is not because the type bars stick together if they simultaneously cross paths, but rather because my specific Baby has an odd Italian layout with the customary QWERTY keyboard arranged instead QZERTY. Hence, one must turn off the autopilot when typing W’s and Z’s that have traded places.

As a result, it is easy to misspell zords – rather, words – containing Z’s and W’s. In notes to friends, I simply let these transposed misstrikes go as is because I think they add charm. With this column draft, however, I edited misstrikes and mistakes the old-fashioned way, in pencil using copyediting symbols. Doing so was enjoyably nostalgic.

The funky W and Z keys added to my nostalgia. You see, at my first newspaper job nearly four decades past, the ancient battleship-sized Remington typewriter I was assigned had a broken “K” key. Actually, half-broken – it would type a capital but not lowercase. Thus, one had to painstakingly hit “Shift” and “K” to write “broKen” or “quarterbacK” and then correct it afterward with a copyediting slash.

Being forced to slow the fingers down perhaps has its advantages by also making one think in less of a rush. Indeed, this first draft seemed more polished than when I compose on a speedy laptop where rewriting is clean and easy. It’s the difference between walking a high wire without a safety net below versus with one.

Despite the added step of retyping my words into a laptop document file, perhaps I will write more columns on my Baby – or my 1953 Underwood portable or 1962 Hermes 3000 Curvy, a beautiful sea-foam green semi-portable that rounds out my small collection to date.

An old song goes, “Don’t throw the past away / You might need it some rainy day . . . When everything old is new again.”

That’s how I, and a growing number of QWERTY – and QZERTY – aficionados, feel about Throwback Typewriters. My Hermes Baby is a seven-decades-old fossil, but it also seems good as new again.

*

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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” …