Monthly Archives: August 2021

Readers Share Nature Memories

by Woody

Sharing some smiles from my email inbox…

“Your column ‘Mining gold in front yard’s wildness’ rang a bell with me,” wrote Cyndi Nichols. “I have always enjoyed nature. I’m a gardener now, but when I was a child I collected bugs, their eggs and offspring. When there was a science fair in school, I brought the bugs and their eggs and the food that they would eat to share. I did not harm them.

“One year, I collected about 200 caterpillar’s eggs from our elm tree. I put them in shoeboxes and fed them elm leaves every day. One day I forgot to put the lids back on and had to scramble to catch them all and put them back in the boxes. Eventually, they spun their cocoons and emerged as butterflies. I took all the boxes into the backyard and let them out at the same time. What a sight!

“When I was about three, we lived in the desert, in Lancaster. My brother says I walked in with a tarantula in my small hand to show everyone. All my shocked mother could say was, ‘Take that thing outside,’ which I did. To this day I do not kill spiders in the house. Little jumpers and daddy longlegs I catch barehanded, but as I have gotten older larger spiders get caught in tissue and put out.

“I still love nature, from the tiniest flowers in the lawn, to the largest Dahlias. I love to garden and would like to have one of everything. I feel the same about animals of all kinds, whether it be pets, lizards, bugs. Thank you for bringing me down memory lane.”

*

Linda Calderon also took a mental trip back to her youth: “My Dad used to walk my late brother and me to the end of our street and teach us which constellations were which. I sure don’t recall today, but it was great for him to do that.

“He also taught us to lay on our backs in the yard and imagine what different things the clouds looked like. I still find myself taking photos of some that look like poodles, etc., and I told my grandkids to go outside at their house and do the same. At 80, I’m still amazed at rainbows and photograph them also.

“I grew up in a small village (about 400 population) in the countryside and I am still in love with nature.”

*

            In response to my comment that the Channel Islands are underrated, John Snyder replied: “Shhhh! I sailed to the islands, all of them except San Clemente and San Nicolas, at various times between 1972 and 2015.

“Most of our vacations, and practically all long weekends, were to/around Santa Cruz Island. Other than stinkpots becoming more prevalent over the years, little changed. This included the proposal by the family owing the eastern portion of the island to turn it into a resort area with hotel and fast food restaurants, which, fortunately, was shot down.

“That the island has been preserved is one of the happier memories of my life. As far as I’m concerned, the Channel Islands can remain concealed from human view, much like Brigadoon. Not like Brigadoon necessarily, but more, out-of-sight; out-of-mind, only those who have taken the time and made the effort to get there, knowing its delights.”

*

Barbara Murray shared this closing wisdom: “It is hard in this current time to remember the beautiful things. I have one addiction: I think laughing is underrated. It heals the body and the soul.”

 *   *   *

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 SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Personalized Signed copies of WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and  “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

 

These Opinions Might Be Overrated

by Woody

Nobody asked me, but here’s a list of things I think are underrated or overrated.

Farmer’s markets are underrated.

Watermelon is overrated and bananas are underrated.

Our local fresh strawberries cannot possibly be overrated.

Tacos are overrated – just kidding.

Even after all we’ve been through during the enduring COVID-19 pandemic, frontline workers, from grocery cashiers, food service and agricultural workers to janitors, truck drivers and all healthcare employees, are underrated.

Frontline teachers are especially underrated and CEOs are especially overrated.

Doctors tend to be correctly rated, but nurses and physician assistants are definitely underrated.

Novacaine cannot be overrated if you are sitting in a dentist’s chair getting a filling.

Even if you try to fully appreciate it, good health is underrated until you fall ill or are injured.

Tom Hanks’ niceness is overrated – it simply has to be!

The magic of being a grandparent is overrated – until you become one.

The value of having music and art education in our schools is underrated.

The value of having kids in our schools, as opposed to attending classes remotely, cannot be overrated.

Individual universities are often overrated, but earning a college degree remains underrated.

Trade school degrees are greatly underrated.

Having a good mechanic, plumber or repairman/woman is underrated.

The dangers firefighters face are underrated by most of us.

All superheroes other than Superman, Batman and single parents are overrated.

A simple lunch or happy hour with another person, in person, is no longer underrated as of 2020.

Ditto for visiting a parent or grandparent in a senior living facility.

Expensive stylish shoes are overrated and comfortable shoes are underrated.

Before one sees the Grand Canyon in person it cannot help but be overrated; standing on its rim, however, it is impossible to underrate its awe-inspiring grandeur and breathtaking beauty.

Yosemite Valley is probably underrated.

The Channel Islands are definitely underrated.

Barefooted walks on the beach are highly rated, but still underrated.

Pizza is underrated, except for Hawaiian-style which is grossly overrated.

A short commute to work – especially from the bedroom to the kitchen table or extra bedroom/office – is no longer underrated.

Local microbreweries and small wineries are underrated.

Local charities that humbly do tremendous work are underrated.

Independent bookstores are underrated, as are public libraries and Little Free Libraries, too.

Ebooks are overrated by people who prefer printed ones, and vice-versa.

I thought Tolstoy was overrated, at the least overly longwinded, until I recently read some of his short stories – he merits his lofty rating.

At the risk of jinxing myself and getting a flat on the freeway, today’s car tires are underrated.

Common sense is underrated.

Cats are overrated to dog people, and vice-versa – but both are wrong because no beloved pet can be overrated.

Teenagers overrate the calamity of having a few pimples.

Older people overrate the calamity of having a few gray hairs.

The “good ol’ days” are overrated and today’s youth are too often underrated by those who were youths back in the “good ol’ days.”

A friendly smile is underrated by the person who is sharing it.

The medical miracle of all vaccines is underrated.

A true friendship cannot be overrated.

Handwritten letters and cards sent in the mail cannot be overrated.

Butterflies and birds are underrated, as are flowers and trees, and seas and sunsets. Let’s just say all of Nature is underrated.

These opinions are probably overrated to everyone except me.

 *   *   *

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 SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Personalized Signed copies of WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and  “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

 

 

Two Stories As Sweet As Cider

by Woody

“One of these days in your travels,” Damon Runyon wrote, “a guy is going to come up to you and show you a nice brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the Jack of Spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in your ear.

“But, son, do not bet this man, for as sure as you are standing there, you are going to end up with an earful of cider.”

As a break from the earful of sour news we all get squirted with daily, here are two stories to give you a smile – one sent to me by a friend, the other by my nephew, authors unknown.

*

“I was shopping in a big store and heard a loud crash. Multiple items had broken. Without even seeing what had happened, that much was obvious.

“I went to investigate. It was a shopping cart accident. An older shopper had misjudged a corner and steered her cart into a tall display, which came crashing down. It was quite a mess. Many items were shattered.

“The older shopper who had caused all this was on her knees. She was extremely embarrassed. Frantically, she was trying to clean things up. It was all her fault. She would make it right. People were gathered around her, doing nothing but gawking.

“Since I heard the crash, I felt I had to do something. I knelt down beside this poor woman and told her not to worry. I helped her pick up the broken pieces.

“After about a minute, the store manager appeared. He got on his knees next to us and said, ‘Leave it all there. We will clean it up.’

“The woman who was responsible said, ‘I want to pay you for all the damage.’

“The store manager said, ‘No, we have insurance for this. You don’t have to pay a thing. These things happen. It’s really nothing. Please don’t let this ruin your day.”

*

“I’m not a garbage man, but my dad was before I was born.

“He’d found old fishing lures, a Bulova watch, but more importantly…

“My dad was the driver who had this one girl’s garbage route, and every time the girl would hear the truck she’d get all the last-minute garbage from the house and take it out so she could get a good look at all the garbage men.

“And she was interested in my dad. She even scheduled her radiography classes around trash collection day, just so she’d be home. When my dad noticed the trend, he’d often switch roles with one of the guys on the back of the truck so he could take the girl’s last-minute garbage from her and toss it in.

“This went on for months. One day, the girl’s father locked her out of the house and said he wouldn’t let her back in until she gave her phone number to one of the garbage men.

“Coincidentally, this was one day my dad was driving. She took the trash up to the guy on the back and asked him, ‘Hey, is your driver seeing anyone?’

“The guy yelled to my dad, ‘Hey, Keith, are you seeing anyone?!?!’

“And that is how my dad found his most valuable treasure, my mom, in the garbage. They’ve been happily married for almost 26 years.”

*

I like to think – no, in fact, I know – these sweet-as-cider love stories and Golden Rule kindnesses happen all around us, and to us, each day.

 *   *   *

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 SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Personalized Signed copies of WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and  “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

 

 

Mining Gold In Yard’s Wildness

by Woody

In fifth grade, in springtime, in the afternoon, Mr. Hawkins, one of my all-time favorite teachers, grounded me from recess and instead gave me an assignment as a small punishment for talking in class.

While my classmates raced onto the playground, I was sent outside to the school’s front yard and told to fill a sheet of notebook paper with observations. I returned in about five minutes, bored and with an empty page, begging to go join my friends in kickball.

“Don’t come back until the page is filled,” Mr. Hawkins reprimanded, adding encouragingly as I remember it like yesterday: “Look up in the sky, look at the trees, get down on your hands and knees and really look.”

It may not be memory’s sweet exaggeration to report that I filled up two full pages, even three, with my findings. Certainly, long before reading these words by John Muir I learned their meaning that day: “There are treasures hidden in the glorious wildness like unmined gold.”

Hidden, too, in a schoolyard’s grass, bushes and trees.

This all came flying back to my mind, like a red robin alighting on a dogwood branch, the other day when I spent some time really looking at the drought-resistant wildness of my front yard.

This close examination was further tied to Mr. Hawkins, who doubled as the school’s science teacher. Whenever a spider intruded in our classroom he would capture it beneath an upturned coffee cup, slide a piece of paper below, and then release it outside. He explained that while spiders may seem scary, they benefit our ecosystem by eating insects and pests.

Ever since, except in the middle of the night when I choose the heel of a shoe instead of a cup, I try to catch-and-release spiders as I would a lovely rainbow trout.

This time, when I bent down to liberate the eight-legged guy – or gal – in the front-yard landscape, I sighted a beetle crawling on a decorative boulder. I proceeded to watch it seemingly defy gravity by climbing down the steep face like a rock climber rappelling Half Dome.

Next, my eyes followed the paroled spider as it slowly scaled the long arm of a cactus plant. By now, I was back in the fifth grade, literally back on my hands and knees, filling up a lined notebook page in my mind.

A single file of ants marched across a dry creek bed of smooth stones; a butterfly, black and orange but not a Monarch, flitted by; a bird chirped out of sight and leaves overhead fluttered like nature’s gentle wind chimes; a second butterfly joined the first and they did an aerial ballroom dance together; another bird, a crow I believe, made a short commuter flight from our rooftop to the top of a plum tree.

For a long while I observed a lone worker bee go from flower to flower to flower like a trick-or-treater from door to door. In the midst of this viewing, a stray cat, black as midnight with golden eyes that seemed neon-lit, strolled up beside me as if to ask: “Hey, buddy, have you seen any mice in there anywhere?”

To this I would have thankfully answered “no” for I am too phobic of rodents to rescue and relocate one with a coffee mug.

And so it went, for fifteen minutes or maybe it was 45, I do not know. I do know this, as Mr. Muir also wrote: “In every walk with Nature, one receives far more than he seeks.” Mr. Hawkins would have surely agreed.

 *  *  *

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 SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Personalized Signed copies of WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and  “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” are available at WoodyWoodburn.com