Monthly Archives: July 2022

Fair Makes Big-Eyed Kids Of Us All

by Woody

The John Mellencamp song “County Fair” comes to my mind every summer with one lyric especially making me smile: “Kids with eyes as big as dollars / Rode all the rides.”

That, in a single image, sums up the Ventura County Fair to me – kids getting their thrills on carousels and trains, sky swings and the Tilt-a-Whirl, small roller coasters and the giant Ferris wheel.

My favorite Ferris wheel memory is captured in a framed 8-by-10 black-and-white photograph. Snapped candidly by a Star photographer three decades ago, before newspapers became colorful, it still hangs on my daughter’s childhood bedroom wall. In it she is 4 years old with excited eyes as big as dollars, me seated tight by her side with one arm around her, as we soar high skyward. It was her first VC Fair and she says it remains one of her earliest vivid memories.

Alas, for the past two years, kids – and teens and adults – making new Fair memories was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic causing the event’s first cancellation since World War II. Happily, that changes this Wednesday (Aug. 3) when the “VC Fair Rides Again.”

The Fair makes kids of us all. If not the rides, then the win-a-stuffed-animal games or various exhibits or concerts or chocolate-covered bacon will give you eyes as big as silver dollars. The Fair is more timeless than baseball and for a week and a half each summer becomes our favorite pastime.

Speaking of baseball, legend has it Babe Ruth played an exhibition game nearly a century ago in the mid-1920s at Seaside Park which is, and has been since 1914, the site for the Ventura County Fair that originated in 1874 at the Pierpont Bluffs. This claim to fame makes the current fairgrounds all the more special. After all, while throwing baseballs at milk bottles on the midway you can imagine you are trying to strike out The Sultan of Swat.

The Fair is also special because of spinning, dipping, whirling rides with enough G-forces to make a NASA astronaut’s stomach woozy.

The Fair is special because the food can also make your stomach spin with offerings that include almost anything you can imagine served on a stick, deep-fried or dipped in chocolate – or all three.

The Fair is special because it serves as an excuse for parents to play hooky from work for an afternoon.

The Fair is special because of the amazing exhibits of paintings and photography, handmade quilts and home-baked cakes, and on and on.

The Fair is special because of the midway games, no matter if the basketball rims are too high and so bent out of round that LeBron James would be lucky to sink 1 out of 4.

The Fair is special because the carnies are such colorful characters.

The Fair is special because of the 4-H junior livestock auction and blue-ribbon rabbits the size of English bulldogs!

And, not least of all, the Fair is special because of the ocean-side Ferris wheel that affords a soaring seagull’s-eye panoramic view that is beyond spectacular. This magic is magnified if you are 4 years old, or thereabouts, or sitting beside such a kid with eyes as big as silver dollars.

Mellencamp’s song concludes: “Well the County Fair left quite a mess / In the county yard”

Indeed, come August 14, after the tents are folded, the rides taken down, and the trucks loaded up, there will be quite a mess left behind. But that’s how the best parties always end – with a happy mess and lasting memories.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody 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

Some Hair-Razing Experiences

by Woody

Have you ever had a bad haircut?

I mean really bad. Bad squared. A haircut that looks like your stylist had hand tremors and advanced cataracts. A fiasco you hide under a ball cap or headscarf for a month because it brings to mind the Rolling Stones’ song “Look What The Cat Dragged In.”

I have suffered my fair share of such hair-assment, beginning in boyhood when my dad used electric dog clippers on my two older brothers and me. Why dog shears, you ask? Because our miniature poodle Mac turned into the Tasmanian Devil when Pop tried unsuccessfully to groom him and doggone it if those brand-new clippers were going to go to waste!

In college, I had only myself to blame when I started going to a local beauty college because it only cost five bucks. That might sound even riskier than facing dog clippers, but in truth the haircuts usually turned out not half-bad because the instructor would touch up – or, if need be, entirely redo – everything after the student took a stab at it.

A few times, however, even Vidal Sassoon could not have repaired the original effort. Stubbornly, like a person playing a slot machine, I kept pulling the $5 handle hoping for three cherries. Alas, “One More Try” too often led to two other songs by the Stones: “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and “No Use Crying.”

My hair-razing tale hit rock bottom one day when the student stylist in training kept trying to even up one side – snip-snip – then the other – clip-clip – then the first side again – snip-clip – and so on, until my Bjorn Borg-like locks were barely longer than the buzzed lawns at Wimbledon. I wore a knit cap all of spring semester.

Over the ensuing years I tried small barbershops and big chains with “Super” and “Super Duper” in their names, but the results continued to be lemon-cherry-7. Until I hit the 7-7-7 jackpot with a woman named Rosa who cut my hair just the way I like it – shorter than when I arrived, yet looking like it hadn’t just been cut. For the next five or six years, I was in haircut heaven.

And then came COVID-19. The longer the pandemic went, the longer my locks grew. Three months became six months and then, stubbornly just for the heck of it, a full year and beyond without a haircut. Finally, I took my Rapunzel-like mane back into the barber chair. A different chair, though, because Rosa’s shop had gone out of business.

Another Rolling Stones’ song, “The Worst,” describes the result. Fortunately my weed-whacked hair grew out, and then some, by the time my son’s recent wedding rolled around. Not wanting to risk accenting my groomsman’s tuxedo with a ball cap, I was in need of a Hair Mary miracle.

My much-better-half has gone to the same stylist – and, shhhhh, colorist – since before my son was born, always with Hollywood-like red-carpet results. “Give Patti a try,” Lisa urged. “She’ll do a great job.”

Patti’s place is a Frisbee toss from the beach with a hippie vibe and even an antique barber pole inside. In other words, I loved it. As she went to work, her adorable little dog sat nearby. His name is Jagger, like the rock star, so I don’t have to tell you the background music was awesome.

Jagger’s human namesake, Mick, famously sings the song “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” but I felt completely the opposite when I got out of Patti’s chair. It was best haircut of my life.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody 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

My Own ‘Charlotte’s Web’ Tale

by Woody

In E. B. White’s popular children’s novel “Charlotte’s Web,” as you very likely once read and still fondly recall, a spider named Charlotte befriends a pig named Wilbur.

Here is a 280-character Tweet-length synopsis: As winter approaches, Wilbur is destined for the dinner table. Charlotte devises a plan to save his life by making him too famous for slaughter. She proceeds to weave four messages into her web – “Some Pig”, “Terrific”, “Radiant” and “Humble” – above Wilbur’s pen. Suddenly, people from far and wide are coming to see this special pig.

It is Charlotte, of course, who is truly special. In fact, most spiders are special for they are pest-control stalwarts. Hence, when I find one inside the house I go to the trouble of capturing it under a coffee mug; sliding a piece of paper under the rim; then carrying it outside to release in our drought-resistant yard. Usually.

Confession: When I encounter a spider during a middle-of-the-night trip to the bathroom I am more apt to grab a flip-flop sandal, not a mug of mercy, and administer a deadly TWHACK!

Such was my initial instinct not long ago, in the wee-wee hours of darkness, when I was greeted by an eight-legged intruder. Luckily for it – or she, for I soon named it Charlotte – she was inside the bathtub. I say luckily because since the tub is enclosed with sliding glass doors it seemed too much effort – and too noisy, for the doors rumble a bit and might awaken my much-better-half – to exterminate Charlotte.

Also, once you name a spider you really can’t THWACK! it with a shoe or rolled-up magazine.

Since the enclosed bath is basically a terrarium with no plants, I figured I would go back to bed and capture Charlotte in the morning and relocate her to the garden. This plan seemed good for both my cacti and my karma.

Come morning, as you might have guessed, Charlotte was gone. Possibly she made a prison break by climbing up and over the glass doors, although it seemed more likely she went down the drain like her famous nursery rhyme cousin The Itsy Bitsy Spider.

That night, to my surprise, my own itsy bitsy spider had climbed up the drain again.

“Hello, Charlotte,” I said, for that is what you do when you have named a spider. Moments later, turning off the light, I said in a pillow-talk whisper: “Goodnight, Charlotte.” Fortunately, my wife did not awaken and hear me for who knows what she would have thought since Charlotte is not her name.

This pattern continued for perhaps a week with the tub empty in daylight and Charlotte reappearing in the dark of night.

Then came a surprise. One afternoon, Charlotte materialized in the tub as if the moon was out. My impulse was to finally take her outside. On my way to get a coffee mug for capture, however, I had second thoughts. While Charlotte would be good for my garden, would the garden be good for her? Or, instead, might she wind up as a bird’s breakfast? As it was, she seemed to have a safe home in the drainpipes below.

And so I left well enough alone. Later, however, when I found a small spider web – empty at the time – anchored to the faucet and shower wall, it seemed she had decided to move in up above and I decided I would have to move her out the next time I saw her.

Alas, she has never reappeared, day or night.

Sadly, my Charlotte didn’t even weave a “Goodbye” note.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody 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

Breaking My Own Column Rule

by Woody

My great friend Dan had a basement that was a boyhood wonderland with a pinball machine, Ping-Pong table, slot-car racetrack, dartboard, Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots, board games and more.

Dan not only knew how to expertly shake the pinball machine without a “tilt” registering, he also had a habit of tilting other games in his direction. That is to say he playfully cheated.

“My house, my rules,” Dan would announce and claim a do-over when his HO-scale Corvette went around a curve too speedily and flew off the track; when his dart wildly missed its mark and ricocheted off the cinder-block wall; when he jiggled the pinball machine a little too vigorously and the flippers did freeze.

Similarly, a high-stakes roll in Monopoly sometimes required having both dice coming to rest on the game board, not the table; but other times vice-versa. “Doesn’t count. Roll again,” he would cackle if he didn’t like the outcome. “My house, my rules.”

Naturally, the rules tilted in my favor when we played H-O-R-S-E or checkers at my house.

I bring this up today because I have long had an unwritten rule of not writing about local authors and their books in this space. It seems more prudent to say “no” to all requests, being as numerous as they are, than risk this becoming a weekly book review column.

Alas, loyal readers of this space with good memories will instantly recognize my hypocrisy because back in February I wrote about the novel “Thanks, Carissa, For Ruining My Life” (Immortal Works Publishing). The setting features a fictional beach town named Buena Vista that is clearly – from Main Street to the foothills to a familiar taco shack – Buenaventura.

That author, a former prestigious John Steinbeck Fellow in Creative Writing, has a new book that just came out last week: a collection of short stories titled, “How to Make Paper When the World is Ending” (Koehler Books). It is terrific. Indeed, no less than ten of the 15 offerings have previously appeared in literary magazines and journals.

Just as Mr. Steinbeck time and again wrote about the Salinas Valley in his fiction, Dallas Woodburn over and again writes about her hometown – including the pier, beach, and promenade – in the pages of “Paper.” One of my favorite stories here is titled “How My Parents Fell In Love” which begins:

“My mother walked out of the grocery store. She wore a red dress, her hair was permed the way it looks in photo albums. My father drove up in a car, a fast car, silver, a car that goes vroom vroom. He did not know her yet. She looked pretty in that red dress with the ruffles at the hem. He rolled down the window, leaned out, and smiled, and said, ‘Hubba, hubba!’ They fell in love and lived happily ever after.”

Four similar vignettes follow, each growing longer and written more maturely than the previous, each storyline slightly changed yet each ending exactly the same: “They fell in love and lived happily every after.”

The sixth and final version, however, rings most true and scraps the fairy-tale ending: “Later that night they kissed under the mistletoe. The fell in love. And they lived, happily. Also angrily, naughtily, hopelessly, hungrily. Messily. Ever after. Like saints and martyrs and lovers and children. They lived, and they live. Together still.”

Am I guilty of hypocrisy and nepotism with today’s subject? Yes, most assuredly. Also unashamedly, happily, unapologetically, proudly with my buttons popping off.

“My column, my rules.” I hope you understand and will forgive me.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody 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