Monthly Archives: September 2020

Pandemic Can’t Derail Paris Trip

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

*

Pandemic Fails To

Derail Paris Trip

Gloria, my dear friend affectionately called “Mama G” by loved ones, dreamed of celebrating her 70th birthday in Paris with her daughters. Plane tickets had been bought, hotel rooms reserved.

The coronavirus pandemic had other ideas.

Mama G’s four fabulous daughters had other ideas as well and made the Parisian celebration a reality – with an asterisk.

The asterisk: if they could not take their mom to Paris, they would bring Paris to her.

And so it was on her milestone birthday last weekend that Mama G, wearing a dazzling evening gown and stylish hat, enjoyed dinner al fresco at a bistro with lace tablecloths and candlelight, fine wine and gourmet food, and a view of the Eiffel Tower.*

Parisian “bistro” with a view of the Eiffel Towel in Southern California.

Asterisk: a poster of the iconic landmark and an elegantly decorated table were set up on Mama G’s backyard patio. Stephanie, Beverly, Jennifer and Jessica – the Fab Four – filled the seats along with one spouse and two fiancés, all safely quarantined beforehand.

Before dinner, Mama G spent the day sightseeing. Indeed, there are pictures of her in front of the Eiffel Tower and Cathédrale Notre-Dame; at the Arc de Triomphe and the Palace of Versailles; visiting the Louvre and more.*

Asterisk: the pictures were Photoshopped surprises.

The photographs taken at dinner, however, needed no Photoshopping to add in smiles as wide as the River Seine. Still, a faux Parisian party could not fully measure up to the real thing.

Again, the Fab Four had other ideas. The actual trip to The City of Light would have been a small private affair, but for the amended celebration they invited friends and loved ones from across the country, and beyond, to come along.*

Asterisk: thanks to Zoom, more than 60 people attended the birthday party in “Paris.” Scrolling through numerous computer screens was required to see every attendee.

In an actual bistro, it would have been too crowded to clearly hear the toasts given. But on Zoom, everyone in attendance simply took turns sharing their love to Mama G. It was wonderful. No, better than that: Gloria-ous.

The toasts and memories and stories came from people who have known Mama G for more than 50 years, those who entered her life five years ago, and even more recently.

One of the wonderful sentiments came from Deb, who tearfully offered in part: “Happy birthday to Mama G! To my second mother, I wish you another happy and healthy 70 years. You have raised four amazing, brilliant, beautiful women and took me in as your own. I am forever grateful to have you as me second mama.”

As you can imagine, like the champagne in the “bistro,” Mama G’s tears flowed freely. Dabbing her eyes near party’s end, she said: “It was fabulous walking down memory lane and celebrating in ‘Paris’ ”.

Speaking of tears, a second dear friend of mine also celebrated her 70th birthday in the past month’s span. Again, the pandemic led to a different kind of festivity than originally hoped for.

Instead of a large party, Barbara, affectionately known as “Mama Mac,” had a virtual gathering that featured 70 toasts – one for each candle on her cake – from 70 different family members and friends.*

Asterisk: this was not a Zoom party, but instead the toasts – intimate notes and short letters sharing why each person loves Mama Mac – were collected and published in a keepsake book. She cried. It was wonderful.

All the same, I hope 71 is the new 70 and Mama G can fly to Paris and Mama Mac has a big birthday bash in 2021.

 *   *   *

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” …

Every Town Has Own “Moonlight”

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

*

Every Town Has Its

Own “Moonlight”

As long as “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and the other ballplayers in the movie “Field of Dreams” stay on the magical baseball diamond in an Iowa cornfield, they remain forever young.

We learn this when young outfielder “Moonlight” Graham steps across the first-base foul line and becomes his elderly self as Dr. Archibald Graham, giving up immortality in order to save Ray Kinsella’s young daughter from choking.

In response to my column last week, reader Lindsay Nielson shared a humorous anecdote about feeling like he had crossed the foul line in the opposite direction during his annual physical with Dr. Geoff Loman.

“I told him, ‘Doc, I think I am immortal,’ ” Nielson wrote in an email. “ ‘Really? Why is that?’ came his response.

Dr. Archibald “Moonlight” Graham played by Burt Lancaster in “Field of Dreams.”

“I rattled off all the things I had been through – two heart attacks; a fall that resulted in three screws to hold my hip together and a titanium bar in my femur; a few stent implants; back surgery that resulted in eight screws in my spine; and my second home in Palm Springs had burned to the ground, etc.

“Dr. Loman said, ‘Wow, Lindsay, that is something. But, I went to a pretty good medical school and it is my opinion that you probably aren’t immortal.’ ”

As the mortal Dr. Graham, Burt Lancaster’s character sagely says of his disappointing one-game career in the Big Leagues without an at-bat: “If I’d only gotten to be a doctor for five minutes – now that would have been a tragedy.”

Rick Throckmorton feels it would have been a tragedy had his own family doctor not had a long medical career, writing: “Your column brought back old memories of Dr. Albert Crites, who founded the Port Hueneme Belinda Hospital, later Adventist Hospital. I don’t know if he was a poet or not, but I remember him as surely being an angel or saint in disguise on earth.

“Dr. Crites treated my grandmother, who was a sad hypochondriac, and who visited him almost daily with her alleged aches and pains. Once, I accompanied her while I was on a leave from the Army. I remember him saying, ‘Bessie, now you know there’s nothing wrong with you, but I have something that might help. It’s a wonder medicine.’ He would give her a vial of what I later learned were plain sugar pills, but Grandmom was always better after taking them!

“Dr. Crites once fixed my broken finger (before splinting it) by pulling it straight after telling me, ‘Ricky, this is gonna hurt a little!’ I was in the seventh grade and a fly ball had hit squarely on top of my ring finger and broke it to 90 degrees. It hurt like heck, but Dr Crites’ soothing words calmed the tears.

“Some years later, I was involved in a serious accident while in Hueneme High School and the ambulance took me to Adventist Hospital. I had not seen Dr. Crites since the broken-finger incident and there he was. He said again, ‘Ricky, looks like this is gonna to hurt a little’ as he treated my severe burns.

“Dr. Crites took care of my mom, too, as she had to have full hysterectomy; and my WWII veteran dad’s bad heart; and I was there with Dr. Crites when dad passed away early from a massive heart attack.

“In the movie ‘Field of Dreams’, James Earl Jones’ character Terence Mann says, ‘Every town has a Doctor Graham,’ ” Throckmorton concluded. “And every town has, or should have, a Doctor Crites.”

If not, now that would be a tragedy.

 *   *   *

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” …

Local Doc Lays Down Stethoscope

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

*

Longtime Doc Lays

Down His Stethoscope

In 1922, when my grandfather began his career as a country doctor, newfangled X-ray machines were found only in large hospitals. Ultrasound, CAT and MRI scans, meanwhile, would remain the stuff of science fiction for another half-century.

All the same, Dr. Ansel Woodburn had access to a state-of-the-art medical technology that could “see” inside the human body: his magical index and middle fingers and thumb. With the delicate touch of a safecracker, or sometimes employing less-than-gentle prodding, he could determine everything from broken bones to a breech fetus.

Under the headline “Fond Memories of Doc Prevail” in The Urbana (Ohio) Daily Citizen many years ago, Marilyn Johnson recalled being treated by my grandfather: “When I was small, I was always breaking a bone. Dr. Ansel Woodburn would first of all use his trusty (and hated) thumb to locate the fracture. He would then set the bone and cast it.”

She specifically recalled one fracture – and treatment: “After he casted my arm, he asked how my favorite doll was doing. Before I could say ‘Jack Robinson,’ he had fashioned a doll cradle with Plaster of Paris and wires on which to rock.”

Another memory was when her father had a finger nearly torn off in a farming accident.

“Dad wrapped it quickly in his handkerchief,” she wrote. “We had about seven miles to go and even though I didn’t have a driver’s permit, I drove. Dr. Woodburn sewed the finger back on because he thought the tip was getting blood – the finger did at last turn pink and became useful – and then sent us home with the admonition that if I got stopped by a policeman, ‘Send him to me!’

“Dr. Woodburn,” Marilyn Johnson concluded in print, in thanks, and in memoriam two decades after his death, “I reckon I’ll have to say you were A-OK – except for that mean thumb!”

Dr. Geoff Loman, my family’s “Dr. Ansel”…

I bring up these recollections because a half-century after Ansel made his final house call, another “A-OK” family doctor who could diagnose broken bones and more with his fingers and mean thumb retired earlier this week.

I saw Dr. Geoff Loman do exactly that for a leg fracture when my son was three and similarly for a broken wrist when my daughter was seven. The ensuing X-rays were simply formalities before he set the their breaks in fiberglass casts.

Over the years, from cradle to college and beyond, he also sutured their cuts and healed their illnesses. Indeed, for more than 30 years he was my family’s Dr. Ansel and I can offer no higher compliment.

My further prevailing fond memories of Doc Loman are of him always coming into the examining room smiling like he just heard a terrific joke; his soft baritone voice warm as an analgesic balm; his bedside manner as reassuring as a doll cradle crafted from Plaster of Paris for a tearful little girl.

In honor of Dr. Loman’s four decades as a family practitioner in the Ventura community, it seems fitting to share an original poem my grandfather penned inside his copy of “Modern Surgery” and dated Oct. 1, 1919:

“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”

Dr. Loman has retired his stethoscope, but without question his Chief will call his work good.

 *   *   *

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” …

Bryan Bros: Kings of the Castle

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

*

Kings of the Castle

Bryan Bros Bid Goodbye

“Don’t tell me about your dreams of a castle,” Wayne Bryan likes to say, “show me the stones you laid today.”

When Wayne’s identical twin sons, Mike and Bob, were eight years old they taped an image of their dream castle on the Camarillo family’s refrigerator door: To become the No. 1-ranked doubles team in the tennis world.

They then laid the stones, day after week, month after year after decade, until completing a castle that surpassed their wildest dreams. Indeed, when Mike and Bob retired last week at age 42 their career looked like Camelot.

Together, Mike and Bob have singularly been Mikeandbob – a two-headed monster with four arms and four legs, standing 12 feet, 7 inches tall and weighing 370 pounds. Even Hercules could not slay Bobandmike on a tennis court.

Their final stat line as a pro tandem: 16 Grand Slam doubles championships and 119 overall titles, both all-time records by a mile, plus an Olympic gold and bronze medal for good measure. As for their refrigerator goal, they were ranked No. 1 in the world for 438 weeks during 22 years on the ATP Tour.

Mikeandbob also authored one of the greatest goodbye statements in sports history, rivaling Lou Gehrig’s famous “Luckiest Man” speech in my eyes. It reads like an award-winning children’s book yet is inspiring for adults too:

“Many years ago, two brothers left home and embarked on a journey up a tall mountain. With knowledge from their parents and fueled by boundless passion, they moved up the mountain together, their eyes fixated on a peak they could see on the distant horizon.

“They lifted each other over boulders, pulled each other up steep cliffs, and kept each other warm when storms battered the mountain. If one boy became weary, the other pushed harder and when one boy had doubts, the other fearlessly pressed on. They often slipped and were bruised but loved their fight against the stubborn mountain.

“After years of climbing, the boys finally reached the top. The view was beautiful but not what they expected. They saw a vast landscape filled with endless ranges of even taller peaks. Without looking back, they continued on.

“The trail eventually disappeared but the boys kept going, clearing their own path and exploring undiscovered lands they never knew existed. No matter the direction, they stayed together, for they knew their journey was impossible alone.

“And when their bodies could carry them no further, they turned around and gazed upon the world they had travelled. They looked at each other, smiled proudly, and headed home shoulder to shoulder, with a newfound peace and a bond stronger than ever.”

Along their journey, Mikeandbob have behaved like knights in shining armor. For example, they gave one of their rackets to a 10-year-old boy in Japan who was fighting cancer. More than that, they stayed in touch. When they later learned he was on his deathbed, they rushed a final package to him.

A small thing? The young fan passed away wearing a gift match-worn shirt autographed by his two heroes.

One more example of thousands: For a young girl fan who was in the hospital after attempting suicide, Bobandmike sent a video message complete with a musical performance – Bob on keyboard, Mike on drums – of an original song they wrote specifically for her.

Around the time the young Bryan Brothers posted their castle dream on the refrigerator, their mom Kathy told them: “It’s far more important who you are as person than who you are as an athlete.”

Remarkably, Mikeandbob climbed this Mount Everest, too.

 *   *   *

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” …