Monthly Archives: November 2020

The Complaint Department Is Open

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

*

The Complaint Department

Is Now Open

One of the funniest The New Yorker cartoons I can recall dates back to 1998 when it was featured in a final-season episode of “Seinfeld.” A pig is standing at the “Complaints” window in a department store and tells the woman employee, in a caption submitted by the TV character Elaine: “I wish I was taller.”

Well, I’m 6-foot-4 but I am not short of complaints…

*

I wish 2020 was shorter instead of seeming to have already lasted about 18 years.

*

I used to get annoyed when I would forget to bring my own reusable bag into a store, but now that I’ve gotten better my new problem is leaving my mask in the car and having to go back to retrieve it.

*

I wish I wasn’t always forgetting my Internet passwords, a seemingly daily occurrence with one account or another. I reckon I reset my email password alone more often than Jeff Bezos earns another 10 million dollars.

*

Speaking of Amazon, I have annoyed myself during the coronavirus pandemic by relying too heavily on the convenience of click-and-buying things online – after, naturally, re-re-re-resetting my Prime membership password first – instead of putting on a mask and going to a local store.

I vow to do better in 2021. No, beginning now.

*

Speaking of the Internet, I have a complaint about websites that ask me to prove I am a person (and not a spam program) by typing in a series of displayed random letters and numbers that look like either hieroglyphics or something drawn by Picasso while he was drunk.

Worse yet is when I am presented a photograph of a busy intersection and asked to click on each of the nine gridded squares that contain portions of the five major food groups.

In either case, I usually mistake cars for apples or guess letters to be numbers.

*

“Woody, you knucklehead,” you might say. “Just write down your passwords and the problem is solved.”

Well, I can’t begin to tell you how annoyed I get when I lose my list of passwords – which is a full page long, by the way, because cyber experts tell us that not having a unique password for each and every account is more dangerous than storing nuclear waste in one’s refrigerator.

*

I worry about our local restaurants surviving during the pandemic, but I do have a complaint about some of them for wrapping my take-away orders in two pounds of aluminum foil, paper, cardboard and eco-unfriendly Styrofoam, which is a huge complaint all in itself, plus a bag. That’s a lot of unneeded waste for about five minutes of use.

*

I have a major complaint about people who don’t clean up their dog’s messes at parks, beaches and even on sidewalks.

I wish there was an ordinance requiring such Styrofoam-brained dog owners to personally clean off the icky shoe soles for those of us who take a messy misstep.

*

I similarly have a complaint about people who treat our beautiful beaches like a pigsty by leaving behind litter.

*

I wish half the sesame seeds didn’t always fall off my bagel and make my place at the table look like a pigsty.

*

It annoys me that robocalls and spam email are harder to stop than LeBron James.

*

My final complaint for today is that the pig cartoon in “Seinfeld” was actually fictitious, although The New Yorker later ran a caption contest with the same drawing. The winner? “Stop sending me spam!”

I wish I had sent that in.

 *   *   *

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” …

Ball Drive Remains On The Map

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

*

Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive

Remains On The Map

Chuck Thomas, the longtime sage of this Saturday column space as well as my friend and mentor, wrote a novel published nearly three decades ago that revolved around a small-town newspaper and features a Norwegian Elkhound named Woody.

It remains a cherished kindness that I keep in my bookcase and heart. I bring this up not in boast, but because the novel’s title seems remarkably fitting these days: “Getting Off The Map.” I think that describes how most of us have felt during 2020 – like we’ve fallen off the map.

Some “smiles” before they were delivered to disadvantaged kids last year…

As this holiday season approaches I worry, too, that disadvantaged youth will fall through the cracks more than ever before. Which brings to mind this wisdom from Chuck, who passed away 11 years ago this month: “Help someone today because you may not have the opportunity tomorrow.”

Helping local underprivileged children is the aim of Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive that officially kicks off again today. The inspiration for the annual endeavor was twofold, beginning a quarter-century ago at a youth basketball clinic when former Ventura College and NBA star Cedric Ceballos awarded autographed basketballs to a handful of lucky attendees.

Leaving the gym afterward, I happened upon a 10-year-old boy who won one of the prized keepsakes. He was dribbling it and shooting baskets on the rough blacktop outdoor court while perhaps imagining himself to be Ceballos.

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

Curious as to 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 holiday season, 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 – I got a second assist of inspiration from Julius Gius. Specifically, the long-running Christmas Bellringer campaign he started long ago as editor of The Star to support the Salvation Army.

Instead of asking readers to drop loose change and bills into a kettle, I asked them to drop off brand new sports balls for kids in need. A great thing about a basketball, football or soccer ball as a holiday gift is that no batteries are required. Also, unlike most toys, a rubber ball is all but unbreakable.

In the introduction to a collection of his “Editor’s Notebook” columns published in 1988, Gius wrote: “I have had a rich and rewarding life. Everything has come up roses for me. I count my blessings every day and wish them for everyone.”

The pandemic poses an added challenge this year, like a sixth defender on the basketball court, but nonetheless I am again encouraging you dear readers to help pass out roses and blessings by dropping off new sports balls at any Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, youth club or church and they will find a worthy young recipient.

You can also drop balls off (weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Dec. 18) in a no-contact collection box outside Jensen Design & Survey at 1672 Donlon St. near Target on Telephone Road in Ventura; or have online orders shipped to the same address; and I will take it from there.

And please email me about your bouncing gifts at woodywriter@gmail.com so I can add your generosity to this year’s tally.

In closing, and in advance, let me quote the character Salena in “Getting Off The Map” who at one point says: “Thanks for the support. It means a lot.”

 *   *   *

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” …

Pencils, Pens and Rocket Science

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

*

Pencils, Pens and

Rocket Science

In an interview discussing her novel “Song of Solomon,” Toni Morrison spent upwards of fifteen minutes discussing the opening paragraph. This was remarkable for it consists of a mere 43 words total:

“The North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance agent promised to fly from Mercy to the other side of Lake Superior at three o’clock. Two days before the event was to take place he tacked a note on the door of his little yellow house.”

The two sentences seem simple enough, yet in the hands of the late Pulitzer Prize-winner the writing pen is on the order of rocket science. For example, “North” in the insurance company’s name was a metaphor for the Underground Railroad and slaves fleeing in that direction. The choice of “Mercy” for the town was more evident, but to learn the deeper meanings behind “fly” and “three o’clock” and “little yellow house” was to hear a SpaceX engineer discussing avionics.

I know this because I recently visited with the Lead Build Reliability Engineer for Avionics at SpaceX. Technically, Cullen McAlpine and his team are in charge of making sure the electromechanical assemblies, wire harnesses, batteries, sensors, solar arrays and more all perform as designed.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon astronauts …

In other words, when the Crew Dragon spacecraft lifts off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida (launch time is targeted for 7:49 p.m. ET, Saturday, Nov. 14) to carry four astronauts to the International Space Station, Cullen will be a key author in the sci-fi story that is now almost routine.

Cullen, a 2011 graduate of Ventura High School who earned a degree in Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering at UCLA, is a dear family friend of mine. As a kid who grew up during America’s Space Race with Russia in the sixties, I love asking Cullen questions about his work.

I won’t share everything that he told me the other day because you’d have to be a rocket scientist to understand much of it. More truthfully, I mostly have no idea what he was talking about so how can I retell it?

At one point, trying to give the impression I wasn’t a complete doofus, I mentioned how I found it amazing NASA spent a million dollars to develop a pen that could write in the gravity-free vacuum of space whereas Soviet cosmonauts simply used a two-cent pencil.

Cullen smiled at me like a wise professor and then gently educated his ignorant student. With the depth of Toni Morrison discussing writing, he explained that using a pencil in space could be penny-wise and mission-foolish. The tip of graphite breaking off could pose danger to equipment inside a weightless capsule. Even a tiny fleck of graphite could float perilously into an astronaut’s eye.

Cullen told me much more, but most of it sounded like a foreign language. As if in a Paris restaurant, I just nodded a lot.

Doing some homework for the next time I see Cullen, I discovered that early on NASA astronauts did indeed use pencils – mechanical ones costing $128 each. The Fisher Pen Company eventually stepped in and invested $1 million to create a pen that can write upside-down; in blazing temperatures (250 degrees Fahrenheit) and frigid conditions (minus 30 degrees); even underwater.

Featuring a pressurized nitrogen cartridge and gel-like ink, the “Space Pen” was patented in 1966 and first used by Apollo 7 astronauts during their 1968 mission. Soviet cosmonauts followed suit a year later.

Inspired by Cullen, I bought an authentic million-dollar “Space Pen” for 22 bucks. I’m no rocket scientist but believe me, it’s far better – and way cooler – than a pencil.

 *   *   *

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” …

Sweet Treat Follows Halloween

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

*

A Sweet Treat

Follows Halloween

Out of precaution, but with small expectation, we bought a single bag of candy bars in case any trick-or-treaters came by Halloween evening. In years past we have handed out 20 bags.

Coronavirus kept our doorbell silent as a tombstone.

It’s easy to jokingly snicker, “Great! I’ll just have to eat all these Snickers myself.” But the truth is I felt empty because autumn’s annual parade of kids singing “Trick or treat!” as their goodie sacks and plastic pumpkin buckets fill up, fills my heart.

Imagine the cutest costumed child of the night knocking on your door after the porch light has been turned off and you get an idea of what happened to me. In this case, it was a day later and two young girls were dressed up as themselves – as the cutest two siblings imaginable.

I am guessing their ages to be 3 and 5 and they were at a local park with their parents enjoying a late-afternoon picnic. Meanwhile, I was on my daily run and seeing them each half-mile loop around put a smile on my face and extra spring in my stride.

I wish you could have seen them. The girls played catch with their dad and tag with their mom; played by themselves while their parents snuggled on the spread-out blanket; joined mom and dad for a snack, and a hug, before racing off to pet a dog on a leash; and on and on their fun went.

Just as Halloween is a time machine that pulls us back to our own childhoods, these two children sent my mind racing in reverse 25 years to when my daughter and son were about their ages.

Instead of on a blanket in a park, our young family of four was having dinner at a charming Italian restaurant. After the spaghetti and meatballs disappeared, and scoops of ice cream too, our waiter vanished. The kids grew antsy as we waited for the check. Ten minutes became thirty and my wife and I became impatient as well.

“Where’s the check?” I grumbled softly.

“Where’s our waiter?” my wife mumbled.

“Where’s the bathrooms?” the kids needed to know.

Our waiter remained AWOL. Eventually, finally, at long last I caught the attention of a different server and asked if he could please get our check.

Instead of the check, our original waiter brought us a heartwarming explanation: Two elderly gentlemen at a table across the room had paid for our dinner, but requested the waiter not let us know until after they left – hence the long delay.

The Samaritan pair had seen a happy young family, our waiter explained, and simply wanted to anonymously do a random act of kindness. Ever since, I have occasionally tried to repay those kind men when I have seen happy young families in restaurants.

And so it was that I wished I could have paid the dinner check for the two girls and their parents at the park. Instead, all I could think to do was stop by before I left and tell them something they already well knew – what a lovely family they are!

This led to a brief social-distanced visit where I learned the sisters are inseparable, even sharing a bed by choice, and that a third sibling is on the way.

As I jogged away into the early arriving darkness, the two girls sang out in sweet harmony: “Have a nice day!”

“Thank you!” I shouted back. “You, too!”

What I thought was this: “Thanks to you, I already have.”

 *   *   *

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” …