Author Archives: Woody

Two Tales of Christmas Spirit

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Two Tales of

Christmas Spirit

A song in the movie The Grinch asks, “Where are you, Christmas? Why can’t I find you?”

Sometimes it shows up where you least expect it as I witnessed just the other day. A homeless man, bearded and bedraggled and sadly appearing to be in mental disarray as well, was yelling angrily at every passerby who came with 20 yards of him near a walkway at a local park.

Naturally, people began keeping their distance. And then came an exception. A teenage boy on a bike approached the man, not too close, but near enough to get barked at fiercely before riding away.

A good while later, maybe half an hour, the teen returned. He had pedaled some four miles, roundtrip, to McDonald’s to buy a gift meal for the distressed man.

The scene, which I watched unfold from afar, brightened my day and Holiday Season as I hope it does yours. It also brought to mind another Christmastime encounter I witnessed a number of years ago that I still share whenever someone complains about today’s youth.

It was past 1 o’clock in the morning when I stopped at a 24-hour Ventura doughnut shop on my way home from a Lakers game. The parking lot was a ghost town except for four shadowy figures loitering on the sidewalk near the shop’s entrance.

As I approached I could see there were three boys and girl, all teens, all with numerous tattoos and piercings. I stereotypically judged these books by their covers, especially as they stood hauntingly in a semicircle around an elderly man, cold and coatless and barefoot, and seated on the sidewalk.

I went inside to get a blueberry muffin, all the while keeping a worried eye on the group outside. Nothing seemed to be happening until…

… I walked back outside. Then, as ominously as pirates ordering a prisoner to walk the plank at gunpoint, I heard the troublesome-looking teens tell the old man to stand up and walk.

“Uh-oh!” I thought.

My next thought was that I had misjudged these four buccaneers, and greatly so.

“How do those feel?” one of the boys asked. “Do they fit?”

The homeless man took a few measured steps, stopped, looked at his feet, made an about-face and returned to the quartet.

“These ones fit real good,” the cold man answered, flashing a smile that warmed the winter night.

The teens, in unison, smiled back.

“Keep them. They’re yours,” the same boy as before replied. “I want you to have them.”

Glancing down I saw the speaking teen was now barefoot. He had given the man in need his expensive skateboarding sneakers and socks as well.

The other two boys sat on their skateboards, retying their shoes. It seems that they, too, had let the man try on their sneakers to find which pair best fit him. The girl, meanwhile, gave her hooded sweatshirt to the cold man.

Halfway to my car I made a U-turn and went back inside the shop and picked out an assortment of a dozen doughnuts while sharing what I had just witnessed outside. Time and again, the Christmas spirit is more contagious than coronavirus and this was such a time. The woman worker not only wouldn’t let me pay for the doughnuts, she added a free jumbo coffee for the cold man.

“These are from the lady inside,” I said, delivering the treats. “Have a nice night.”

The man with new shoes and a sweatshirt grinned appreciatively.

“You have a nice night, too,” one of the teens replied.

I already had.

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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 books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

 

A Flood of Book Recommendations

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Book Recommendations for

Celebrating Jaolabokaflod

As a Southern Californian through and through, I love sunshine on my face and a sea breeze in my lungs and sand between my toes, yet on Christmas Eve I will be an honorary Icelander celebrating Jolabokaflod.

Pronounced yo-la-bok-a-flot, Jolabokaflod translates to “Yule Book Flood” and is the tradition where books are exchanged as gifts on Dec. 24. Everyone spends the rest of the night curled up by fireplaces, drinking hot chocolate and reading.

It’s no small wonder 93 percent of Icelanders annually read at least one book (only 70 percent of Americans do) and 50 percent read eight or more.

Perhaps I have ancestral roots deep in the tundra because I try to read 52 books each year. Thanks to stay-and-sheltering, I have surpassed this book-per-week goal with 57 titles to date. Below is my small flood of Jolabokaflod recommendations for 2020.

“The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse” by Charlie Mackesy is short at 218 illustrated pages, but long on Winnie-the-Pooh-like wisdom for kids and adults alike.

Speaking of kids, while my tally does not include children’s books I read to my 2-year-old granddaughter, Maya, I’d still like to single out a special one: “Finding Aloha” written and wonderfully illustrated by professional artist Daniela Arriaga, a Ventura native who now resides in Hawaii.

“Gilead” by Marilynne Robinson wowed me and I enjoyed her debut novel “Housekeeping” next, but was honestly disappointed by her recently published “Jack.”

Written in non-rhyming poetry “brown girl dreaming” by Jacqueline Woodson is a memoir about growing up during the civil rights and her newest novel “Red at the Bone” is even better.

“The problem with new books,” John Wooden said, “is they keep us from reading good old ones.” Two old good ones by Ray Bradbury that I enjoyed this year were “The Golden Apples of the Sun” and “Dandelion Wine.”

I had not read any of Pete Hamill’s work until he passed away this summer and a friend insisted I make up for this shortcoming. It was kind advice. “Forever” where Cormac O’Connor is granted immortality so long as he never leaves the island of Manhattan is terrific and “North River” about a neighborhood doctor in New York City during The Great Depression is even better.

I also came late to Toni Morrison this year and couldn’t put her down once I started. “Beloved” is amazing; “Bluest Eye” even better; and “Song of Solomon” as powerful and relevant during today’s Black Lives matter movement as when it was published nearly two decades ago.

“Homegoing: A Novel” by Yaa Gyasi is a heartbreaking story about two half sisters, one free and one not, and the lasting impact slavery has on both branches of their descendants through the ensuing eight generations.

“The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak is 608 pages of unforgettable storytelling.

My November featured this Fab Four: “Last Bus to Wisdom” by Ivan Doig; “The Light Between Oceans” by M. L. Stedman; “The Power of One” by Bryce Courtenay; and “Anxious People” by Fredrik Backman.

Impossibly, “American Dirt” by Jeanine Cummins almost lives up to the acclaim calling it a modern day “The Grapes of Wrath.” Speaking of which, biographies do not get any better than “Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck” by William Souder.

My favorite book, naturally, was “The Best Week That Never Happened” by Dallas Woodburn. I honestly would be touting this award-winning, page-turning debut novel even if I did not know the author.

Will you join me by your own fireplace this evening? Don’t forget the hot chocolate!

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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 books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

 

Holiday Generosity Bounces In

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Holiday Generosity

Bounces And Rolls In

The coronavirus pandemic has wrecked havoc in 2020 and, due to stay-and-sheltering, I feared “Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive” would in turn fall victim with a serious deflation in donated gifts for disadvantaged youths this year.

Never before have I have been so happily wrong. You, dear readers, have slam dunked in COVID-19’s face! Below are some of the MVPs – Most Valuable Philanthropists – who have scored on behalf of the kids to date…

Glen Sittel donated two basketballs and one football and said: “Knowing each ball represents a huge smile and a healthier child is a blessing.”

A mountain of gifts from “Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive.”

Sally and Tom Reeder donated 10 huge smiles and Kathy and Joe Vaughan added two blessings while noting to us all: “We will get through this challenging time.”

Judy and Dan Dugan passed out six basketball assists while Irma M. Paramo and her neighbor Kay Handlin teamed up to contribute five basketballs.

Two balls were anonymously donated “In memory of Austin Gambill, the young Ventura High School track and cross-country runner who was tragically taken from us far too early.”

Walt Oliver and his grandsons Elijah Ontiveros and Michael, Brandon and Tommy Kendlinger donated 26 assorted balls.

Mike Spahr and his grandsons Caden, Liam and Leo dropped off one each basketball, soccer ball and football.

Linda and Jerry Mendelsohn, and their five grandchildren, donated 20 balls; Maureen Durkin gave 13 assorted balls; and Jim and Linda Peddie gave 10 balls.

Albert Rodriguez, noting that he grew up as a “huge John Wooden fan,” epitomized Coach’s quote that “It takes ten hands to put the ball in the basket” by recruiting more than 100 hands of family members, friends and former coworkers in donating 127 assorted basketballs, soccer balls and footballs.

Bobbie and Dave Williams gave one football and one basketball while Ethel Yim gave one soccer ball, noting: “I hope it will make a child happy.”

Juan Sanchez made 38 children happy while Sherrie Basham donated 10 smiles “In memory of my mom, Janice Manjoras.”

Carol Ann Roth gave five basketballs; Katherine and Frank Anderson gave three basketballs; Vince O’Neill gave two basketballs; and Anna and Tom McBreen spiraled in one football.

Tom Calvin and the rest of the Mt. View Men’s Golf Club hit a 350-yard drive, so to speak, by donating 30 basketballs, 30 soccer balls and 10 footballs.

The Friday Morning Coaches Breakfast Club gave basketballs in honor of Bob Swanson and Jim Cowan; Ann Cowan, as her late husband always did, donated ten basketballs; and Jim Parker continued his tradition of battling Jim/Ann Cowan in being the first to donate – and won this year with two basketballs.

Charis Werner passed in seven assorted balls; Chuck and Ann Elliott gave four balls; and Lynne and Don Steensma gave three balls.

Alan, Kathy and Tyler Hammerand kicked in three each footballs, soccer balls and basketballs; and Mary and Rick Whiting gave one each of the same.

Allison Johnson gave a basketball and football “in honor of my brother, Michael Demeter, who has all he needs and is generous to others.”

Sheila Raives kicked in four soccer balls; Jeff Barks gave a basketball and soccer ball; and Judy Windle passed in two basketballs.

Howard Reich contributed four assorted balls while Randi and Scott Harris donated three.

Dena Mercer gave two basketballs; Derry and Peggi Clayton gave one basketball and one soccer ball; and Joan Donley gave six softballs.

The Lewis family – Tom and Jan, and daughters Cory, Emily and Maddy – donated a baker’s dozen basketballs while Maya McAuley gave ten basketballs in honor of everyone battling cancer or COVID-19.

There is still time to drop off a new sports ball at a local Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, church, youth group – or to Jensen Design & Survey (9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Dec. 18) at 1672 Donlon St. in Ventura and I’ll take it from there. Online orders can be shipped to the same address.

Also, please email me about your gift at woodywriter@gmail.com so I can add your generosity to this year’s growing tally.

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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 books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

 

2020 Newsletter: What A Year!

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Holiday Newsletter:

2020 Was Unbelievable!

Dear readers and friends,

Welcome to my annual Holiday Newsletter. What an unbelievably amazing year 2020 has been for our family! I’m sure it has been likewise for you and yours.

To begin, my wife and I did not take a long-awaited trip to her homeland of Italy. We did not enjoy a romantic gondola ride through the canals of Venice. We were not left breathless by Michelangelo’s masterpiece ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. And we did not taste amazing wines in the hills of Tuscany.

I wish you could have seen the stunning red-lava views when we did not take a white-knuckle helicopter ride over the volcanoes on Hawaii’s Big Island.

In April, my son, a former college distance runner, did not return to the Boston Marathon and win it this time.

My son’s fiancé, meanwhile, did not become a Le Cordon Bleu chef and start her own catering company – her oxtail joloff for Thanksgiving was amazing, by the way – as a fun little side hustle.

In May, the party celebrating my 60th trip around the sun did not have a hundred friends and family members traveling from microbrewery to microbrewery throughout Ventura County tasting special limited edition beers created in my honor.

Also in May, I did not travel to Columbia University to accept the Pulitzer Prize.

Speaking of Pulitzer Prize winners, not seeing “Hamilton” on Broadway in front-row seats was everything you can imagine.

Our precocious granddaughter, Maya, did not receive an early acceptance to Yale; or to Harvard; or even to pre-school.

Our son-in-law, aka Mr. Environment, who cycles to his Green Job every day, did not win the Tour de France. It was almost as exciting as the time he did not make all 14 traffic lights without getting a single red on his ride home from the office.

“What is, Win seven episodes and $219,000?” That’s right, my wife did not appear on “Jeopardy!”

In a discovery almost as amazing as James Marshall discovering gold at Sutter’s Mill, while visiting an estate sale looking for a typewriter I did not find – and buy for just $2 – a 1909 T206 Honus Wagner baseball card worth $3 million.

Speaking of big money, Paramount Pictures did not buy the option for an undisclosed amount (between you and me, it was a lot!) for my new novel “The Mystic Table: A Journey of Seven Generations” which was not published by HarperCollins in 2020.

Not traveling to Wimbledon to watch the Bryan Brothers not play on Centre Court for the final time in their storied doubles career is a memory my entire family will never forget.

All of us, including 2-year-old Maya in child-carrier backpack, did not climb to the peak of Mount Rainer, or Mount Whitney, or Two Trees.

Not to brag, but unlike the rest of my family – and every teacher in America – I did not master using Zoom.

My wife and I will forever remember the time we did not renew our wedding vows to celebrate our golden anniversary (it was actually only our 38th, but stay-and-sheltering during the coronavirus pandemic has made this year seem like 12) under the Eiffel Tower on a warm evening with the moon rising and the gentlest of spring rains falling. It truly was not magical.

Lastly, my daughter did not travel to The Swedish Academy in Stockholm to accept the Nobel Prize in Literature for her debut YA novel “The Best Week That Never Happened.”

Yes, indeed, 2020 was The Best Year That Never Happened!

Happy 2021 to you and yours,

The Woodys

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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 books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

The Complaint Department Is Open

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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The Complaint Department

Is Now Open

One of the funniest The New Yorker cartoons I can recall dates back to 1998 when it was featured in a final-season episode of “Seinfeld.” A pig is standing at the “Complaints” window in a department store and tells the woman employee, in a caption submitted by the TV character Elaine: “I wish I was taller.”

Well, I’m 6-foot-4 but I am not short of complaints…

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I wish 2020 was shorter instead of seeming to have already lasted about 18 years.

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I used to get annoyed when I would forget to bring my own reusable bag into a store, but now that I’ve gotten better my new problem is leaving my mask in the car and having to go back to retrieve it.

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I wish I wasn’t always forgetting my Internet passwords, a seemingly daily occurrence with one account or another. I reckon I reset my email password alone more often than Jeff Bezos earns another 10 million dollars.

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Speaking of Amazon, I have annoyed myself during the coronavirus pandemic by relying too heavily on the convenience of click-and-buying things online – after, naturally, re-re-re-resetting my Prime membership password first – instead of putting on a mask and going to a local store.

I vow to do better in 2021. No, beginning now.

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Speaking of the Internet, I have a complaint about websites that ask me to prove I am a person (and not a spam program) by typing in a series of displayed random letters and numbers that look like either hieroglyphics or something drawn by Picasso while he was drunk.

Worse yet is when I am presented a photograph of a busy intersection and asked to click on each of the nine gridded squares that contain portions of the five major food groups.

In either case, I usually mistake cars for apples or guess letters to be numbers.

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“Woody, you knucklehead,” you might say. “Just write down your passwords and the problem is solved.”

Well, I can’t begin to tell you how annoyed I get when I lose my list of passwords – which is a full page long, by the way, because cyber experts tell us that not having a unique password for each and every account is more dangerous than storing nuclear waste in one’s refrigerator.

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I worry about our local restaurants surviving during the pandemic, but I do have a complaint about some of them for wrapping my take-away orders in two pounds of aluminum foil, paper, cardboard and eco-unfriendly Styrofoam, which is a huge complaint all in itself, plus a bag. That’s a lot of unneeded waste for about five minutes of use.

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I have a major complaint about people who don’t clean up their dog’s messes at parks, beaches and even on sidewalks.

I wish there was an ordinance requiring such Styrofoam-brained dog owners to personally clean off the icky shoe soles for those of us who take a messy misstep.

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I similarly have a complaint about people who treat our beautiful beaches like a pigsty by leaving behind litter.

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I wish half the sesame seeds didn’t always fall off my bagel and make my place at the table look like a pigsty.

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It annoys me that robocalls and spam email are harder to stop than LeBron James.

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My final complaint for today is that the pig cartoon in “Seinfeld” was actually fictitious, although The New Yorker later ran a caption contest with the same drawing. The winner? “Stop sending me spam!”

I wish I had sent that in.

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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 books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

Ball Drive Remains On The Map

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive

Remains On The Map

Chuck Thomas, the longtime sage of this Saturday column space as well as my friend and mentor, wrote a novel published nearly three decades ago that revolved around a small-town newspaper and features a Norwegian Elkhound named Woody.

It remains a cherished kindness that I keep in my bookcase and heart. I bring this up not in boast, but because the novel’s title seems remarkably fitting these days: “Getting Off The Map.” I think that describes how most of us have felt during 2020 – like we’ve fallen off the map.

Some “smiles” before they were delivered to disadvantaged kids last year…

As this holiday season approaches I worry, too, that disadvantaged youth will fall through the cracks more than ever before. Which brings to mind this wisdom from Chuck, who passed away 11 years ago this month: “Help someone today because you may not have the opportunity tomorrow.”

Helping local underprivileged children is the aim of Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive that officially kicks off again today. The inspiration for the annual endeavor was twofold, beginning a quarter-century ago at a youth basketball clinic when former Ventura College and NBA star Cedric Ceballos awarded autographed basketballs to a handful of lucky attendees.

Leaving the gym afterward, I happened upon a 10-year-old boy who won one of the prized keepsakes. He was dribbling it and shooting baskets on the rough blacktop outdoor court while perhaps imagining himself to be Ceballos.

Meanwhile, the real Ceballos’ Sharpie signature was wearing off.

Curious as to why the boy had not carefully carried the trophy basketball home and put it safely on a bookshelf, I interrupted his playing to ask.

“I’ve never had my own basketball,” he answered matter-of-factly between shots.

That holiday season, thinking of that boy – and other boys and girls who do not have their own basketball to shoot, soccer ball to kick, football to throw – I got a second assist of inspiration from Julius Gius. Specifically, the long-running Christmas Bellringer campaign he started long ago as editor of The Star to support the Salvation Army.

Instead of asking readers to drop loose change and bills into a kettle, I asked them to drop off brand new sports balls for kids in need. A great thing about a basketball, football or soccer ball as a holiday gift is that no batteries are required. Also, unlike most toys, a rubber ball is all but unbreakable.

In the introduction to a collection of his “Editor’s Notebook” columns published in 1988, Gius wrote: “I have had a rich and rewarding life. Everything has come up roses for me. I count my blessings every day and wish them for everyone.”

The pandemic poses an added challenge this year, like a sixth defender on the basketball court, but nonetheless I am again encouraging you dear readers to help pass out roses and blessings by dropping off new sports balls at any Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, youth club or church and they will find a worthy young recipient.

You can also drop balls off (weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Dec. 18) in a no-contact collection box outside Jensen Design & Survey at 1672 Donlon St. near Target on Telephone Road in Ventura; or have online orders shipped to the same address; and I will take it from there.

And please email me about your bouncing gifts at woodywriter@gmail.com so I can add your generosity to this year’s tally.

In closing, and in advance, let me quote the character Salena in “Getting Off The Map” who at one point says: “Thanks for the support. It means a lot.”

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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 books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

Pencils, Pens and Rocket Science

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Pencils, Pens and

Rocket Science

In an interview discussing her novel “Song of Solomon,” Toni Morrison spent upwards of fifteen minutes discussing the opening paragraph. This was remarkable for it consists of a mere 43 words total:

“The North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance agent promised to fly from Mercy to the other side of Lake Superior at three o’clock. Two days before the event was to take place he tacked a note on the door of his little yellow house.”

The two sentences seem simple enough, yet in the hands of the late Pulitzer Prize-winner the writing pen is on the order of rocket science. For example, “North” in the insurance company’s name was a metaphor for the Underground Railroad and slaves fleeing in that direction. The choice of “Mercy” for the town was more evident, but to learn the deeper meanings behind “fly” and “three o’clock” and “little yellow house” was to hear a SpaceX engineer discussing avionics.

I know this because I recently visited with the Lead Build Reliability Engineer for Avionics at SpaceX. Technically, Cullen McAlpine and his team are in charge of making sure the electromechanical assemblies, wire harnesses, batteries, sensors, solar arrays and more all perform as designed.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon astronauts …

In other words, when the Crew Dragon spacecraft lifts off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida (launch time is targeted for 7:49 p.m. ET, Saturday, Nov. 14) to carry four astronauts to the International Space Station, Cullen will be a key author in the sci-fi story that is now almost routine.

Cullen, a 2011 graduate of Ventura High School who earned a degree in Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering at UCLA, is a dear family friend of mine. As a kid who grew up during America’s Space Race with Russia in the sixties, I love asking Cullen questions about his work.

I won’t share everything that he told me the other day because you’d have to be a rocket scientist to understand much of it. More truthfully, I mostly have no idea what he was talking about so how can I retell it?

At one point, trying to give the impression I wasn’t a complete doofus, I mentioned how I found it amazing NASA spent a million dollars to develop a pen that could write in the gravity-free vacuum of space whereas Soviet cosmonauts simply used a two-cent pencil.

Cullen smiled at me like a wise professor and then gently educated his ignorant student. With the depth of Toni Morrison discussing writing, he explained that using a pencil in space could be penny-wise and mission-foolish. The tip of graphite breaking off could pose danger to equipment inside a weightless capsule. Even a tiny fleck of graphite could float perilously into an astronaut’s eye.

Cullen told me much more, but most of it sounded like a foreign language. As if in a Paris restaurant, I just nodded a lot.

Doing some homework for the next time I see Cullen, I discovered that early on NASA astronauts did indeed use pencils – mechanical ones costing $128 each. The Fisher Pen Company eventually stepped in and invested $1 million to create a pen that can write upside-down; in blazing temperatures (250 degrees Fahrenheit) and frigid conditions (minus 30 degrees); even underwater.

Featuring a pressurized nitrogen cartridge and gel-like ink, the “Space Pen” was patented in 1966 and first used by Apollo 7 astronauts during their 1968 mission. Soviet cosmonauts followed suit a year later.

Inspired by Cullen, I bought an authentic million-dollar “Space Pen” for 22 bucks. I’m no rocket scientist but believe me, it’s far better – and way cooler – than a pencil.

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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 books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

Sweet Treat Follows Halloween

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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A Sweet Treat

Follows Halloween

Out of precaution, but with small expectation, we bought a single bag of candy bars in case any trick-or-treaters came by Halloween evening. In years past we have handed out 20 bags.

Coronavirus kept our doorbell silent as a tombstone.

It’s easy to jokingly snicker, “Great! I’ll just have to eat all these Snickers myself.” But the truth is I felt empty because autumn’s annual parade of kids singing “Trick or treat!” as their goodie sacks and plastic pumpkin buckets fill up, fills my heart.

Imagine the cutest costumed child of the night knocking on your door after the porch light has been turned off and you get an idea of what happened to me. In this case, it was a day later and two young girls were dressed up as themselves – as the cutest two siblings imaginable.

I am guessing their ages to be 3 and 5 and they were at a local park with their parents enjoying a late-afternoon picnic. Meanwhile, I was on my daily run and seeing them each half-mile loop around put a smile on my face and extra spring in my stride.

I wish you could have seen them. The girls played catch with their dad and tag with their mom; played by themselves while their parents snuggled on the spread-out blanket; joined mom and dad for a snack, and a hug, before racing off to pet a dog on a leash; and on and on their fun went.

Just as Halloween is a time machine that pulls us back to our own childhoods, these two children sent my mind racing in reverse 25 years to when my daughter and son were about their ages.

Instead of on a blanket in a park, our young family of four was having dinner at a charming Italian restaurant. After the spaghetti and meatballs disappeared, and scoops of ice cream too, our waiter vanished. The kids grew antsy as we waited for the check. Ten minutes became thirty and my wife and I became impatient as well.

“Where’s the check?” I grumbled softly.

“Where’s our waiter?” my wife mumbled.

“Where’s the bathrooms?” the kids needed to know.

Our waiter remained AWOL. Eventually, finally, at long last I caught the attention of a different server and asked if he could please get our check.

Instead of the check, our original waiter brought us a heartwarming explanation: Two elderly gentlemen at a table across the room had paid for our dinner, but requested the waiter not let us know until after they left – hence the long delay.

The Samaritan pair had seen a happy young family, our waiter explained, and simply wanted to anonymously do a random act of kindness. Ever since, I have occasionally tried to repay those kind men when I have seen happy young families in restaurants.

And so it was that I wished I could have paid the dinner check for the two girls and their parents at the park. Instead, all I could think to do was stop by before I left and tell them something they already well knew – what a lovely family they are!

This led to a brief social-distanced visit where I learned the sisters are inseparable, even sharing a bed by choice, and that a third sibling is on the way.

As I jogged away into the early arriving darkness, the two girls sang out in sweet harmony: “Have a nice day!”

“Thank you!” I shouted back. “You, too!”

What I thought was this: “Thanks to you, I already have.”

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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 books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

Quoth the Raven, “Vote Ever More!”

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Quoth the Raven,

“Vote Ever More!”

What writer better to quote on Halloween than Edgar Allan Poe, who wrote in his most-famous poem The Raven: “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering fearing / Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.”

Below are some dark dreams that would make any mortal scream “Nevermore!” loud enough to rattle their chamber door…

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From the moment you fall asleep you find yourself resolutely standing – six feet from the person in front and behind you – in a line stretching more blocks than the eye can see.

Despite dreaming in real time during a full eight hours of sleep, upon awakening you still have not reached the voting booth.

*

In another dream, you finally reach the front of the line only to find that you must unlock your high school locker before you can cast your ballot. Taking a wild guess, you spin the dial – clockwise, counterclockwise, clockwise – and give the lock a quick yank.

“Wrong! I’m sorry,” the lock tells you, “your signature does not match the squiggle we have on file from when you signed for a FedEx package using your index finger on a touchscreen, so your ballot will not be counted.”

*

You walk to your familiar voting place but it has been shut down; so you drive to the next nearest poll but it, too, has been shuttered; so you drive further still and finally arrive at the only open poll in your county only to be greeted by a 10-hour line – which you find yourself standing in naked.

*

Your wise subconscious has decided to skip the long lines by using a vote-by-mail ballot. Alas, this results in a different nightmare as you put your ballot inside a security/privacy envelope before putting that envelope inside a second envelope specified for mailing …

… and then, like Russian nesting dolls, you put that envelope inside another, and another, and another until you wake up screaming in frustration.

*

In a similar dream, you have mistakenly used your security/privacy envelope to jot down a grocery list on and thus mail in your naked ballot inside the mailing envelope only. When you learn your ballot was invalidated by this technicality, you wake up screaming in anger.

*

Again you dream of using a vote-by-mail ballot, but to avoid nesting doll-like envelopes or having the Postal Service deliver it too late to be counted, you take it directly at an official ballot drop box – but are faced with two identical looking ones.

One box contains a tiger that will bite your hand off when you drop your ballot inside while the other box will count your vote correctly. To determine which box to use, you must solve a Rubik’s Cube in 30 seconds or recall your Netflix password on the first try.

*

In your final dark dream, your polling site in an affluent suburban neighborhood and you have flown through the line in 2 minutes and 43 seconds.

However, inside the voting booth you realize you have forgotten your election crib sheet. Looking at the propositions you suddenly find yourself again trying to open your high school locker; while standing naked in the hallway; and running late for class to take a final exam you need to pass in order to graduate.

*

You awaken each time thinking “Quoth the Raven ‘Nevermore’ ” but then vow, “No, that is wrong. Vote, vote, vote always ever election more!”

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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 books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

Three Winks From The Universe

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Three Winks From

The Universe

Whether the glass is half full or half empty, sometimes it gets knocked over. And sometimes when this happens the universe laughs at you, but other times it smiles and gives you a wink.

Last Sunday, the glass in question was a nearly full bottle of maple syrup waiting to be poured over pancakes. Reaching for the syrup, I carelessly knocked the bottle over …

… with its lid already off …

… the bottle toppled onto its side …

… its mouth coming to rest hanging over the edge of my plate …

… and the syrup poured onto my pancakes …

… in the perfectly desired amount …

… without any sticky syrup spilling onto the table or floor.

It was all a one-in-a-million shot and a playful wink from the universe asking, “How Did You Like That Trick?”

* * *

My luck appeared to change the next day with a half-full mailbox.

In order for a card I was mailing to arrive on time, I needed to get it out on Monday. Our postal carrier usually comes by in the afternoon, but to be safe I strolled to my neighborhood’s community mailboxes at midmorning.

My mistake was dropping the letter into the outgoing slot before checking my own box. Alas, the mail had already been delivered so my card would not go out for another day. Had I looked first, I could have instead mailed the card at the post office for timely delivery.

As the universe giggled at me, I gently chastised myself for not mailing the card an hour earlier.

Then the universe’s laugh grew louder. As I was walking back home, the postal carrier rounded the corner to exit our neighborhood. I suddenly wished I had come out to mail my letter two minutes later than I did because then I could have flagged down our mail carrier and handed her the letter directly.

Quick as a wink, I decided to wave frantically anyway …

… the postal carrier stopped her truck …

… listened to my tragic tale of being a bonehead …

… and promised to retrieve my card from the outgoing box.

* * *

If the universe wasn’t laughing at me the following evening, my wife surely was when my reading glasses disappeared. Fifteen minutes earlier I had been reading on the couch and now I had all the cushions off, searching the crevices, with no luck.

I retraced my steps from earlier that evening, from the entire day, even checked rooms I hadn’t been in for days.

As my frustration grew, I expanded my search to the kitchen trash and counters, cabinets and drawers that made no sense. I turned the couch inside out a second time.

If our 22-month-old granddaughter had been visiting, I would have been convinced she carried them off somewhere while playing and laughed it off. Instead, as I continued looking high and low and every height in between, the thought that I was losing my mind crossed my mind.

Alas, like Edgar Alan Poe’s “The Purloined Letter” or the last Easter egg often to be found, my reading glasses proved to be in plain sight …

… in the same room across from the couch …

… resting on top of a typewriter …

… that sits on a table I had checked at least a couple times.

On that keyboard is where my wife claims to have found The Purloined Glasses. She didn’t wink, but I’m convinced she conspired with the universe to prank me.

 *   *   *

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 books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …