Author Archives: Woody

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

Summertime Is Marbles Time

by Woody

This may be a surprise to some readers of this space, but I am not losing my marbles. To the contrary, I am gaining them.

For this I owe my great gratitude to a teacher who interrupted his discussion of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” one spring afternoon and shared a personal story. A philosophy, really.

Mr. Hawkins explained he kept a large jar on his dresser and every time something wonderful happened in his life he would drop a marble inside. Smooth pebbles, shiny pennies or pieces of sea glass would also suffice, he noted. His goal was to fill the jar, and a few more, during his life. The marbles themselves weren’t the real treasure, however – the act of noticing each special moment was.

All these years later, I can quote only two lines by memory from that Shakespeare play – “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” and “Though she be but little, she is fierce” – but I have collected a rising mountain of marbles. In doing so, I have come to notice something: summertime is marble time.

As my wise teacher importantly emphasized, something need not be a monumental pinch-me event – hitting a home run, stealing a first kiss, earning a diploma, winning the Pulitzer Prize – to be deserving of a marble. In fact, oftentimes the simple pleasures are quite worthy.

Simple summer pleasures such as…

Gazing at the stars that always seem brighter on a warm midsummer’s night.

A sweet summer romance.

Catching fireflies, catching frogs, catching “running” grunion in the midnight moonlight.

Running in the sprinklers, running your first marathon or fastest 5K, running after the ice cream truck.

Enjoying a Popsicle or ice cream cone that tastes better, and colder on your tongue, on a hot summer afternoon.

Sleeping in a tent, be it in the backyard for a slumber party or on a camping trip.

Visiting any National Park – or ballpark, Major League or Little League.

Hiking to the top of Yosemite Falls or along the trails in Ventura’s Harmon Canyon.

Climbing Mount Whitney or climbing a tree more lovely than a poem.

Writing a poem about a marble moment.

Skinny dipping in a pond for the first time – or most recent time.

Wine tasting, pub crawling, beach walking.

Spending an afternoon wading in the tide pools, collecting seashells, building a sandcastle.

Visiting one of the Channel Islands.

Watching – really watching – a Pacific sunset more beautiful than anything on display in the Louvre.

Going fishing, even if you bring home nothing more than a sunburn and a smile and a tall tale about the one that got away.

Teaching your son or daughter to ride a two-wheeler – doesn’t this ALWAYS happen during the summertime?

Daydreaming while gazing off the Ventura Pier.

Spending a week at your grandparents’ home and hearing stories about what your dad (or mom) was like as a young boy (or girl).

Flying a kite with your grandchild.

Attending your high school reunion or revisiting old memories with a college friend.

A backyard barbecue with friends is always better in the summertime.

Playing outside until one of your parents hollers, for the third time, for you to come inside for the night.

An evening walk hand-in-hand with your spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend/child – or hand-in-leash with your dog.

Riding a merry-go-round or Ferris wheel at the fair with your child/girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse.

Watching Fourth of July fireworks.

A picnic with your favorite person in the world.

Be you 6 or 96, don’t be a mortal fool: make a point this summer to recognize – and savor – as many new marble moments as possible.

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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

 

Christmas in the Summertime

by Woody

The elementary schoolchildren stepped off the yellow bus, weary after another long day in the classroom and wearier from a school year that still had two more days remaining before summer break, and suddenly their faces lit up with Christmas-morning smiles.

I wish you could have seen them.

Some of the kids even sang out with the glee of carolers and I wish you could have heard them as well.

The reason for the excitement was because a handful of volunteers greeted them at their bus stop bearing surprise gifts to celebrate the beginning of summer vacation. “Burgers & Balls” is what Mary Anne Rooney and Mike Barber called the special event they organized, although truth be told the children were actually all given Subway sandwiches not hamburgers.

The boxed meals were welcomed treats because these schoolchildren come from low-income families. More specifically, they live in Nyeland Acres, a community of about 2,800 residents just outside Oxnard. Most specifically, they live near the giant Santa Claus visible from the 101 Freeway. Rising 20 feet high from the belt buckle up on a brick base designed to look like the top of a chimney, the iconic 10,000-pound statue is believed to be the world’s largest Santa.

Built in 1947 and originally located near Carpinteria, Barber famously rescued and moved Santa to Nyeland Acres in 2003. A former ironworker by trade, Barber repaired and refurbished Santa to its former glory and then some. Moreover, each December for the past 15 years he has helped stage the Santa-to-the-Sea Half-Marathon where entrants donate toys that are given to the neighborhood children.

That’s not the half of it. Mike and Mary Anne work tirelessly year-round with The Nyeland Promise to provide local residents with an array of support, resources and advocacy programs ranging from free medical clinics and health education to food pantries and safe drinking water to connecting every home with free internet and providing funding for every resident to attend the first two years at Oxnard College.

And, most recently, 200 schoolchildren received a burger (disguised as turkey and ham sandwiches) plus a soccer ball, basketball or football.

The Nyeland Promise actually had an assist passing out the sports balls – from generous Star readers. Because so many of you donated to my annual “Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive” after the deadline, too late to be delivered to deserving children last Christmas, those bonus balls instead found happy hands a little belatedly.

As I said, I wish you could have been there at the giveaway. Bus after bus, kids descended the stairs with heavy strides that soon grew bouncy. Their colorful backpacks – gifts from The Nyeland Promise ten months ago and filled with school supplies – also seemed to become lighter on their shoulders as they excitedly lined up like youngsters waiting to sit on a mall Santa’s lap.

One young boy wore a “SK8 the Infinity” T-shirt and two sisters wore matching sparkly shirts proclaiming “Life Is Beautiful” and every kid wore a beautiful infinity-wide smile.

One of the volunteers was especially memorable as well. Emily, a high school junior, is an example of The Nyeland Promise helping youth achieve considerable promise. Personable and bright, Emily boasts a 4.5 grade point average and dreams of becoming a pediatrician. Spend even a few minutes with her and you will walk away convinced that a stethoscope is in her future.

In a happy coincidence, one of the bus stops was barely a football pass away from Santa, who at this time of year is adorned with giant sunglasses. Christmas in summertime, indeed.

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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

 

E-ticket Ride of Happiness

by Woody

With apologies to Disneyland, it seems to me “The Happiest Place on Earth” is a wedding. Any wedding and every wedding, extravagant or simple, grand or intimately small. Attending a wedding always puts helium in your heart.

And so it was two Sundays past that my spirits soared skyward on a cloudless blue spring day that felt like summer when my princely son married the princess of his dreams in the wedding of her childhood imagination. If any detail was overlooked, any expense spared, I cannot imagine what it was. No white doves were released, I suppose, nor did the couple depart in a hot-air balloon.

The happy newlyweds, Jess and Greg!

Posh as it was, what made the occasion truly special was what also makes a shoestring wedding equally special – the gathering of people. Indeed, as I stood as a groomsman beside my daughter, the Best Matron, who stood next to her kid brother as he and his bride exchanged personally written vows, all with the Pacific Ocean as a breathtaking backdrop behind us, I looked out at the sea of moist-eyed faces and was inspired to add this opening to my prepared dinner toast:

“Jess and Greg, it has been a whirlwind day for you both, so I want to ask you to pause and take a deep breath and take moment to look around at all these faces gathered here. Really take them in. They aren’t just faces, they are your favorite people.

“Some of us have known you since the days you were born. Others came into your lives a little later; some later still; some much more recently. Some came here today from near; many from further away; and more than a few traveled great distances. But we are all present for the same reason – because of how amazingly special you both are.

“Look around, we’ll wait…

“Okay, now I ask the rest of us to all look at Jess and Greg and take a moment to silently recall one of your favorite memories of them. Maybe it was the first time you met them or perhaps it was last night’s wonderful Ghanaian Engagement Ceremony.

“As you fondly reflect back, know this – these two people that we all hold so dear are amazingly special thanks to each and every one of you.”

This wedding-day thought, it strikes me now, applies to all of us. We, too, are the product of our favorite people – and they of us. Alas, too often it takes a wedding, graduation, or other special occasion blessed with a vast constellation of our star supporters as rare as the planets aligning to appreciate the roles they have played in our lives. Wise it would be to occasionally keep this in mind on the small days between The Big Days.

Continuing my toast, and this theme, I next shared that at Mark Twain’s home in Hartford, Connecticut, the great writer had a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson engraved in brass and prominently displayed above the main fireplace: The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.

“I love this sentiment and think it extends beyond the walls of a house,” I explained. “After all, as the late, great poet Maya Angelou said: When you leave home, you take home with you.

“It seems to me that having the treasured friends and family who ornament the lives of Jess and Greg here today makes this beautiful site their ‘home’ away from home and makes their wedding day a true masterpiece day.”

In nostalgic Disneyland parlance, it was truly an E-ticket ride of day.

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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

 

 

Engaging GOAT Tale of Two Goats

by Woody

The acronym GOAT is greatly overworked, for to declare someone – or something – the Greatest Of All Time is a fool’s errand. One person says Mozart is the GOAT while three more argue for Beethoven, Bach and Stravinsky.

Rembrandt, Jordan, the Beatles are countered by Van Gogh, LeBron, the Rolling Stones; or Picasso, Magic, Grateful Dead; and so on.

The lovebirds Jess and Greg

To be sure, “greatest” depends on the eye – or ear – of the beholder. Far better, it seems to me, to have a Rainbow of Greatness and dish out colors. For example, Prince may get a shade of rock-and-roll purple and Steinbeck gets a hue of literary blue and Jesse Owens a glint of Olympic gold.

Which brings me to last weekend’s Ghanaian Engagement Ceremony for my son and his fiancé. Delayed two years by the pandemic, and thus held belatedly the day before the wedding, it was well worth the wait.

Imagine a New Year’s Eve party combined with Shakespeare in the Park, mix in two family reunions, attire everyone in dresses and shirts that look like they were hand-painted by a Disney animator using colors infused with sunshine, and you get a small idea of the big fun.

Oh yes, and don’t forget a bride and groom-to-be as beautiful and handsome as any storybook princess and prince. She wore a stunning lace dress, white as a cloud, the hemline and single sleeve widely bordered with a woven pattern of orange accented with red, green and blue. Her tekua, a crown-like headdress, echoed the bright palette. He complemented her in a long white shirt, its breastplate matching her tekua, white pants, and colorful pillbox kufi cap.

In honor of the princess’s Ghanaian roots, where her mother and father were wed, a spokesman asked for her hand on behalf of the prince. Bargaining, all performed aloud, ensued. Eventually, three representatives of the prince carried in four large woven baskets filled with jewelry and linens, perfumes and soaps, drinks and foods.

Had the ceremony been truly authentic, the offered dowry would have been declined for it lacked one important item: many years earlier, the princess’s mother’s family had received a goat in exchange for their blessings. Alas, that was in Ghana and this was in Santa Monica, and the mother dared not dream to request a goat.

The princess’s family deliberated playfully in open view even though all in attendance knew the generous dowry would in the end be accepted.

Taking no chances, for the prince loves the princess so deeply and dearly that he wished to impress her family beyond all doubt, a nod was given and into the courtyard walked two of the prince’s friends…

…each with a leashed goat in tow.

The jaw of the mother of the princess fell agape in joyous surprise and disbelief.

The two goats – royalty of sorts themselves, having appeared on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon and Saturday Night Live, and been guests at numerous Hollywood parties – departed before dinner was served. This was a good thing because the feast included kebobs of chicken, vegetables and, um, shall we say, meat not from a cow.

Libations and stories flowed; dancing continued long after the stars came out overhead; and the princess’s mother told me many times over, in a sing-song accent as sweet as any bottled fragrance in a dowry basket: “Ohhhh, I still can’t believe it. Your son got me good. Two goats – not one, two!”

Indeed, if it wasn’t the GOAT of engagement ceremonies, certainly it merits a brilliant orange to match the prince and princess’s decorative outfits.

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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

 

Sunshine Amidst A Rainy Morning

by Woody

Some people get caught in a light drizzle and curse their lack of an umbrella.

Others skip in the rain and dance playfully in the puddles.

And then there are those special individuals who, even in the darkest of storms, create rainbows for others wherever they go. My friend Nick is just such a rare human sunbeam. Let me share one shining example.

On a rainy winter morning, Nick ventured down his driveway to retrieve the newspaper and spotted a quite elderly gentleman doing likewise a handful of houses away. The neighbor, however, was using a reach-grabber tool so he wouldn’t have to – or, perhaps, couldn’t – bend down to pick it up.

Furthermore, the man was accompanied by his wife who was holding him seemingly so he wouldn’t fall. In truth, the wife appeared to equally need her husband’s support to keep from toppling.

Indeed, the couple’s driveway was literally a wet and slippery slope waiting for an accident – perhaps a broken hip or arm – to happen.

“I was worried one or both of them would fall and get hurt, maybe seriously,” Nick thought with serious concern. His next impulse was to help this couple he had never met, but quickly a third consideration embraced him: “I didn’t want to bruise their dignity if I walked down the street to help them.”

Nick slept on the matter and the following morning rose a little earlier than usual. Again it was raining, so he walked down the street and stealthily deposited the three newspapers the elderly couple subscribe to on their welcome mat along with an anonymous note that read: “Your paperboy wanted to make your morning a little easier and brighter.”

Thus began a new morning ritual for Nick that brings to my mind Sparky Anderson, the late Hall of Fame baseball manager, who coincidentally lived not far from Nick’s Thousand Oaks neighborhood. Each week on trash day, during his afternoon walk, Sparky would move his neighbors’ barrels from the curb up their driveways. Asked what motivated him to do so, he replied simply: “Woody, it don’t cost nothing at all to be nice.”

Curious about the identity of their nice Samaritan “paperboy,” the elderly couple asked around and eventually phoned Nick to thank him and a new friendship was born.

In sunshine as well as rain, day after week after month, Nick continued his new one-home paper route. And then the mishap he had feared for the elderly couple happened to him – not a fall and injury, but rather COVID-19.

Before going to the hospital with a dangerously low oxygen level, Nick had the presence of mind and heart to find a substitute paperboy. For the two weeks Nick was a patient, and a good while longer while he recuperated at home, a 13-year-old neighborhood boy dutifully delivered the early morning kindness.

When Nick was finally fit to resume his paper route an unexpected problem reared its head – its teenage head.

“He wouldn’t give it back,” Nick says with a laugh. “He told me it started his day with a sense of purpose and responsibility and a good feeling in his heart.”

And so it was that the teen boy continued the daily Sparky-like act of niceness until the couple recently moved away to be closer to their grandchildren.

Here’s hoping that another human sunbeam in the couple’s new neighborhood sees them with a reach-grabber tool and is inspired to escort their newspapers up to their welcome mat. As Ernest Hemingway wrote in the “The Sun Also Rises”, “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

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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

 

“Tigers” Keep Rampaging Unfettered

by Woody

A tiger crept into an elementary school earlier this week, with summer vacation two days away, and fatally mauled 19 precious children and two heroic teachers.

It was not the worst such attack of schoolchildren in the Land of Freedom, if morgue-cold numbers are the criteria, for 10 years earlier a single man-eating tiger savagely killed 20 first-grade students in their classroom along with six adults.

Nor was it a rare tiger attack. Just two weeks ago a tiger killed 10 shoppers at a supermarket and over the past decade there have been more heinous, horrific, heartbreaking mass maulings by tigers than can be imagined.

Once again, again and again, words cannot describe the heartbreak…

This year, not yet Memorial Day, there have already been more than 200 mass maulings by tigers. Moreover, in 2020, the most recent year for which full data is available, 45,222 people in the Land of Freedom died from tiger injuries – half of them killed by their very own tiger.

“Thoughts and prayers,” half of the lawmakers offer after each mass mauling.

“Let’s pass some common-sense laws about tigers,” the other half pleads. “Like having all tiger owners undergo background checks to make sure they are fit to own a deadly beast. And why do civilians need mutant 15-headed man-eating tigers with claws that can pierce metal that were bred by the military for war?”

“No, no, no,” the first lawmakers demand, their stubborn faces turning blood red. “Owning a cat, even mutant tigers, is an inalienable right written on The Original Parchment and its Second Rule of All Rules is holy as if it were etched on Moses’ tablets of stone. Any law that limits tigers in any way is a slippery slope that will lead to the extermination of all tigers.”

“Stuff and nonsense!” the counterpart lawmakers cry out until they are blue in the face. “There are 400 million tigers in our Land of Freedom, more than one beast for each of our 300 million citizens. Rounding up all those tigers would be more impossible than ridding our land of alcohol, and surely you remember how that worked out. You still have your wine and whiskey, don’t you? And a bottle of Jack Daniels never killed 20 schoolchildren in the blink of an eye.”

“Tigers don’t kill people either – tiger owners do,” sneer the red-faced do-nothing lawmakers who line their pockets with gold from tiger breeders who themselves get filthy rich from selling as many striped man-eaters as possible.

“You love tigers more than you love people,” the blue-faced try-something lawmakers accuse.

“It’s the price of freedom,” insist the red-faced lawmakers. “More laws aren’t the answer. Cages won’t save lives. More tigers, not fewer, that’s the answer. Ban books, not tigers. The only thing that can stop a bad tiger is a good tiger. Thoughts and prayers, that’s all we can do.”

And so the arguments go, round and round like a spinning record album with the stylus stuck in one groove, the red-faced lawmakers thwarting all efforts by the blue-faced lawmakers even though the majority of tiger owners and non-owners alike want restrictions to slow the carnage.

Meanwhile the rest of the world’s lands, despite having mental illnesses and violent video games, suffer a tiny fraction of killings by tigers compared to the Land of Freedom. They roll their eyes with pity because they see what the Land of Freedom is blind to:

Owning tigers in unlimited numbers, including mutant multi-headed military-style man-eaters and deadly ghost tigers, does not keep people safe and free. In truth, in the Land of Freedom the people no longer own the tigers – the tigers own them.

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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