Monthly Archives: March 2020

Boots Filled With Warm Memory

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Cowboy Boots Filled

With A Warm Memory

            A photo-essay showing playgrounds starkly empty due to COVID-19 caused my heart to sink with sadness, but a black-and-white image of a lonely swing set was a time machine that made me laugh. I figure we can all use a dose of levity during these trying days, so here is a social-distancing memory from the 1960s.

My best friend Dan and I were in kindergarten. In our imaginations on this day, the swing set was our airplane and we were paratroopers fighting in the Cold War. We would pump as high as we could and then, at the zenith of the forward surge, launch ourselves airborne.

The danger of a broken leg or chipped tooth from this human-catapult game only added to our recess revelry.

After a few landings behind Russian lines, I had to go to the bathroom. Naturally, I ignored nature’s call. I figured I could hold out until the bell rang.

This became more difficult with each ensuing parachute-less landing, sometimes in a tumble, on the blacktop. Wearing hard-heeled cowboy boots rather than rubber-soled PF Flyers made the impact all the more jarring to my legs and, in turn, to my bloated bladder.

The end-of-recess bell still had not clanged, but I could hold it in no longer. I pumped my legs on the swings one last time, rose towards the clouds, released my grip at the perfect moment and soared far into enemy troop territory.

I then raced inside Classroom 2 to its single-person restroom. The smooth soles of my cowboy boots skidded to a stop on the tile floor and I turned the doorknob …

… LOCKED!

I felt a stab of panic. My five-year-old mind had not anticipated this perilous possibility. Frantically, I danced the I-Have-To-Go-Number-One Texas Two Step and knocked on the door. A girl’s voice said the restroom was in use.

“Hurry up,” I urged and danced faster.

Seconds passed like minutes.

“Hurry, pleeeease!” I pleaded.

By now my bladder was like a balloon hooked to a water faucet and rapidly being filled to the bursting point. Finally, the toilet flushed and its whooshing water was music to my ears – and like Pavlov’s bell to my bladder.

More running water in the sink.

“No, don’t wash your hands!” I thought. “There’s no time!”

I knocked yet again and begged with full urgency: “Please, pleeease, let me in!”

CLICK! At long last the door unlocked and swung open. A girl exited and I rushed in.

For unpracticed kindergarten fingers, a pants zipper can be as difficult to solve as cracking a safe. Before I could dial the opening combination, Hoover Dam breached and warm waterfalls cascaded down both my legs.

Remarkably, not a drop of the five gallons of pee spilled onto the floor. This was because two-and-a-half gallons filled my right cowboy boot and two-and-a-half gallons poured into the left.

Events then took a turn for the worse. Before I could sneak out of the restroom and get help from Miss Bower – dry pants would be nice; a disguise even better – the recess bell rang and in stormed the rest of the class.

Knock, knock!

“Go away!”

A long moment passed as I remained sheltered in place.

Knock, knock!

Through the locked door and through tears: “Tell Miss Bower (sniffle) I need her.”

Like nurses and grandmas, kindergarten teachers are angels on earth. Miss Bower came inside, hugged me, and then escorted me – Squish! Squish! Squish! – down a mile-long hallway to the office to wait for my mom to bring dry clothes and shoes.

Thankfully, there wasn’t a photojournalist around.

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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” …

 

Being Good Neighbors Vital Now

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Being Good Neighbors

Is Vital Now

            Freshman year in college, to fill an English requirement I got stuck in a class I had no desire to take. What a lucky break.

“The Poetry of Robert Frost” proved to be my favorite class of all four years. Partly it was the professor; largely it was the wordsmithery of the four-time Pulitzer Prize winner.

I recently retrieved Frost’s complete and unabridged works from my bookcase because, probably like you, I have extra time on my hands during these COVID-19 days and nights of self-isolation.

While “The Road Not Taken” remains my favorite Frost masterpiece, the poem I had foremost in mind to reread was “Mending Wall” with the closing line: “Good fences make good neighbors.”

One interpretation of the poem is that a wall, or stone fence between farms, is good because it separates people and livestock.

The following lines, however, offer a wink towards an opposite interpretation as the narrator notes of his neighbor beyond the hill: “He is all pine and I am apple orchard. / My apple trees will never get across / And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.”

Frost is playfully observing that apple and pine trees do not need a wall to keep them apart.

Shortly thereafter, the narrator continues: “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know / What I was walling in or walling out, / And to whom I was like to give offense.”

Here especially “Mending Wall” seems powerfully pertinent today. Through social distancing and self-isolation we are all being asked to build fences between ourselves and fellow citizens.

A week ago, not greeting a neighbor or friend with a handshake or hug felt rude because they were “like to give offense.” Similarly, by self-quarantining were we walling coronavirus out or walling ourselves in?

The important truth, we now know, is that we are using a metaphoric wall to “flatten the curve” of infections in an attempt to prevent our healthcare system from being overwhelmed.

Some people, for the good of all, must breach the wall – healthcare professionals, truckers, grocery and pharmacy workers, for example. Others need to go over the shelter-in-place wall to seek medical care, buy food, help at-risk neighbors.

It makes the news and goes viral on social media when selfish boors hoard toilet paper and fight over hand sanitizer, but I remain convinced most people share, give, help.

My friend Dave told me a story that I like to think is the Dog-Bites-Man non-headline norm. An elderly couple in their 80s sat in their car in a supermarket parking lot for 45 minutes, afraid to go inside and risk getting COVID-19.

Finally, they worked up the courage to ask a stranger to do their shopping. A young woman passerby gladly took their grocery list and money. She returned and set down the bags – and change – outside their car.

This suggests to me a new 2020 interpretation for “Mending Wall” with the narrator being a young, healthy farmer while his neighbor is in a vulnerable group – perhaps over age 65, or has a compromised immune system, or has asthma.

For the neighbor, balancing the “boulders that have fallen to each / And some are loaves and some so nearly balls” back in place on the wall is potentially life-saving.

If we view the mended wall as a metaphor for serious social distancing, it is indeed true that “Good fences make good neighbors” – at least for now.

The day will eventually return when it is more neighborly to shake hands across the fence. Or, better yet, hop over it and embrace.

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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” …

No More Mr. Nice Guy (Today)

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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For Today, No More

Mr. Nice Guy

If you were expecting 600 words of nice this morning, toss the newspaper in the recycling bin and phone your sweet grandma. I’m in a Being-Quarantined-On-The-Grand-Princess kind of mood.

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Speaking of coronavirus – and is anyone talking about anything else? – if supermarkets and pharmacies can impose a two-package limit on a decongestant pills, why can’t stores do the same with toilet paper and hand sanitizer?

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It annoys me when something breaks while it’s still almost brand new. Of course, it annoys me even more when – and this seems the norm not the exception – it breaks about 18 minutes after the warranty has expired.

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Speaking of broken things, I find it annoying when the service repairman can only give a four-hour time window for when he will arrive at the house. It’s a safe bet, by the way, he’ll show up after the window closes …

. . . unless you aren’t home the first 18 minutes of the time window, in which case he’ll be early, miss you, and you’ll have to reschedule.

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            Like 4 out of 5 patients in my nonscientific survey, it annoys me that doctors’ offices give an appointment time accurate to 10-minute increments yet always seem to run about 47 minutes behind schedule.

With that said, 5 out of 5 patients love it when their doctor’s office squeezes them in without a prior appointment when a semi-urgent matter strikes – which, naturally, is the reason other patients have to wait an extra 47 minutes.

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            You want nice? Go watch a made-for-Netflix romcom. Me, I’m in the dark mood for a Stephen King novel. Heck, even King must be frightened by coronavirus.

While everything about coronavirus has me annoyed, and worse, the viewpoint of a friend made me smile. She said she’s not worried about contracting it herself, but would truly hate to unknowingly have it and then spread it to a high-risk elderly person or cancer patient or someone else with a diminished immune system.

Needless to say, she’s not one of knuckleheads hoarding toilet paper like a group of teenagers planning to TP a friend’s house on a Friday night.

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            I’m annoyed that no one TPs our house and trees anymore – at least during this coronavirus outbreak.

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            Lines to cast ballots that stretch longer than for rides at Disneyland annoy me to the boiling point. There is no excuse good enough; America should be better.

With that said, seeing fellow citizens stubbornly – no, supremely patriotically – enduring three-hour marathon lines to make their voices heard buoys my spirits and makes them heroes in my eyes.

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            I get annoyed by other drivers. If I were to list these grievances it would annoy you. On the other hand, if you don’t use your turn signal; make the cars behind you miss a green light because you’re reading text messages instead of paying attention; or speed up to prevent someone from changing lanes on the freeway, annoying you in return seems fair.

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I’m annoyed twice a year by our changes to, and from, Daylight Saving Time. Personally, I wish we could keep DST year-round. But, honestly, if the majority of Californians were to vote to stay on Standard Time, I’d be fine with it.

Let’s just pick one or the other and stick with it.

Better, yet, let’s split the difference and change our Cali clocks only 30 minutes and always be half-an-hour different. I mean, the rest of America seems to hate California anyway so let’s really give them something to complain about!

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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” …

Teacher Appreciation Day Is Early

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Appreciation For

A Great Teacher

You have probably seen a bumper sticker proclaiming “If You Can Read This, Thank A Teacher” or a sentient similar.

Coach John Wooden, no less, believed teaching to be the world’s second-most important profession behind parenting.

And yet, teachers constantly feel overworked, underpaid and underappreciated. The first two positions are probably true, but the latter I argue is not. It’s just that the appreciation too often goes unexpressed.

This opinion was fortified recently when a simple question was posed on the “I Grew Up In Ventura” Facebook page: “Remember PE teacher McFadden from Balboa Middle School who passed away from cancer and the gym was named after him –

is the name logo still on the gym?”

One answer would have sufficed: Yes, it is still called Harold R. McFadden Gym.

Instead, an avalanche of appreciation poured in. If more than 100 posted replies do not impress you, understand that “Coach Mac” passed away 36 years ago. That is a lasting legacy.

“Great teacher and wonderful role model!” commented Brian James Toohey.

“Coach had an amazing impact on so many lives,” wrote Richard Johnston.

A mural inside Balboa’s Gym named after Coach McFadden

Ken Crown is an evidence, noting: “In the early 70’s when it wasn’t cool to be a Boy Scout, I asked Coach Mac if he could help me earn my Athletics merit badge. He graciously stayed after school for a couple days timing and measuring my runs and jumps. One of my life’s great role models for sure.”

“Coach Mac had a sense of humor, he was a great coach, was always giving encouragement to us,” shared Jim Matiniez.

“He was such a great teacher/man,” posted Ann Romero.

David Hobert saw him as a father figure, sharing: “My dad passed away when I was in eighth grade and afterward Coach McFadden was really good to me. He sat with me at lunch; came to my house to check on me and make sure I was doing homework; played Ping-Pong a few times and he was a world-class player! Super good guy.”

“I can hear his voice clear as day,” posted Drew Herron.

Steve McFadden offered this insight: “I truly believe my dad was able to connect with most students, but I think his forte as a teacher was to recognize when a particular student was ‘struggling’ in his or her life and maybe needed a little TLC or attention. He also had a ‘soft spot’ in his heart for students that were making the wrong choices or beginning to head down the wrong path for whatever reason. He would try to intervene and counsel as an attempt to hopefully get the student to recognize the poor choices and realize there are people who do care.”

I was blessed to have Harold McFadden for Physical Education five of my six semesters at Balboa Junior High in the early 1970s. He had such a lasting impact on me that I wrote a full a chapter about him in my memoir “Wooden & Me: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help ‘Make Each Day Your Masterpiece.’ ” Coach Mac, too, taught valuable life lessons.

While he was exceptional, Mr. McFadden is not the exception. We all have a teacher, or teachers, who are life-changers. This year’s National Teacher Appreciation Day is not until May 5 – that gives us all plenty of time to write a note of appreciation for a special teacher, either handwritten or by email or through social media.

As others and I have done regarding Coach Mac, don’t wait until it’s too late to express your gratitude.

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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” …