Author Archives: Woody

Faithful Vow To Remember Thee

by Woody

My dear friend Sus believes blue jay sightings are godwinks from guardian angels. Time and again these providential songbirds have appeared when she most needed one.

I possess far less faith than Sus, and yet I cannot help but feel a godwink appeared this week when I needed it most. It was not a blue jay sighting, but rather a poem that out of the blue flew across my eyes on social media.

Penned by Elizabeth Gaskell, a 19th century English novelist, the verse is titled “On Visiting the Grave of My Stillborn Little Girl.” The timing of my reading it was a blessing because Wednesday – July 7 – was the 18th anniversary of the due date of my wife’s and my third child.

A baby lost to miscarriage.

The pregnancy had been a wonderful surprise that infused champagne bubbles into our veins. Also, because my wife was then 44, the pregnancy was high-risk. Only after she made it safely into the second trimester did we finally exhale and allow ourselves to get fully excited.

Then came the heartbreak of no heartbeat.

“It’s for the best because something was terribly wrong,” doctors say at such times. Family and friends offer similar solace: “You can try again” or “At least you’re already blessed with two amazing kids.” They all meant well, but the heart does not listen to such rationalizations.

Honestly, the only soothing words to be said, in my experience, is a heartfelt variation of the simple phrase, “I’m so very sorry for your loss.”

We had chosen not to know the gender beforehand, wishing to be surprised as we had been twice before. And yet, just as we had only settled on a girl’s name when our firstborn daughter arrived; and only had a boy’s name chosen when our son was born; we again had but one name selected – a girl’s – as if our hearts were as accurate as an ultrasound exam.

Perhaps they were. A few years after the miscarriage, my wife had a vividly powerful dream in which she watched a girl at play on a swing. The girl, the same age our child would have then been, smiled and waved. Instead of renewed grief, my wife felt deeply comforted.

Gaskell’s words written 1836 offer me similar peace now:

“I made a vow within my soul, O Child, / When thou wert laid beside my weary heart,

“With marks of death on every tender part / That, if in time a living infant smiled,

“Winning my ear with gentle sounds of love / In sunshine of such joy, I still would save

“A green rest for thy memory, O Dove! / And oft times visit thy small, nameless grave.

“Thee have I not forgot, my firstborn, though / Whose eyes ne’er opened to my wistful gaze,

“Whose sufferings stamped with pain thy little brow; / I think of thee in these far happier days,

“And thou, my child, from thy bright heaven see / How well I keep my faithful vow to thee.”

I have likewise not forgotten thee. I visualized her this June at high school graduation ceremonies for the Class of 2021; imagined her last year schooling at home during the pandemic; saw her 13 years ago walking into a kindergarten classroom.

Too, I have imagined her getting her driver’s license, learning to ride a bike, taking her first steps. Indeed, often when I see girls the same age she would have been, I imagine her in their place.

And I will continue this faithful vow to keep remembering thee, Sienna.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

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

Bikes Wonderfully Everywhere

by Woody

A Kurt Vonnegut anecdote about telling his wife he was going out to buy an envelope came to mind the other day.

“Oh, she says, well, you’re not a poor man,” the great writer began. “You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.

“I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I’ll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is – we’re here on Earth to fart around.

“And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it’s like we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.”

“Let’s all get up and move around a bit right now . . . or at least dance.”

Instead of going out to buy an envelope, I went for a run. I could start straight out my front door and save some time, but the streets can be lonely. I prefer to go to the park where there’s no cars to worry about and I can see familiar faces, and new ones as well, and of course dogs and kids, and infants being pushed in jogging strollers. Even fire engines occasionally go by.

On this particular day a theme emerged. Perhaps not exactly a theme, but more like how when you get a new car and you suddenly start noticing the same model everywhere. Psychologists call it the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon or frequency illusion.

Instead of certain cars, I was noticing bicycles with great frequency. It started on my drive to the park when three teenage boys were speeding down a hill while doing jumps off the sidewalk onto street, then hopping back up over the curb, all while weaving amongst each other like a choreographed dance. Waiting at a red stoplight, they did pirouettes on their back wheels.

Maybe this primed my brain for the frequency illusion because in addition to the handful of cyclists I regularly trade waves, nods and thumbs-ups with, I saw – noticed – dozens more, from speedy ones dressed in Lycra to a woman in flip-flops walking a beach cruiser with a flat tire.

But young kids were the real magic. One small boy, surely not yet 3, rode his pedal-less two-wheeler the way Fred Flintstone powers the Cavemobile. He would run while seated and then pick up his feet and coast, repeat, repeat, repeat. Let me tell you, he was Tour de France fast.

Too, I saw no less than three Norman Rockwell scenes play out with youngsters learning to ride bikes as either their father or mother jogged stooped over alongside holding the seat from behind for balance. All three kids eventually wore triumphant smiles and no Band-Aids.

Meanwhile, a kindergarten-aged cyclist with a very cool Mohawk-like bike helmet was navigating a swerving obstacle course drawn in chalk with a few soda cans to slalom through at the end. I expect to see him to be jumping off and back onto curbs, and doing 360-degree wheelies, by the summer’s end.

The moral of the story is I had a hell of a good time watching bicyclists dance.

*   *   *

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

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

Father’s Day Takes A Special Turn

by Woody

How was my Father’s Day? Thank you for asking.

For starters, my daughter and her family, who live in the Bay Area, moved into the first home of their own earlier in the week. Hence, they were quite literally boxed in from making the trip south to celebrate with me.

My son, meanwhile, spent the week in San Francisco on a work trip and was driving home to the South Bay on Sunday. He hoped to make it to Ventura for a dinnertime visit.

Oh, yes, my wife was also up north babysitting our 2-year-old granddaughter during the chaotic days following the big move-in. She was driving back with our son, enjoying a nice long chat in the car, turning the day into Mother’s Day for her.

So how was my Father’s Day you ask again? To borrow from my favorite John Wooden-ism, it was a masterpiece day!

Jess made my Father’s Day special with a “Pops” Date.

To be sure, I missed being with my dear daughter and second-to-none son-in-law and grandest of granddaughters, but we visited on video chat which hands down beats a phone call. And my son and wife made it home for dinner, and not just any dinner, but mouth-watering lobster rolls from Maine.

Still, the truth is that my Father’s Day was extra special precisely because circumstances left me home alone. Actually, that is a half-truth. Because I was going to be alone, my son’s fiance drove two and a half hours to spend the afternoon with me, just the two of us, like the “Daddy Dates” my daughter and I still enjoy.

Call this one a “Pops” Date for that is what my future daughter-in law calls me. I in turn fondly call her JB, which is short for Jessburn, which is a story for another time. While having the whole family together is magical, there is also a rare gift in one-on-one time with loved ones.

JB and I talked, and laughed, for hours on end and capped our Pops Date with an el fresco happy hour at a downtown pub. Even after knowing her for two years, I learned much more about JB and her family; about her work in the tech world and about her worldly travels; about her dreams and her dream wedding in the planning for next summer.

“What’s your favorite thing about GB?” – short for Gregburn, which is one of my numerous nicknames of endearment for my son – I asked JB at one point. Without even a wine sip’s delay to think, she replied beaming as brightly as her engagement ring: “He’s the genuinely nicest person I’ve ever met.”

So says the person who once, when my wife and I were visiting them for a pandemic picnic, literally went out of her way by walking alone two miles roundtrip to a specific pizza parlor because I love their slices and had been looking forward to them but deliveries had unexpectedly been canceled that day.

Honestly, I would have been happy with bread and water because spending time with GB and JB was truly what my wife and I were looking forward to. Looking back, it is just one example of JB’s genuine niceness.

But I need not look back nearly that far – back to Father’s Day and how she again went out of her way for me is far enough. Actually, I need only look back to earlier this morning (as I write this) to JB’s text wishing me a good day and telling me to have a nice run later this afternoon.

How was my Father’s Day? Pops Day was a masterpiece!

*   *   *

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

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

2021 Commencement Address

by Woody

“Ladies and gentlemen of the class of (2021): Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.”(1)

“The best advice I can give anybody about going out into the world is this: Don’t do it. I have been out there. It is a mess.”(2) “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go for it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”(3)

“Find your Passion with a capital P!”(4) “The fireworks begin today. Each diploma is a lighted match. Each one of you is a fuse.”(5) “You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world’s happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.”(6)

“Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.”(7) “Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.”(8) “Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”(9)

“Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down.”(10) “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”(11) “Always, always, always, always, always, always, always do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.”(12) “Fortune befriends the bold.”(13)

“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”(14) “You can’t achieve mountaintop dreams with downhill effort.”(15) “And will you succeed? Yes! You will indeed! 98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.”(16)

“Make today your masterpiece.”(17) “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”(18) “You can’t do anything about yesterday, and the only way to improve tomorrow is by what you do right now.”(19)

“Do not judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”(20) “The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit.”(21)

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”(22) “Learn as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die tomorrow.”(23) “When you get, give; when you learn, teach.”(24)

“Wise are those who learn that the bottom line doesn’t always have to be their top priority.”(25) “We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”(26) “If you don’t make an effort to help others less fortunate than you, then you’re just wasting your time on Earth.”(27)

“There is a good reason they call these ceremonies ‘commencement exercises’ – graduation is not the end, it’s the beginning.”(28) “When you leave here, don’t forget why you came.”(29) “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”(30)

“When you leave home, you take home with you.”(31)

(1-Mary Schmich. 2-Russell Baker. 3-Howard Thurman. 4-Wayne Bryan. 5-Eward Koch. 6-Dale Carnegie. 7-James M. Barrie. 8-Anthony J. D’Angelo. 9-Ralph Waldo Emerson 10-Ray Bradbury. 11-e.e. cummings. 12-Emerson. 13-Emily Dickinson. 14-Edmund Hillary. 15-Woody Woodburn. 16-Dr. Seuss. 17-John Wooden. 18-Mark Twain. 19-Wooden. 20-Robert Louis Stevenson. 21-Nelson Henderson. 22-Henry David Thoreau. 23-Wooden. 24-Maya Angelou. 25-William Arthur Ward. 26-Winston Churchill. 27-Wayne Bryan. 28-Orrin Hatch. 29-Adlai E. Stevenson. 30-Dr. Seuss. 31-Angelou.)

*   *   *

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

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

 

The Bamboo Field & Sink of Dishes

by Woody

“Don’t worry that your children never listen to you,” essayist Robert Fulghum wisely wrote, “worry that they are always watching you.”

Sometimes, of course, our little ones do both. This happy insight struck me when I read a recent essay by my daughter, the best writer in the family, truly. Her words were evidence that she had taken to heart a parable I told her when she was growing up and also watched me tackle large tasks with its inspired lesson.

The big task of clearing a bamboo field happens one stalk at a time…

The story, shared with me long ago by golfing legend Chi Chi Rodriguez while recalling his childhood in Puerto Rico, goes like this: “When I was a young boy we had a little field that was overgrown with bamboo trees. My father wanted to plant corn, but clearing the bamboo would have taken a month. He didn’t have the time because of his job. So every night when he came home from work my father would cut down a single piece of bamboo.”

Chi Chi paused, dramatically, then emphasized: “Just one piece.”

Before his conclusion, let me share my daughter’s similar tale.

“This morning,” she wrote, “I woke up and felt exhausted even though my two-year-old daughter actually slept in and I was able to get a decent amount of sleep. As my husband changed her diaper, I got up to make coffee for him and tea for me.

“The kitchen was filled with dirty dishes from not just last night’s dinner, but from the past few days. I looked at those dishes and thought: Ugh! I CAN’T EVEN right now.

… juts as a cluttered sink of dirty dishes gets cleaned one dish at a time.

“My mind immediately began filling with excuses and reasons to ignore the dishes, yet again, until later. As if by putting them off until later some magical Dish Fairy would sneak into our kitchen and do them all for us. (Which does actually happen when my parents or mother-in-law or sister-in-law come over!)

“But the coffee strainer was dirty, so I had to wash that. Plus, I might as well wash my favorite mug so I could use that for my morning tea. Waiting for the kettle to boil, I did a few more dishes. And it wasn’t that hard to slot a bunch of dirty plates and bowls into the dishwasher. Already the counters looked much cleaner.

“I poured the hot water into my mug and still had a few minutes of waiting for the tea to steep, so I figured I might as well do a few more dishes. I took a sip of tea. Mmmm. Already I was feeling better, less groggy, more ready to face the day.

“My sponge was still soapy and I hate to waste some good soapsuds, so I scrubbed more pots and pans, then dried them and put them away. Meanwhile, our daughter was, miraculously, entertaining herself in her crib. This far in, I figured I might as well keep going and finish the job. And that is what I did.

“Looking around the clean kitchen, I felt so much better about the day, my life, myself. It might sound silly, but my clean kitchen made me feel more confident and capable and cheerful. Instead of a sink and counter full of dirty dishes, I now had a clean slate. And it almost didn’t happen. It started with just washing one little dish.”

Just as the bamboo field started with cutting down just one stalk.

“The very next spring, we had corn on our dinner table, “Chi Chi Rodriquez concluded with a knowing smile. “The Bamboo Story, to me, is the secret to success.”

*   *   *

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

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

Notes, Quotes, T-Shirts and Smiles

by Woody

There is a photograph I came across recently I wish you could see. It is of a bus stop in Montreal with an elderly couple seated and waiting for their ride.

Specifically, the wife is looking at her husband with mirth on her face and even though his head is turned away from the camera, I cannot help but imagine he is also smiling with merriment because …

… they are sitting not on a bench, but on side-by-by seats of a giant swing set and have their feet up as they sail to and fro like kindergarteners.

I think the world needs more swing-set bus stops.

*

            Also, I think the world needs more of us to display the attitude emblazoned on a T-shirt that basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar created in collaboration with the estate of Bruce Lee to celebrate what would have been the late martial arts movie superstar’s 80th birthday.

In college at UCLA the two were good friends who came into focus quite differently: Kareem stood 7-foot-2 while Bruce was 5-foot-8; Bruce was Asian-American and Kareem is Black. All of which makes the photograph of them clinching hands together in smiling friendship on the T-shirt with this quote from Kareem more powerful:

“Make a friend with someone who doesn’t look like you. . . you might change the world.”

*

“Ganbatte” is a Japanese word I came across this week that would make for an empowering motto on a T-shirt.

Translated, “ganbatte” (gan-bare) means “do your best” and is frequently used by cheering crowds during marathons. But “ganbatte” is more than a passing encouragement for good luck – it is an exhortation centered on the idea of hard work and perseverance in the face of adversity.

In other words, “don’t give up.”

Or, to paraphrase Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s coach in college, John Wooden: “Ganbatte (success) is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.”

*

            Far too long to fit on a T-shirt, this unattributed wisdom made me smile – all the more so because my grown daughter and son were both home for the long Memorial Day weekend and brought some laundry with them…

“Come home and bring your laundry. I don’t understand the whole ‘I got them to 18’ method as a parent. Having children is a LIFETIME commitment. Maybe I’m just different, but I want my kids to come take groceries and toilet paper out of my cabinets when they are 25. I want them to stop for dinner when it is their favorite meal at age 34. I want to watch their eyes sparkle when they are opening gifts they wanted for Christmas at 40. I want them to know I’m one call away and it doesn’t stop at age 18. They are forever my kids, not temporary assignments!

And, yes, my wife cooked our 34- and 31-year-olds their favorite meals – a fancy chicken dish and comfort-food mashed potatoes for the girl; cheese-stuffed pasta shells and meatballs for the boy – and we sent them home with groceries.

*

On the recent May 25th birth date of Ralph Waldo Emerson I came across this gem of his that should be taught to kindergarteners on playground swings and reminded to senior citizens on bus-stop swings: “You cannot do a kindness too soon because you will never know when it’s too late.”

Similarly, it’s never too soon to do your best – ganbatte! – to make a friend with someone doesn’t look like you.

 *   *   *

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

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

Story From An Enchanted Keyboard

by Woody

“Life imitates art far more than art imitates life,” Oscar Wilde famously wrote, but sometimes it is indeed the latter.

For example, my novel in progress features an enchanted typewriter upon which things that are typed magically come true. To illustrate how this imitates life, let me share something I typed three decades ago:

“The storm clouds are clearing. From here on out it is going to be rainbows for Dallas. Life will be an endless string of tap-ins for birdie, 40-serving-loves, proms and roses and four-leaf clovers.”

The computer keyboard I wrote that column on proved enchanted. Sure, there have been some stepped-on thorns and stepped-in cow pies in her field of four-leaf clovers – but mostly it has been a Rose Parade and Disneyland and a sunset beach walk for my daughter who was born three months prematurely weighing 2 pounds, 6 ounces.

My little preemie Dallas and and her daughter Maya.

She came into the world by an emergency Cesarean section because my wife’s preeclampsia, a life-threatening collection of syllables for both mother and fetus, spiked rapidly out of control. Santa Maria did not have a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit so a four-person team of specialists flew from Fresno to perform the dicey delivery and – if prayers were answered – take the newborn back with them.

Lisa pleaded for anesthesia as she did not want to be awake and NOT hear a newborn’s cry, but because she recently ate before the abrupt turn of events this was not possible. Holding her new daughter also proved not possible because mother and child both required continued emergency care.

All the while, my hours passed like days before a doctor finally came out to tell me I had a daughter. “She’s a real fighter,” he added and she would need to be.

While Lisa remained in the Operating Room, an NICU incubator-on-wheels was rushed to the ambulance bay for a siren-fast ride to the airport and a flight to Fresno. En route, however, the four superheroes in scrubs stopped briefly in the hospital’s hallway.

In one of the kindest acts I have ever experienced, and surely ever will, a surgical nurse opened one of the round portals and told me to place my hand on Dallas’ tiny, delicate, skinny torso. In the coming days and weeks, I would have to scrub my hands with disinfecting medical soap for a full three minutes before visiting Dallas in the NICU in Fresno, but presently there was no time for that.

The angelic nurse explained, calmly but quickly, that Dallas had not yet felt skin-to-skin contact because Lisa had been unable to and the medical team of course wore surgical gloves. The nurse emphasized that such real touch is vital.

Her grave tone and penetrating eyes delivered an unspoken cold truth as well: “This might be the only opportunity your daughter will ever have to feel skin-to-skin touch.”

Thermal air rose out from the open portal as I timidly reached into the high-tech Plexiglas womb, carefully avoiding numerous wires and monitors, and ever so gently placed my hand on Dallas’ stomach. Her skin was warm and supremely soft and wondrous. It remains, to this day, arguably the most magical moment of my life.

That 15-1/2-inch baby girl now stands 5-foot-10 and has no heart or lung ailments as “extreme preemies” often do in adulthood. Indeed, she ran track and cross country through high school.

Too, Dallas has enjoyed proms and roses and four-leaf clovers; her own book signings and wedding day and motherhood; and today, May 29, a healthy and happy 34th birthday.

Yes, my enchanted keyboard worked some real magic.

 *   *   *

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

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

It’s In The Cards: ‘You Are Amazing!’

by Woody

In my wallet I carry a small card John Wooden gave me bearing his father’s “Seven-Point Creed”:

“1. Be true to yourself. 2 Help others. 3. Make each day your masterpiece. 4. Drink deeply from good books. 5. Make friendship a fine art. 6. Build shelter against a rainy day. 7. Pray for guidance, count and give thanks for your blessings each day.”

Of less famous heritage, but no less inspirational, I have another business card-sized memento. It is a “You Are Amazing! And So Am I” card and the brainchild of a friend I will call “Josh” to protect his privacy.

The cards Josh hands out are all the more amazing because he oftentimes feels he is the least amazing person on earth. Indeed, Josh, who lives in another state now, has wrestled with many demons, from mental illness to homelessness, which are often two sides of the same coin, and other hardships as well.

Josh also has an enlarged heart – not medically, but figuratively. He has literally given the coat off his back in cold weather to someone he felt had a greater needed for it. With his last twenty bucks, he has been known to buy groceries or a hamburger and fries for hungry strangers.

And he has given out thousands of his “Amazing!” cards in an effort to lift people up when they are feeling down.

In full, the front of the light-blue card reads in various fonts and bright colors: “You Are… Love Happiness Strength Understanding Beauty Respect Compassion Joy Teamwork Peace. Together We Are The Solution.”

The backside further encourages: “Create Kindness. Make Kindness. Become Kindness. You Are Amazing! And So Am I! Thank You For Being You!”

“I believe that the more someone believes they are amazing inside, the more they will project out their amazing-ness,” Josh told me. “So I began telling everyone around me they were amazing or awesome. Then I thought, what better way to remind someone, no matter what they are going through, than a card and – Bam! – the ‘Amazing!’ cards were born.”

A friend of his who worked at a printing company helped Josh design the card and, showing her own Kindness and Amazing-ness, printed up 2,000 cards at a discount price. He quickly needed a second run, and another, and to date has passed out more than 10,000 ‘Amazing!’ cards.

“I purposely have no name on the cards because it isn’t about the giver, it is about whoever is reading it,” Josh noted. “I believe that as they read these words they are flipping their negative perspective to the positive. I think it’s also awesome that there is no religion attached to the cards – just a belief in oneself, each other, and the kindness that links us together.”

In that vein, in addition to the cards Josh has organized some “You Are Amazing! And So Am I!” outings where community members do random acts of kindness such as cleaning the homes of elderly citizens.

“These acts are a way of reminding people there is hope in one another and in believing in ourselves,” Josh says.

Even during times he has lost belief in himself, Josh says he tries to focus on “spreading love and kindness to others.”

“I love seeing people’s reaction to the cards,” he continued. “People are so encouraged. They really do smile and you can see a change in their heart. People would thank me and even ask (before the coronavirus pandemic) for hugs.”

Coming full circle, when it comes to the “Seven-Point Creed” Josh certainly measures up Amazingly!

 *   *   *

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

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

 

Two Readers Put Tears In The Writer

by Woody

“No tears in the writer,” Robert Frost famously noted, “no tears in the reader.” The reverse is true as well, as two readers recently proved by making my eyes well up to overflowing.

The first email came from Susanne Hopkins, from Maine, in greatly belated response to a column I wrote back in October of 2018 about Audrey and David Mills and their enchanting lecture about lobsters at the tiny Mount Desert Oceanarium Lobster Hatchery in Bar Harbor.

More than crustaceans, however, my column was really about an octogenarian couple that had been married 62 years yet still came into focus like honeymooners. “The lobster couple,” I wrote in conclusion, “is actually a pair of lovebirds.”

“Lobster Couple” Audrey and David Mills were married 64 years.

Two and a half years later their love affair that had now celebrated 64 wedding anniversaries touched me again when Susanne wrote a few weeks ago: “Dear Woody, I am the granddaughter of David and Audrey Mills – my grandfather went to be with his Heavenly Father last Tuesday. My daughter and I stumbled across your column during a Google search and I read your words to my grieving grandmother this morning and it brought happy smiles to our faces.

“I’m so grateful that you visited the Oceanarium and that you could see the beauty in not just their museum, but also in my very special grandparents. As their granddaughter, I am so proud of the lives they touched in the 46 years they ran their aquarium. Your column was a beautiful testament to who my grandfather was. He always let us know how much he loved us, and I think in this world that can be quite unusual.”

Tissue, please. I felt like I had tossed a bottle with a message corked inside into the ocean and after more than two years it came bobbing back in the waves and washed up onto the beach with the loveliest reply imaginable.

Shortly later, a second bottle washed ashore and I needed another tissue. This time the message came from much nearer, from Ventura, from Joyce Rieske. She also emailed belated in reply to a column, this one from more than a year ago, headlined “The Beauty of Sunsets.” In short, I marveled over our local coastal sundowns that often seem to have been painted by Monet using a palette of flames; mixed oils of reds, golds and oranges.

Wrote Joyce: “Dear Woody, My husband Cornelius – Connie – and I have always looked forward with anticipation to our Saturday Star. As long as his vision was good enough, Connie read your column himself each week. However, when his eyesight began failing, I read the Star and especially Woody to him.

“Last year, on February 9, 2020, I reread him your lovely column of February 8 about our wonderful Ventura County sunsets as Connie was experiencing his final sunset. That final sunset was a ‘pyrotechnic display’ as you wrote about and I was actually reading your words at his passing. You gave us the perfect ending to a perfect life of 62 years of marriage. Thank you for being a part of our life together.”

The misty-eyed thanks truly is mine to Joyce. Learning that one of my columns provided new widow Audrey Mills a moment’s reprieve from her ocean-deep grief was one of the most touching compliments I have ever received, but to imagine my written words being the final thing Connie Rieske heard, and in his beloved wife’s sweet voice, I will never receive a higher honor.

Nor will I ever take a Monet-like sunset even the least bit for granted.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

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

Complaint Department Is Closed

by Woody

If you were expecting 600 words of grumpiness, griping and cantankerousness today, read no further – The Complaint Department is temporarily closed. Seeing so many vaccinated smiles, naked of masks, safely out and about outdoors has chased away the stay-and-shelter blues and put birdsong in my heart.

Speaking of birds, the other morning I saw a blue jay perched upon a tall succulent plant – a cactus of some sort is my non-botanist guess – in my front yard. This made me a smile for three reasons: a dear friend says a blue jay sighting is a visit from a guardian angel; thus, I thought about my friend for a while; and, lastly, until that contemplative moment I had not fully appreciated how lushly filled in and attractive the drought-resistant landscaping we replaced our front lawn with a year ago has now become. I wish you could see it – with your own blue jay sighting included.

Blue Jay photo by Scott Harris

Our front desert garden in turn made me think of another of my friends who, when his own Complaint Department becomes exhausting, likes to say: “Sometimes I just have to walk away and look at a flower.”

His wisdom naturally reminds me of the late golfing legend, Walter Hagen, who similarly and famously advised: “You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry, don’t worry, and be sure to smell the flowers along the way.”

Better yet, don’t just smell the flowers but pick some, too. For example, no matter what your political views are the series of photographs taken last week showing President Joe Biden bending down to pluck a dandelion and then handing it to First Lady Jill surely had to make you smile.

Seeing these photos caused the high-definition digital video in my mind’s eye to instantly flashback all the way into grainy Super 8mm film, for that is how old this memory was of my 5-year-old self picking a fistful of dandelions on a warm summer day and giving them to my mom who, naturally, reacted as if they were two dozen long-stemmed roses.

One more flower-powered smile comes from an Instagram posting I saw the other day reading, unattributed: “My grandpa has Alzheimer’s so he has no idea who my grandma is, but every day for the last three or four months he brings her flowers from their garden and asks her to run away with him and be his wife; and every day she says she already is; and every day the smile my grandpa gets on his face is the most beautiful heartfelt thing I have ever seen.”

Here is another beautiful heartfelt thing I saw recently, again on Instagram, attributed to Ann The Distracted Gardener. “My 8yo in the car today: ‘Do you want me to throw the confetti in my pocket?’

“Me: ‘No not in the car! – why do you have confetti in your pocket?’

“8yo: ‘It’s my emergency confetti. I carry it everywhere in case there is good news.’ ”

60yo Me: Raising kids has been compared to tending a garden and Ann The Distracted Gardener certain has not been too distracted to raise a red rose of a son. Also, I must try to be more like this unhurried 8yo who obviously stops to smell the flowers and is always ready to celebrate each day like it’s New Year’s Eve.

Lastly, the image of that young boy reaching into his pocket and pulling out a fistful of confetti and then throwing it with delight reminds me of something my friend/mentor/hero Wayne Bryan likes to say: “Throw kindness around like it’s confetti.”

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

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