Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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The mile marker of a birthday is a good time for reflection and so today, four days before beginning my sixty-sixth lap around the sun, here are a few things I have come to know…

Always double-knot your shoelaces.

Never pass up a barefoot walk on the beach.

Love is more powerful than penicillin.

Never ever pass up a chance to gaze at a sunrise, or sunset, or rainbow.

Always take the opportunity to gaze at the stars on a clear night – or at Starry Night and other masterpiece paintings.

Speaking of art and masterpieces, these two bookend John Wooden-isms will carry you far: “Make friendship a fine art” and “Make each day your masterpiece.”

Who you travel with is far more important than where you travel.

All the same, Robert Frost was right: Take the road less traveled by.

Even if wrongly attributed to John Muir, this advice is also right: “Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.”

Don’t save the good china plates and crystal goblets and heirloom silverware only for special occasions.

Do spend as much time as you can with people who lift you up and as little as possible with those who pull you down.

Writing a thank-you note, or handwritten letter, is always a few minutes well spent.

A good many movies and books are too long, but most hugs are too short.

A positive attitude will positively carry you far.

Never pass up a chance to hold hands with a boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife or partner, child or elderly.

“I’m sorry” can be as healing as “I love you.”

Don’t let your fears outweigh your dreams.

One minute of encouragement following a defeat or painful failure is worth far more than an hour of accolades and praise after a triumph or big success.

Artificial Intelligence worries me, but not half so much as Real Stupidity does.

The value of a compliment is often underrated by the giver, but is rarely underappreciated by the recipient.

This African proverb is right: “There are two lasting gifts you can give your child: one is roots, the other is wings.”

Do unto others as you would have them do unto your children or grandchildren is a better Golden Rule.

We can always make room for one more at the dinner table, or in our heart.

Maya Angelou was right: “When you leave home, you take home with you.”

The best travels, and life journeys too, often wind about a bit crookedly.

Even a “bad” road trip will give you some good memories to last a lifetime.

It is not truly a favor if you make a person feel like you are doing them a favor.

It takes worn-out running shoes to finish a marathon; worn-out brushes before you can paint a masterpiece; burnt pans to become a seasoned chef; and blistered fingertips to master the guitar.

Some of my very favorite adults seem like they are just tall children.

No matter your age, never pass up a chance to ride a Ferris wheel or carousel.

If you can be world class at only one thing, make it kindness.

JFK was right when he said, “One person can make a difference and everyone should try.”

My dear friend Wayne Bryan is even more right: “If you don’t make an effort to help others less fortunate than you, then you’re just wasting your time on Earth.”

Don’t waste your time on Earth.

Stopping to smell the roses is never a waste of time.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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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.

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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The first Mother’s Day gift I remember giving my mom was a bouquet of flowers fashioned in first grade from colored tissue paper and pipe cleaners, plus gobs of paste, and a bigger glob of love.

Mom, naturally, acted as thrilled as if it were a dozen long-stemmed roses because that’s what moms do.

The final Mother’s Day gift I gave my mom, 33 years ago – more than half my lifetime – was a store-bought bouquet. More importantly, I delivered the lovely flowers in person; most importantly, they came with a hug. She might have preferred a single dandelion and a bouquet of hugs.

These bookend reminisces bring to mind a story I once heard, perhaps apocryphal, that seems fitting to share ahead of Mother’s Day.

Harry was an extremely successful, and extremely busy, businessman. The Friday before Mother’s Day, when his secretary phoned in sick, he suddenly realized he had forgotten to have her order flowers for his mom. He would now have to take care of the matter himself and made a beeline on foot to a florist shop two blocks from his office.

The owner began to show him a variety of special arrangements, but Harry was in a hurry. Truth is, he was always in a rush. In the business world, after all, time is money. He hastily ordered one dozen long-stemmed red roses to be delivered two days hence on his mom’s doorstep 200 miles away.

“Those are for my mom,” Harry noted, adding: “Give me another dozen of the same, wrapped to-go, for my wife.”

Exiting the shop, with his attention already focused again on work, Harry collided with a young boy stooped down to lock up his bicycle.

“You nearly tripped me!” Harry snarled.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the boy apologized, then added bravely: “Can you lend me three dollars?”

“Don’t you mean give you three dollars?” Harry acerbically corrected. “You aren’t planning to pay me back. Why do you need three dollars anyway?”

“Today’s my mom’s birthday and I want to buy her a beautiful flower,” the boy explained. “But I don’t have quite enough money.”

Harry’s heart softened, slightly, and he asked the boy where he lived.

“About five minutes that way,” replied the boy, pointing down the street.

By now Harry had pulled out his wallet, withdrew three singles from within, then a new idea came to him. He put the crisp bills back and plucked one of the roses from the bouquet for his wife – surely she would not notice – and handed it to the boy.

“Give this beauty to your mom,” Harry offered with a wink.

“I’m gonna take this to her right now!” the boy said and promptly hopped on his bike and began to ride off – in the opposite direction of where he had indicated that he lived.

“Hey, son, I thought your house was that way,” Harry grumbled, gesturing.

“It is,” the boy replied. “But the cemetery is this way – my mom died last year.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Harry said, his voice cracking.

Eleven heartbeats of silence passed, one for each rose in Harry’s hand, before he spoke again. Handing the boy the remainder of the bouquet, he said: “Please put them all on her grave.”

“Really? Wow!” said the boy, his face beaming. “Thanks, mister!”

After the boy pedaled away Harry wheeled around and went back inside the florist shop.

“I need to cancel that out-of-town delivery I just ordered,” Harry said. “Instead, I would like two dozen roses right now, please, to-go. I’ve decided to deliver them today personally.”

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

From Woody’s column archives, winter of 2021, evoked by last week’s nighttime spring showers…

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Ask one hundred people to name their favorite piece of music and you are likely to get a different answer from each, from the Beatles to Beethoven, from country to classical, from Amadeus to Zeppelin.

This question came to mind the other night as a much-needed Southern California rainstorm was drumming madly on my rooftop and rat-a-tat-tatting against my bedroom windowpanes. Buddy Rich nor Keith Moon ever played more magnificently.

Rain is such a lovely lullaby, I thought, and before fully drifting asleep, cocooned warm and dry beneath a Hudson Bay blanket, I considered nature’s songs further. Reaching back in time, back to my youth in Ohio, back to humid summer weekends at our family’s modest cabin with a nearby pond and a not-far-off lake, I conjured up another magical melody: the chirping of crickets; joined occasionally by bullfrogs croaking their basso notes a short walk away; and in the distance, much less frequently, eerie-but-beautiful lonesome howls of coyotes.

Moreover, instead of counting sheep to fall asleep one could count a cricket’s chirps for 15 seconds, add 40 to that number, and arrive at an approximation of the outside temperature in degrees Fahrenheit.

Winter nights, where winters are truly winters, have their own soundtrack for inducing slumber. If you listen closely, eyes-closed closely, I swear you can hear snow falling. Rather, I suppose, one actually hears an absence of noise as the snow muffles out all but the loudest of sounds. All the same, it is a beautiful lullaby indeed for as Mozart noted: “The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.”

Nearly as hushed as snowfall and softer than tap-dancing rain, with a cadence slower and more soothing than a cicada’s summer song, is to fall asleep to the whispered breathing of someone next to you. Here, too, the music is in the silence between notes, between inhalations and exhalations.

And yet, pressed to choose only one song to drift off to, I will opt for a percussion performance of waves crashing on the beach. Even in daylight, this is my favorite music, but at nighttime the ocean’s anthem is mesmerizingly magnified tenfold.

One of the magical properties of music is that it is a time machine. Hearing a specific song can instantly transport us back to where we were—and who we were—when we first heard it and listened to it frequently.

Such was the case for my wife’s recent birthday when our family, all seven of us, rendezvoused at a rented beach house in Avila Beach—or “Vanilla Beach,” as three-year granddaughter Maya renamed it—for a weekend celebration.

During the daytime, the cymbal-like crashing waves were largely drowned out by talking and laughing and all other goings on of life. But at night, after the moon rose and Goodnight Moon had been read to Maya and we had all later likewise retired to bed, the surf raised its volume pleasantly. Again, the music was as much in the silence—the sea rising into a gentle swell, rising into a wave, rising into a vibrating crest—between muffled oceanic thunderclaps.

Again I was transported back in time, back to 1972, back to age 12 when I spent the full summer at Solimar Beach with my godparents. For a kid from the Midwest who had never before seen any ocean, falling asleep nightly to the Pacific’s pacifying cadence was even better than listening to a rooftop symphony of rain or a concert of cicadas, coyotes, and bullfrogs.

All these years later, the surf’s song remains my favorite lullaby.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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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.