Vacation Photos – Less Can Be More

October 6, 2022 by Woody

Third try was indeed the charm.

After twice having a dream vacation canceled by the coronavirus nightmare, my better-half, who is half-Italian, and I finally made it to the land where her family roots reach deep into the fertile soil. Specifically, we sailed fully around the thigh-high boot setting out at Venice, through the narrow Strait of Messina at the toe, up the western coast and over to Barcelona with nine port stops en route.

The starting and ending bookends proved to be our favorites, although perhaps this was partly because we spent extra nights in both and were thus able to explore them a little more fully than the daytime destinations.

The ancient Colosseum in Rome was definitely photograph worthy!

A cruise, in my view, is sort of like speed dating in that you learn who (or where) you want to get to know better. In this case, we didn’t ask Croatia and Albania for their phone numbers. Don’t get me wrong, the former’s Old Town Dubrovnik – with white marble streets and forts of stone so magnificent “Game of Thrones” filmed myriad scenes there – was memorable, yet an afternoon inside these historic walls was plenty. Similarly, a few hours sufficed at the ancient sites of the Olympics in Olympia, Greece, and the Pompeii ruins near Naples, Italy.

Our two ports in France – Villefranche-sur-Mer and Toulon – are both gorgeous coastal locales, but to be honest we much prefer Ventura’s similar charms so feel no strong gravitational pull to return. Rome and Florence, however, like Venice and Barcelona, already beckon us back for longer sojourns.

In the coming weeks, I will share here some snapshots-in-words of my favorite experiences from our two-week trip: from memorable people and meals to the canals of Venice to the Colosseum in Rome to the breathtaking La Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona, and more.

Speaking of snapshots, my cell phone camera kept freezing with the command: “Out of Storage. Free Up Space.” Just my luck…

…good luck, that is.

In these old lands I was forced to go old-school. Instead of mindlessly snap-snap-snapping endless digital photos, I was forced to point-and-shoot judiciously. It was like going back in time and using a camera with film that comes in 12, 24 or 36 exposures. Instead of paying to have prints made, I had to spend time deleting files.

So it was I found myself taking in the sites, and sights, in their full grandeur through naked eyes instead of miniaturized on a pixel screen. Thus, I found myself absorbing the scenes and memorizing the moments before selectively choosing the very best ones to photograph.

In this reframed frame of mind, it saddened me to see so many others touring these goosebump-inducing historic places, even a museum filled with Picasso artwork, while largely squinting at their tiny cameras. They seemed more concerned with reliving these experiences in the future rather than living them in the present. One romantic couple we encountered seemed to be experiencing their entire gondola ride through the canals of Venice digitally instead of actually.

Conversely, instead of hundreds of photos, so many as to be overwhelming, I came home with only a few “rolls” of selectively snapped images to be developed at Fotomat, so to speak. This was a silver lining, as mentioned, for it seems to me that too many pictures is like not being able to see the forest for the trees. Indeed, the graceful stone columns in La Sagrada Familia are meant to invoke towering trees, a forest of them, something one might miss if looking through a camera lens.

To be continued next week…

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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

Rants and Raves on This and That

September 29, 2022 by Woody

If you want sugar and pumpkin spice and everything nice, call your grandma on Zoom because I’m in a puppy dog ate my homework kind of mood.

For starters, I was annoyed because what I thought was an extreme case of jetlag after spending 14 hours in the air – with a baby across the aisle from me crying for half of it – instead turned out to be COVID-19…

…but I love that thanks to modern science/medicine and being vaccinated and double-boosted, my symptoms have been akin to a very bad cold.

I get annoyed because I know the same handful of anti-vaxers who routinely gunk up my inbox will do so again now…

…but I love hitting the email “trash” key.

I get annoyed by impatient and rude drivers…

…but I love it when two lanes merge into one in a construction zone and every single driver allows another car in like a clothes zipper merging together perfectly.

I get annoyed when half the sesame seeds on my bagel fall off and make a mess…

…but I love it when a frozen yogurt has a mess of toppings.

I get annoyed by knuckleheads…

…but I love that my daughter calls knuckleheads “yo-yo-heads.”

I get annoyed at myself because I continually underestimate the slow-as-a-doctor’s-waiting-room traffic on the local freeways and wind up late for engagements…

…but I love when I hit a string of green lights in town and wind up arriving ten minutes early – which, as Coach John Wooden said, is actually merely being right on time.

I get annoyed when a doctor’s office is running 30 minutes behind schedule…

…but I love it when a receptionist performs a magic act and squeezes me in the very day I call in with an illness or ailment – which may be why another patient has to wait 30 minutes.

I get annoyed when a quick-service restaurant meal for eating on the premises, not take-out, comes wrapped in two pounds of aluminum foil, cardboard and paper – a lot of waste for 30 seconds of use…

…but I love it when I remember to take reusable bags to the grocery store.

I get annoyed when autocorrect makes me look like a yo-yo-head…

…but I love when my Star editor corrects a typo to keep me from looking like a yo-yo-head.

I get annoyed that school children see a need to send military care packages filled with requested items like cookies, chips, trail mix, jerky, granola bars and candy bars, and gum. If our troops want these items, the military should provide them!…

…but I love when kids send letters, cards and handmade items to our soldiers.

I get annoyed when I read the news crawl across the bottom of the TV screen and then lose track of what the news anchor is saying…

…but I love crawls that show me all the other scores and updates while watching a sporting event.

I get annoyed when dog walkers don’t clean up their pets’ messes…

…and I would love an ordinance that requires these yo-yo-heads to clean the shoe soles for those of us who take a messy misstep.

I get annoyed when I see litter anywhere, most especially on our lovely beaches…

…but I love the enthusiasm of volunteer beach clean-up days.

I get annoyed by the hypocrisy of so many yo-yo-head politicians…

…but I smile recalling my grandpa Ansel’s refrain that sometimes it’s good to deal with dummies because they make you feel so smart.

There, I feel so much better I think I’ll Zoom call my sugar-and-spice granddaughter.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Bookend Poems on Autumn’s Arrival

September 22, 2022September 23, 2022 by Woody

Poems about autumn, which arrived almost unexpectedly yesterday and as silently as if sneaking in on tiptoes for summer still seems in the air, surely outnumber all the leaves of reds and golds and flaming oranges in a forest of maple trees.

Not unexpectedly, one of the best of these poems was written by Emily Dickinson, a short offering published in 1896 and titled “Nature Poem, 28: Autumn.” It reads, in full:

“The morns are meeker than they were, / The nuts are getting brown;

“The berry’s cheek is plumper, / The rose is out of town.

“The maple wears a gayer scarf, / The field a scarlet gown.

“Lest I should be old-fashioned, / I’ll put a trinket on.”

The nuts here on the Golden Coast may not be getting brown, but our mornings certainly are noticeably meeker than before. Too, our evenings now grow darker, earlier. Indeed, it is as if the setting sun is in a race to call it a day a little sooner each evening. Soon, a walk on the beach may require a gayer scarf.

Greeting autumn with a hello embrace means in turn bidding a melancholy adieu to summer. Indeed, I love summer and will miss her dearly. In the heart of my youth, summer was without question my favorite of the four seasons for two reasons: warm weather and no school.

I have since learned that choosing a favorite season is a fool’s errand. It is like asking me to choose between Steinbeck, Hemingway, Twain and Shakespeare. Impossible.

Spring, for starters, is blooming flowers and flying kites and, as Tennyson poetically observed, when young men’s fancies turn to thoughts of love – so what’s not to love about this fair season?

Summer is beach outings and pool parties, fireflies and fireworks, ice cream and vacations – again, what’s not to adore fully?

Winter, meanwhile, is cozy fires and family gatherings, mistletoe and Auld Lang Syne and the New Year’s promise of approaching spring – how can you not love all that?

Thus, my favorite season is whichever one is currently visiting. And right now that is autumn. Many call it “fall”, but I think “autumn” is lovelier. By either name, its arrival brings with it…

…a crispness in the air that is invigorating.

…coffee shops and market shelves offering Pumpkin Spice This, Pumpkin Spice That, Pumpkin Spice Everything!

…corn mazes and hayrides and pumpkin patches and school children spending half an hour to select The Perfect Pumpkin for a jack-o-lantern with all the care of a bride choosing her wedding dress.

…carving jack-o-lanterns, going trick-or-treating, and having an excuse as a grown-up to dress up like a superhero.

…comfort foods such as homemade soups, chili and cornbread, marshmallows toasted over a fire, pumpkin pie/bread/pudding/cookies/coffee.

…football and Thanksgiving.

…fall foliage showing its true colors, not as grandly in Southern California as on the East Coast and Midwest, yet in a way our limited-edition outbursts of Monet-worthy leaves-scapes make them all the more precious and beautiful.

Speaking of leaves, fall’s arrival brings to mind another of my favorite poems, a bookend to Dickinson’s “Autumn.” Titled “Fantastic Fall” it was written by my daughter, Dallas, then in the fourth grade:

“Fall is a great season, here is my reason:

“The leaves on trees turn golden brown,

“Then the leaves fall DOWN, Down, down…

“You rake them into a giant hump,

“Next comes the good part – jump, Jump, JUMP!

“Leaves sail through the crisp autumn air,

“And fall down, Down, DOWN everywhere!”

Yes, right now I love autumn best. Until winter rings my doorbell.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Some Books Merit Special Shelves

September 1, 2022 by Woody

No matter how many books you own, I have a hunch you have one special shelf that holds your most cherished volumes.

For example, I have a lawyer bookcase with glass panels that contains a prized signed statuette of John Wooden, clay hand imprints my son and daughter made in kindergarten, and other such keepsakes. A different shelf within proudly displays 20 moss-green hardcover 1922 editions of Mark Twain’s works and an 1884 printing of “Red-Letter Poems By English Men And Women” with 648 gilt-edged pages featuring a Who’s Who lineup that includes Shakespeare, Byron, Browning (both Robert and Elizabeth), Keats, Donne, Milton, Tennyson and Wordsworth.

Despite their age, none of the above volumes are of great monetary value – yet all 21 are priceless personally because they belonged to my maternal grandfather and are the lone survivors from the inheritance of his vast book collection, the rest having been lost in the Thomas Fire that claimed my father’s home.

Family ties are behind two more special shelves belonging to dear friends of mine.

Kay Giles, easily one of the most well-read people I know, not surprisingly has upwards of 2,000 books in her home – among them 16 volumes that merit their very own top shelf in a prominently displayed bookcase. They are the full collection of Charles Dickens’ works, a special edition circa 1930, handsomely bound in rich walnut-brown leather with gold lettering on the pristine spines.

Most importantly, they belonged to Kay’s paternal grandparents and she calls them her “dearest inheritance.”

“My dad packed them up from his parents’ house in London when he went back there to take care of their affairs after my grandmother died,” Kay remembers, noting she was 16 years old at the time.

Houston Wolf was even younger when his father brought home a set of books that would similarly become dear to him, a 1952 printing of “The Great Books of the Western World”, a whopping 54 volumes that weigh about as much as a grand piano. Humble in appearance with cloth covers in a rainbow of hues – blue, green, red and gold, all faded by time – the books came with an equally modest waist-high wooden bookcase, the middle shelf now sagging slightly under its load.

“I’m so proud to think that I’ve carted these books around with me wherever I’ve moved for nearly forty years,” Houston shares, noting there have been many, many moves. “I’m also proud I never sold them, even in periods of desperation – at least what I considered to be desperation at the time. These books, and the knowledge I knew I’d someday absorb, were my security blanket. As long as I had these books, my life would be okay. I would always have something to live for, if just to protect these books.

“At my very lowest,” he continues, “I was offered $500 for the set. I couldn’t do it. Then the same gentleman then offered me $500 for ONE book from the set – Plotinus, Volume No. 17. I’ll never, ever read Plotinus, probably. I don’t even know who he is. But I couldn’t, wouldn’t, do it to a set of books that deserved to remain intact. So I refused. And I really could have used that $500.”

Here’s the kicker: Houston confesses he hasn’t read any of his beloved books!

“So why do I keep them?” he says. “Pride in having taken care of them all these years. And ambition to someday read them.”

To paraphrase Robert Browning: Ah, a To-Be-Read shelf should exceed one’s grasp, or else what’s a heaven for?

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Intoxicated by Bookstores and Libraries

September 1, 2022 by Woody

If you are at all like me, books never cease to allure you, delight you, amaze and even intoxicate you.

I would rather spend time in a bookstore than a museum, and I dearly love museums, which may explain why I especially adore used-books bookstores – and public libraries, too – because they are like bibliophilic museums, only better, because you are allowed to handle the old artifacts on display.

Yes, some of the best bookstores are second-hand museums, and the best of these remind me of Ventura’s long defunct All Pro Sporting Goods that was owned by legendary Bob Tuttle. It was a hole-in-the wall, barely bigger than a walk-in closet, yet like Mary Poppins’ magical carpetbag anything you were looking for could be found within.

Indeed, in the 1970s you might go into All-Pro to buy basketball sneakers and leave also with a new-but-blemished baseball mitt from the bargain bin in the same manner one might today be interested in a newly released novel at Ventura’s beloved Bank of Books and in addition wind up buying a second-hand copy of a classic.

There is something special about old books and the perfume they release – a trace of mustiness and earthiness, with a hint of vanilla mixed in – when you turn the pages, foxed and yellowing and slightly brittle from age. Used-books bookstores smell sweeter than a nursery greenhouse.

However, I also find delight in new books and independent bookstores where the staff can ask you a few questions and then give you a perfect recommendation that, to borrow from Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye”, really knocks you out. Furthermore, indie shops often have reading nooks and dog-eared couches that invite you to pleasantly linger a while. Timbre Books in Ventura and The Bookworm in Camarillo are two of my favorite cozy bookshops.

The breathtaking library at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.

Too, I love libraries. The most beautiful library I have ever been inside is at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, a cathedral of the printed page where the priceless Book of Kells, dating back to 800 A.D., resides. When Jorge Luis Borges said, “I have always imagined Paradise will be a kind of library,” I think he had this Trinity College library in mind.

I think any library is a slice of Paradise. This includes home libraries, whether they contain thousands of volumes or merely a dozen cherished favorites. Growing up, our home library was actually a small bedroom, but very tall, with two opposing walls featuring white-painted pine bookshelves that rose like mountains from the floor to the 12-foot ceiling.

These Twin Peaks were as beautiful as any mosaic in an art museum. Instead of ceramic tiles, or stones, or sea glass, the medium was book spines. Thin spines and thick tomes; tall spines, short ones; spines in rainbow hues and earth tones. Most of the spines were shelved vertically, but some were stacked horizontally. There were leather spines as pristine as shoes polished for church, others dulled by age and creased from use. There were clothbound spines, paperback spines, spines covered by glossy dust jackets. There were new-looking old spines and old-looking new ones. Some spines had fancy gilt lettering while others had titles and authors printed in inks of every color, in myriad fonts.

Twin Peaks had too many books to read in ten lifetimes, but that was fine. As the poet Robert Browning said, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or else what’s a heaven for?”

Next week: Two of my friends and the most cherished books in their home slices of heaven.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

This Rom-Com Stands Test of Time

September 1, 2022 by Woody

Upon meeting a married couple, from newlyweds to having celebrated their diamond anniversary, I love to ask how they met. Blind date or meet cute or online dating match, they always light up in the retelling – as do I in the listening.

In the hopes that you feel likewise, let me share a synopsis of my in-progress screenplay with the working title, “When Woody Met Lisa.” Instead of starring Billy Crystal (dark hair, not the required shaggy ginger-blond) and Meg Ryan (blond, not brunette), the leading characters will be played by Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams.

The movie opens on the campus of UC Santa Barbara, in a dining hall, at dinnertime. There are three hot-food lines and Woody intentionally chooses the longest one. When he finally reaches the front we see why: the server, even with her cascading locks tucked up in a hair net, is the prettiest girl he has ever seen.

Our first date, the very next evening after meeting at a party…

“Lasagna and tater tots, please,” the freshman says, choking on any attempt to flirt because the sophomore beauty is far out of his league. A quick montage follows, showing him in her line all year with similar failed results.

Fast-forward two years to a Christmas party at the off -campus apartment of two of Woody’s wild-and-crazy former freshman dorm mates. Across the crowded room, Woody sees a girl who makes his heart pick up a faster drumbeat. She is wearing a light-blue sweater, and no hair net, but no sooner does he try to strike up a conversation than the keg runs dry and the party breaks up and everyone decides to go to another friend’s bash.

Everyone, that is, except Lisa, who has promised a different friend she would drop by her party. Alas, their romance seems derailed before it has even begun.

“I’ll walk you there,” Woody quickly, and wisely, blurts out and the Nora Ephron-like fun begins. At one point, Woody gets Lisa a beer while she goes to the restroom – and when she returns he has slyly maneuvered himself underneath a hanging sprig of mistletoe. Lisa accepts the red Solo Cup and then unexplainably pulls Woody across the room, thwarting his ploy before he can act on it.

…and still feel like were dating all these years later!

All is not lost, however, as Woody and Lisa do kiss later that evening – with no assist from mistletoe – and then go on a dinner date the following evening and promptly fall in love.

As in all good rom-coms, just when things are going perfectly a break-up strikes like a lightning bolt. Both start dating others and at this low point, with Woody crushed by the flu, Lisa brings him an Easter basket filled with a chocolate bunny and candy, his favorite fresh bagels and cream cheese, and an array of cold and cough medicines. Woody’s fever instantly soars even higher with lovesickness and to this day he counts his lucky stars he got sick.

Also to this day, by the way, Lisa insists she never saw the mistletoe the night of their meet cute.

In two days – on September 4th – the two lovebirds will celebrate their ruby wedding anniversary of 40 years. Woody already knows the toast he will give her at dinner, quoting a line in a novel by one of his favorite authors, Brian Doyle, where the narrator, recalling his first kiss with his future wife many, many years earlier, says: “How can you not stay in love with the girl who was with you the very moment you were introduced to true happiness.”

Our movie ends, naturally, with a kiss beneath a sprig of mistletoe.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Building Cathedrals Begins Anew

August 25, 2022August 26, 2022 by Woody

Backpacks, notebooks and pencils have been bought, lunches packed, sneakers tied in double-knots, say “cheese” smiles flashed for milestone pictures before heading off to begin a new school year…

…and an old story I read about the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. has come to my mind. Bear with me and I will get around to the connection.

The magnificent cathedral took eight decades to build, 83 years to be precise, from 1907 to 1990, and near the end of construction progress slowed to a crawl because it became harder and harder to find experienced stonecutters with the skill necessary to prepare the stones properly to fit perfectly.

Curious about this nearly lost art, a newspaper writer went to the job site and interviewed two of the remaining master craftsmen who were now well up in age. Specifically, the writer asked the pair to explain what they were doing.

“I’m shaping this stone,” the first stonecutter replied, running a calloused hand over his smooth handiwork before pointing to a section of a rising wall, “so that it fits into that space over there.”

The second stonecutter, making a sweeping gesture towards the sky, had a grander answer: “I am building a cathedral.”

Schoolteachers, it seems to me, are very much like stonecutters, shaping their lessons to fit into the spaces that need to be filled with knowledge so a cathedral – each student – can rise tall and proud. Instead of shaping stones, teachers help shape minds. Joseph Addison, a 17th English century poet, echoed this stonecutter analogy when he wrote: “What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.”

Teachers, thus, help sculpt souls and there can be no higher calling. John Wooden certainly believed so, noting: “I think the teaching profession contributes more to the future of our society than any other single profession.”

Master teachers do their stonecutting with lectures and instruction, surely, but also with words of praise and inspiration; with grace and goodness; with humor often and discipline when necessary; and always, always, always the best in the profession perform their magic with encouragement.

Indeed, when my mind races back in time for a stroll through my school hallways and I recall the teachers, one after another, who made the biggest impact on me, it is not the facts and figures and rules of grammar they taught me that I most remember. Rather, it is the way the unforgettable teachers lifted me skyward with their encouragement. I am confident it was the same for you.

As with building a cathedral of bricks or cut stones, a student takes many years, decades even, to rise to full potential. As the adage has it, teachers do not see their individual successes until at least two decades after each student exits their classroom.

Just as it takes many stonecutters to build a cathedral, it takes countless teachers to help a student soar. It is, in fact, a relay effort with each teacher handing the baton to another, year after year, elementary school to middle school to high school and often further onward.

Castles, like cathedrals, require stonecutters. However, “castles in the air” are often interpreted to mean having daydreams that will never become reality. Henry David Thoreau, a daydreamer to be sure, disagreed, writing: “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

Teachers, the really good ones, are master stonecutters at helping students put the foundations under their castles in the air.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Still Feeling Lucky Decades Later

August 18, 2022 by Woody

It is hard to imagine anyone being luckier in Las Vegas than I was 40 years ago come next month. Freshly graduated from UCSB, but jobless, I got a phone call that proved to be like a Jackpot-Jackpot-Jackpot spin on a slot machine.

A newspaper editor had tracked me down on my honeymoon, no easy feat back before cellphones, to offer me an interview for a sportswriter position. That was the good news.

The bad news was the tiny twice-weekly publication, The Desert Trail, was in Twentynine Palms – a one-stoplight triple-digit-temperatures town that was not exactly where a young bride dreams of beginning her new wedded life. No matter, Lisa and I cut our honeymoon a couple days short and took a detour through the high desert on our drive back to Goleta.

Dave Stancliff, a top-dog newspaperman, mentor and friend.

I not only got the job, I got a great boss, life-changing mentor, and dear friend in the deal. The latter happened – nearly literally – overnight as Dave Stancliff, his wife Shirley and their three young sons, took me into their home for three weeks until Lisa could join me.

Under Dave, I received a hands-on journalism education that surpassed a master’s degree and made me a better writer. More importantly, he imparted life lessons that made me a better person. For example, instead of giving a homeless person a few bucks for a fast-food hamburger, Dave would buy him or her a restaurant meal. Sometimes he even surprised Shirley by bringing a hungry stranger home as a dinner guest.

Along with a heart of gold, Dave has mettle of steel. Straight from high school he went to fight in the sweltering jungles of Vietnam and Cambodia. Stories of his experiences as a soldier gave me nightmares, yet he didn’t even share the worst of the hell he saw.

Indeed, a decade before Tim O’Brien’s remarkable Vietnam War novel, “The Things We Carried” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, I learned about “The Things Dave Carried” home from that war: PTSD and physical health issues caused by Agent Orange. He bravely battled those foes – and still does – as if they were merely opponents in the ring when he was an Army boxing champion.

To say I admire Dave is a great understatement, so a recent “As It Stands” blog post he wrote headlined “The Two Most Inspirational People I’ve Ever Met” caught my eye. After all, to be worthy of Dave’s highest esteem would require someone quite special. Eugene “Red” McDaniel certainly measures up. He is a Vietnam vet who, after being shot down over Hanoi in 1967, spent six years as a POW before being freed.

“Red, who received the most brutal torture at the hands of his North Vietnamese captors, showed me how indomitable the human spirit is in the worst of times,” Dave writes now, having first met McDaniel in the mid-1970s while writing for the campus newspaper at Humboldt State.

“His positive attitude about everything in life was actually therapeutic for me (and my PTSD),” Dave continues, happily concluding: “Red is 93 years-old and is still going strong.”

Reading further along, I was suddenly struck by twin lightning bolts of shock and disbelief: “The other really positive person in my life is Woody Woodburn…”

The flowery praise that follows is, with no false modesty, unmerited. Nonetheless, the kind words put birdsong in my heart and bring to mind something Chuck Thomas, another dear mentor of mine, liked to say: “Don’t wait until tomorrow to tell a friend how you feel about them today.”

Wise advice for us all.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Three Vignettes Worthy of Smiles

August 11, 2022August 12, 2022 by Woody

Sometimes we all need a smile. Here are three reasons to do so…

Earlier this week my granddaughter, age three – “almost four” she will tell you, even though her birthday is not until December – went to the dentist for the first time.

The milestone event was not anticipated to be like dragging a millstone up a hill. After all, Maya has not only received two COVID-19 vaccination shots without a fuss or fallen tear, out of curiosity she actually watched the needle go in both times. Yes, as Shakespeare wrote in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “Though she be but little, she is fierce.”

Alas, in the waiting room of the pediatric dentist, nervousness was getting the best of Maya and she began to tug on her mommy’s hand to escape home. Just then, an older patient, a boy aged 9 or 10, came out after his exam carrying a long, purple balloon sword…

…and seeing Maya’s distress, the boy became a knight in shining armor by gallantly offering over his sword. Instantly, like a wisp of smoke in a gust of wind, Maya’s fears disappeared and a smooth visit ensued with a full cleaning and fluoride treatment.

Oh yes, and a big smile with no cavities and a second balloon sword.

With inflation up, and the need for help with food up even more, an experience by a dear friend of mine, who wishes to remain anonymous, seems well worth sharing. A frequent volunteer at a local food pantry, she recalled her first time doing so.

“I spent the morning stocking shelves, breaking down boxes, and helping to distribute food to clients,” she began. “Everyone I encountered was so friendly and genuinely grateful.

“I will remember one woman in particular who was beyond excited to get a package of ground turkey. She was nearly jumping up and down with excitement. The experience made me realize what a gift it is to be able to go to the grocery store and choose what I want to eat. The clients who come to the food pantry are entirely dependent on what the in-coming donations have been that week. I was especially surprised how in-demand canned beans and dried beans always are. Indeed, we often ran out of beans quickly.

“Ever since, I have always been sure include beans when I make donations!”

With the Ventura County Fair in full swing through this Sunday after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, a cherished memory from my youth has given me a smile.

It was a smaller “Country Fair Without Ocean Air” in Ohio. I was 8 and my best friend Dan was 2 – he was born on Feb. 29 and stubbornly only counted his Leap Day birthdays. Dan’s mom gave us, and Dan’s older brother Tom, $3 each as I recall. That was a small fortune considering the games and rides cost a quarter and food treats were equally cheap.

Come afternoon’s end, Tom had miraculously not spent a single dime and his mom said he could keep the $3. Naturally, he taunted us, as big brothers will, bragging about the baseball cards and Matchbox cars he could now buy.

But Dan and I had no regrets. We had gotten dizzy on the rides, been conned shooting hoops and throwing darts at balloons and tossing rings at bottles without winning any prizes, but we still came out ahead and we knew it.

All these years later, I guarantee you Tom doesn’t remember what baseball cards he got, but I still remember the fun Dan and I had.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Golden Memories of Golden Voice

August 4, 2022 by Woody

As with every Dodgers fan – no, every baseball fan no matter their team affiliation – news of Vin Scully’s death at age 94 on Tuesday gripped my heart and squeezed my wife’s tear ducts. A moment later, we smiled and laughed.

Yes, laughter among the sorrow because we both reached back to the same memory two decades past when the home phone rang and my wife answered and the velvety voice on the other end of the line – “Hello, this is…” – was unmistakable even before the caller identified himself.

Lisa, unaware I had been trying to set up an interview, didn’t believe here ears. “You aren’t Vin Scully,” she said after he gave his name, amused at one of my friends’ lame jokes…

…and hung up.

The phone quickly rang again, The Golden Voice once again asked for me, and Lisa instantly realized her embarrassing mistake.

A few days later, I didn’t interview Scully so much as I pulled up a chair in his Dodger Stadium radio booth long before that night’s game and listened to his singular storytelling. I had hoped for maybe 15 minutes of his time, but he graciously enchanted me for an hour.

About a year later we crossed paths at a gala dinner honoring another Southland legend, Jim Murray, washing our hands in the restroom. Remarkably, Scully greeted me by name, but the greater display of his peerless people skills was his insistence I come meet his wife. In turn, I introduced him to Lisa – albeit without mentioning the phone hang up.

Scully’s geniality in person was as authentic as it was on the airwaves.

“I enjoy people, so I don’t mind autograph requests at all,” he told me. “Why not sign? They’re paying me a compliment by asking.”

And what were some of the stranger “compliments”?

“I’ve signed a lot of baseballs, as you can imagine,” he shared. “But also golf balls and even a hockey puck, which is sort of strange. Paper napkins seem popular, even dirty napkins – I think it’s all they have on hand. I don’t expect them to keep it, but I sign anyway because hopefully they will keep the moment.”

How many magical moments did Vin – didn’t he make us all feel like we knew him on a first-name basis? – give us during his 67 years behind the Dodgers’ microphone? Count the stars in the sky and you might have the answer.

Here is another of my favorite personal moments that I keep wrapped in red velvet. Our interview concluded, I asked The Greatest Sports Broadcaster Ever if he would put me in the batter’s box in Dodger Stadium. Oh, how I wish I had recorded his imaginary call of my one-and-only Major League at-bat.

In my mind’s ear, nonetheless, I can hear it still as he announced me digging in at the plate to face the great fireballer, Bob Gibson, who promptly brushed me back with the first pitch: “Gibson says, ‘Welcome to the Big Leagues, Mr. Woodburn,’ ” said Scully.

Next pitch, I swung at a fastball after it was already in the catcher’s mitt, yet somehow “the tall, lanky kid from Ventura” – for I was magically no longer 40 years old – fouled off a couple pitches and worked the count full.

Scully ended my fantasy with a wink, not a home run. Like “Casey at the Bat”, mighty Woody struck out. It was perfect.

Perfect, too, was Scully’s succinct answer when asked how he would want God to greet him in heaven: “Well done.”

Well done, Vincent Edward Scully. Well done, indeed.

* * *

WOODY WOODBURN

Writer, "Streaker" & Speaker

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