Author Archives: Woody

80th Birthday is a Superspreader

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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80th Birthday is

a Superspreader

Sharon Martin recently turned 80 and her milestone birthday celebration turned into a superspreader. There wasn’t an outbreak of coronavirus, however – it was kindness that proved widely contagious.

“At my age I have enough stuff,” the longtime Simi Valley resident says, and thus asked family members and friends to each do a “Random Act Of Kindness” in her honor in lieu of a gift-wrapped present.

“I could hardly wait until the big day to open my birthday cards and see what RAOK people had done,” Sharon further shares. “I was like a 5-year-old waiting for Christmas Day.”

Her virtual Christmas tree had more than 50 “gifts” beneath it, including monetary donations to food banks, rescue missions and other charities while food and blankets were given to an animal shelter.

The RAOKs benefited the young and old alike. One woman donated an American Girl Doll to a foster child while several friends “adopted” senior citizens to visit by phone and drop off meals to during the pandemic.

One woman rallied her coworkers and put together 75 back-to-school backpacks filled with supplies for an inner-city elementary school. Similarly, two friends made donations to For The Troops to send “We Care” packages.

“My great-niece joined with others to help clean up the beach,” Sharon said and similarly noted that a 90-year-old nun has started picking up trash on her daily walks as a birthday gift.

“Some were small things,” Sharon continued. “My brother was at a health clinic and when he was leaving he found a pen on the floor. The pen had a special inscription about a nurse and he knew it was important to someone. He spent quite a bit of time interviewing all the nurses and finally found the right one. She was so appreciative as it had been given to her on the day she graduated from nursing school.”

One friend baked homemade bread and delivered it to a neighbor recovering from surgery, along with a good book to read, and another woman made gallons of apple butter to help raise money for families in need.

Another woman tallied up how much money she had NOT spent getting her hair done during the pandemic and sent an equivalent check to a family that is struggling.

“Residents at the Simi Valley Care Center will soon have a pretty gazebo to sit under,” Sharon happily reported, “thanks to a donation to the Eagle Scout project by Josh Hoover.”

One friend saw a man at Costco unsuccessfully trying to squeeze a large piece of furniture into a car that was too small. He brought his pickup truck around and then followed the man home with the special delivery.

Sharon proudly noted that Bill, her husband of 59 years, “is always doing random acts of kindness” and for her birthday celebration this included helping a friend take 5,000 pounds of donations to a Catholic food share.

Naturally, the couple’s three sons honored their mom with RAOKs: Chris went out of his way to make sure a food delivery got to the right person; Greg found a baby quail with a damaged wing and rushed it to a rescue hospital for successful care; and Tim cleaned out the rain gutters for the widow of a victim in the 2017 massacre in Las Vegas.

Turning 80 is a big deal, but how can it compete with the childhood excitement and cake-and-sugar rush of a fifth birthday or eighth or tenth? By giving, that’s how.

As Sharon concluded: “I can truthfully say that this was my very best birthday.”

 *   *   *

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” …

Making Friendship A Fine Art

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Making Friendship

A Fine Art

My friend Kurt phoned out of the blue the other morning for no other reason than to say “hi” and catch up. His timing was perfect as I was in need of a little pick-me-up. By the time he said “ciao” my socks were filled with helium.

After hanging up, my mind drifted to Coach John Wooden – whose birth date, coincidentally, is this coming Wednesday – and some lessons on friendship he taught me during the two decades I knew him.

The first time I joined Coach on his daily four-mile morning walk some 30 years ago, he gave me a laminated card featuring his father’s “Seven-Point Creed” that includes “Make friendship a fine art.”

In an effort to be such an artist, the next time I visited Coach I brought along a small gift. Knowing his love of poetry, I selected a hardback collection by Rumi. Shortly thereafter, I received a handwritten thank-you note and a copy of a poem authored by Coach titled On Friendship:

At times when I am feeling low, / I hear from a friend and then

My worries start to go away / And I am on the mend

No matter what the doctors say – / And their studies never end

The best cure of all, when spirits fall, / Is a kind word from a friend

More prized than the signed poem is that over the ensuing years Coach turned those stanzas into curing words, and deeds, when my spirits fell – particularly after my mom passed away and later when I was nearly killed by a drunk driver.

Coach also had a gift for raising my spirits when they were already high. For example, when I next visited him he recited a poem from the gift Rumi book. I must confess I did not know who he was quoting until he told me. Fittingly, the selection was titled “Love” which Coach insisted was the most important word in the English language.

The poem recital was a thoughtful gesture of rare grace and a lesson through example that saying “thank you” is nice, but to show thanks is far better. In other words, wear a new sweater or necklace the next time you see the person who gave it to you; put a gift vase on proud display before the giver visits; memorize a poem or line from a book given to you.

Another life lesson put into practice was how Coach always gave his full attention on the phone and never seemed in a hurry to hang up. Indeed, if he was too busy to talk he would simply not answer in the first place rather than risk the prospect of having to be in a rude rush.

I fondly remember visiting Coach once when the phone rang and he let the call go through to his answering machine. It was his way of telling me I was his guest and merited full attention. This unspoken kindness became even more meaningful seconds later after the “Beep!” when a very familiar voice could be heard leaving a message.

“That’s Bill Walton!” I said, excitedly. “You’d better answer it!”

Coach Wooden did not reach for the phone and instead told me with a devilish smile: “Heavens no! Bill calls me all the time. If I pick up he’ll talk my ear off for half an hour and then you and I won’t get to visit. I’ll talk with him later.”

I’m glad I did not have a visitor when Kurt phoned the other day while making friendship a fine art.

 *   *   *

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” …

Ticking Off a List of Complaints

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Ticking Off List

of Complaints

“You know what really ticks me off?” Grandpa Earl says to his friend Clyde as they sit on a park bench in the comic strip Pickles. “Old people who sit around and complain about things.”

“But you’re an old person, and you sit around and complain about things,” replies Clyde in the second panel.

“I know,” concludes Earl. “And that really ticks me off.”

Well, if I were sitting on a park bench with Grandpa Earl – at opposite ends with both of us wearing masks, of course – here are some of the things I’d complain about . . .

People not wearing masks who don’t respect the six-foot social distancing cushion.

When someone rushes ahead of me in the grocery line and then stalls at the register while waiting for their child or spouse to arrive with an armload of items.

Self-checkouts because then I’m the one holding everyone else up with my befuddlement.

Speaking of lines, I’m forever grumpy at drivers in the front at a stoplight who need a wake-up honk when it turns from red to green.

Also, drivers who straddle halfway in a turn lane instead of scooting all the way over.

And pokey freeway drivers who clog up the left lane so a string of cars has to pass them on the right.

Speaking of speed, when a mom or dad runner pushing a baby stroller passes me. Such show-offy-ness just seems uncalled for.

When bad things happen to good people really ticks me off.

When I forget to take the trash out to the curb the night before pickup and then hear the garbage truck the next morning without enough warning to get my barrels out in time.

Forgetting passwords has me muttering quite often.

Facebook posts that confuse “they’re” and “their” and “there” as well as “your and “you’re.”

But it ticks me off even more that I never know whether to use “whoever” or “whomever.” Oh well, whatever.

When someone’s mask droops down below their nose. Nobody asked me, but in these situations I suggest we all adopt the phrase “Your fly is down” – even for women.

Heck, I’ll even accept, “You’re fly is down.”

Basketball telecasts that insist on showing a close-up of whoever (whomever?) just made a shot and meanwhile we miss the fastbreak going back the other way.

I don’t like Lakers’ home jerseys that are now brighter than a yellow highlight marker.

Long before last Tuesday’s unPresidential Debate Debasement, I have been complaining about political debates not having kill switches on the mics to prevent Thanksgiving dinner-like free-for-alls.

When emails that I want wind up going into spam and robocalls that are harder to keep blocked than ants materializing in a kitchen.

When I have a discount code for an online purchase and then forget to type it in before hitting the “Complete Purchase” button.

I have been complaining like an old-school curmudgeon for months about Major League Baseball’s experimental rule this coronavirus-shorten season of putting a runner on second base at the start of each extra inning’s at-bats.

But it really pains me, Mr. Traditionalist who still grinds his teeth at the Designated Hitter, that I actually find myself liking the bonus runner rule and the different strategies – Play for one run? Go for a big inning? – it creates.

So now I’m complaining that the extra-runner rule is not being used in the playoffs!

I thought of a couple more really good things to include in this column, but forgot what they were. Like Grandpa Earl, sometimes I really tick myself off.

 *   *   *

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” …

 

Pandemic Can’t Derail Paris Trip

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Pandemic Fails To

Derail Paris Trip

Gloria, my dear friend affectionately called “Mama G” by loved ones, dreamed of celebrating her 70th birthday in Paris with her daughters. Plane tickets had been bought, hotel rooms reserved.

The coronavirus pandemic had other ideas.

Mama G’s four fabulous daughters had other ideas as well and made the Parisian celebration a reality – with an asterisk.

The asterisk: if they could not take their mom to Paris, they would bring Paris to her.

And so it was on her milestone birthday last weekend that Mama G, wearing a dazzling evening gown and stylish hat, enjoyed dinner al fresco at a bistro with lace tablecloths and candlelight, fine wine and gourmet food, and a view of the Eiffel Tower.*

Parisian “bistro” with a view of the Eiffel Towel in Southern California.

Asterisk: a poster of the iconic landmark and an elegantly decorated table were set up on Mama G’s backyard patio. Stephanie, Beverly, Jennifer and Jessica – the Fab Four – filled the seats along with one spouse and two fiancés, all safely quarantined beforehand.

Before dinner, Mama G spent the day sightseeing. Indeed, there are pictures of her in front of the Eiffel Tower and Cathédrale Notre-Dame; at the Arc de Triomphe and the Palace of Versailles; visiting the Louvre and more.*

Asterisk: the pictures were Photoshopped surprises.

The photographs taken at dinner, however, needed no Photoshopping to add in smiles as wide as the River Seine. Still, a faux Parisian party could not fully measure up to the real thing.

Again, the Fab Four had other ideas. The actual trip to The City of Light would have been a small private affair, but for the amended celebration they invited friends and loved ones from across the country, and beyond, to come along.*

Asterisk: thanks to Zoom, more than 60 people attended the birthday party in “Paris.” Scrolling through numerous computer screens was required to see every attendee.

In an actual bistro, it would have been too crowded to clearly hear the toasts given. But on Zoom, everyone in attendance simply took turns sharing their love to Mama G. It was wonderful. No, better than that: Gloria-ous.

The toasts and memories and stories came from people who have known Mama G for more than 50 years, those who entered her life five years ago, and even more recently.

One of the wonderful sentiments came from Deb, who tearfully offered in part: “Happy birthday to Mama G! To my second mother, I wish you another happy and healthy 70 years. You have raised four amazing, brilliant, beautiful women and took me in as your own. I am forever grateful to have you as me second mama.”

As you can imagine, like the champagne in the “bistro,” Mama G’s tears flowed freely. Dabbing her eyes near party’s end, she said: “It was fabulous walking down memory lane and celebrating in ‘Paris’ ”.

Speaking of tears, a second dear friend of mine also celebrated her 70th birthday in the past month’s span. Again, the pandemic led to a different kind of festivity than originally hoped for.

Instead of a large party, Barbara, affectionately known as “Mama Mac,” had a virtual gathering that featured 70 toasts – one for each candle on her cake – from 70 different family members and friends.*

Asterisk: this was not a Zoom party, but instead the toasts – intimate notes and short letters sharing why each person loves Mama Mac – were collected and published in a keepsake book. She cried. It was wonderful.

All the same, I hope 71 is the new 70 and Mama G can fly to Paris and Mama Mac has a big birthday bash in 2021.

 *   *   *

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” …

Every Town Has Own “Moonlight”

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Every Town Has Its

Own “Moonlight”

As long as “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and the other ballplayers in the movie “Field of Dreams” stay on the magical baseball diamond in an Iowa cornfield, they remain forever young.

We learn this when young outfielder “Moonlight” Graham steps across the first-base foul line and becomes his elderly self as Dr. Archibald Graham, giving up immortality in order to save Ray Kinsella’s young daughter from choking.

In response to my column last week, reader Lindsay Nielson shared a humorous anecdote about feeling like he had crossed the foul line in the opposite direction during his annual physical with Dr. Geoff Loman.

“I told him, ‘Doc, I think I am immortal,’ ” Nielson wrote in an email. “ ‘Really? Why is that?’ came his response.

Dr. Archibald “Moonlight” Graham played by Burt Lancaster in “Field of Dreams.”

“I rattled off all the things I had been through – two heart attacks; a fall that resulted in three screws to hold my hip together and a titanium bar in my femur; a few stent implants; back surgery that resulted in eight screws in my spine; and my second home in Palm Springs had burned to the ground, etc.

“Dr. Loman said, ‘Wow, Lindsay, that is something. But, I went to a pretty good medical school and it is my opinion that you probably aren’t immortal.’ ”

As the mortal Dr. Graham, Burt Lancaster’s character sagely says of his disappointing one-game career in the Big Leagues without an at-bat: “If I’d only gotten to be a doctor for five minutes – now that would have been a tragedy.”

Rick Throckmorton feels it would have been a tragedy had his own family doctor not had a long medical career, writing: “Your column brought back old memories of Dr. Albert Crites, who founded the Port Hueneme Belinda Hospital, later Adventist Hospital. I don’t know if he was a poet or not, but I remember him as surely being an angel or saint in disguise on earth.

“Dr. Crites treated my grandmother, who was a sad hypochondriac, and who visited him almost daily with her alleged aches and pains. Once, I accompanied her while I was on a leave from the Army. I remember him saying, ‘Bessie, now you know there’s nothing wrong with you, but I have something that might help. It’s a wonder medicine.’ He would give her a vial of what I later learned were plain sugar pills, but Grandmom was always better after taking them!

“Dr. Crites once fixed my broken finger (before splinting it) by pulling it straight after telling me, ‘Ricky, this is gonna hurt a little!’ I was in the seventh grade and a fly ball had hit squarely on top of my ring finger and broke it to 90 degrees. It hurt like heck, but Dr Crites’ soothing words calmed the tears.

“Some years later, I was involved in a serious accident while in Hueneme High School and the ambulance took me to Adventist Hospital. I had not seen Dr. Crites since the broken-finger incident and there he was. He said again, ‘Ricky, looks like this is gonna to hurt a little’ as he treated my severe burns.

“Dr. Crites took care of my mom, too, as she had to have full hysterectomy; and my WWII veteran dad’s bad heart; and I was there with Dr. Crites when dad passed away early from a massive heart attack.

“In the movie ‘Field of Dreams’, James Earl Jones’ character Terence Mann says, ‘Every town has a Doctor Graham,’ ” Throckmorton concluded. “And every town has, or should have, a Doctor Crites.”

If not, now that would be a tragedy.

 *   *   *

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” …

Local Doc Lays Down Stethoscope

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Longtime Doc Lays

Down His Stethoscope

In 1922, when my grandfather began his career as a country doctor, newfangled X-ray machines were found only in large hospitals. Ultrasound, CAT and MRI scans, meanwhile, would remain the stuff of science fiction for another half-century.

All the same, Dr. Ansel Woodburn had access to a state-of-the-art medical technology that could “see” inside the human body: his magical index and middle fingers and thumb. With the delicate touch of a safecracker, or sometimes employing less-than-gentle prodding, he could determine everything from broken bones to a breech fetus.

Under the headline “Fond Memories of Doc Prevail” in The Urbana (Ohio) Daily Citizen many years ago, Marilyn Johnson recalled being treated by my grandfather: “When I was small, I was always breaking a bone. Dr. Ansel Woodburn would first of all use his trusty (and hated) thumb to locate the fracture. He would then set the bone and cast it.”

She specifically recalled one fracture – and treatment: “After he casted my arm, he asked how my favorite doll was doing. Before I could say ‘Jack Robinson,’ he had fashioned a doll cradle with Plaster of Paris and wires on which to rock.”

Another memory was when her father had a finger nearly torn off in a farming accident.

“Dad wrapped it quickly in his handkerchief,” she wrote. “We had about seven miles to go and even though I didn’t have a driver’s permit, I drove. Dr. Woodburn sewed the finger back on because he thought the tip was getting blood – the finger did at last turn pink and became useful – and then sent us home with the admonition that if I got stopped by a policeman, ‘Send him to me!’

“Dr. Woodburn,” Marilyn Johnson concluded in print, in thanks, and in memoriam two decades after his death, “I reckon I’ll have to say you were A-OK – except for that mean thumb!”

Dr. Geoff Loman, my family’s “Dr. Ansel”…

I bring up these recollections because a half-century after Ansel made his final house call, another “A-OK” family doctor who could diagnose broken bones and more with his fingers and mean thumb retired earlier this week.

I saw Dr. Geoff Loman do exactly that for a leg fracture when my son was three and similarly for a broken wrist when my daughter was seven. The ensuing X-rays were simply formalities before he set the their breaks in fiberglass casts.

Over the years, from cradle to college and beyond, he also sutured their cuts and healed their illnesses. Indeed, for more than 30 years he was my family’s Dr. Ansel and I can offer no higher compliment.

My further prevailing fond memories of Doc Loman are of him always coming into the examining room smiling like he just heard a terrific joke; his soft baritone voice warm as an analgesic balm; his bedside manner as reassuring as a doll cradle crafted from Plaster of Paris for a tearful little girl.

In honor of Dr. Loman’s four decades as a family practitioner in the Ventura community, it seems fitting to share an original poem my grandfather penned inside his copy of “Modern Surgery” and dated Oct. 1, 1919:

“The worker dies, but the work lives on / Whether a picture, a book, or a clock

“Ticking the minutes of life away / For another worker in metal or rock

“My work is with children and women and men – Not iron, not brass, not wood

“And I hope when I lay my stethoscope down / That my Chief will call it good”

Dr. Loman has retired his stethoscope, but without question his Chief will call his work good.

 *   *   *

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” …

Bryan Bros: Kings of the Castle

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Kings of the Castle

Bryan Bros Bid Goodbye

“Don’t tell me about your dreams of a castle,” Wayne Bryan likes to say, “show me the stones you laid today.”

When Wayne’s identical twin sons, Mike and Bob, were eight years old they taped an image of their dream castle on the Camarillo family’s refrigerator door: To become the No. 1-ranked doubles team in the tennis world.

They then laid the stones, day after week, month after year after decade, until completing a castle that surpassed their wildest dreams. Indeed, when Mike and Bob retired last week at age 42 their career looked like Camelot.

Together, Mike and Bob have singularly been Mikeandbob – a two-headed monster with four arms and four legs, standing 12 feet, 7 inches tall and weighing 370 pounds. Even Hercules could not slay Bobandmike on a tennis court.

Their final stat line as a pro tandem: 16 Grand Slam doubles championships and 119 overall titles, both all-time records by a mile, plus an Olympic gold and bronze medal for good measure. As for their refrigerator goal, they were ranked No. 1 in the world for 438 weeks during 22 years on the ATP Tour.

Mikeandbob also authored one of the greatest goodbye statements in sports history, rivaling Lou Gehrig’s famous “Luckiest Man” speech in my eyes. It reads like an award-winning children’s book yet is inspiring for adults too:

“Many years ago, two brothers left home and embarked on a journey up a tall mountain. With knowledge from their parents and fueled by boundless passion, they moved up the mountain together, their eyes fixated on a peak they could see on the distant horizon.

“They lifted each other over boulders, pulled each other up steep cliffs, and kept each other warm when storms battered the mountain. If one boy became weary, the other pushed harder and when one boy had doubts, the other fearlessly pressed on. They often slipped and were bruised but loved their fight against the stubborn mountain.

“After years of climbing, the boys finally reached the top. The view was beautiful but not what they expected. They saw a vast landscape filled with endless ranges of even taller peaks. Without looking back, they continued on.

“The trail eventually disappeared but the boys kept going, clearing their own path and exploring undiscovered lands they never knew existed. No matter the direction, they stayed together, for they knew their journey was impossible alone.

“And when their bodies could carry them no further, they turned around and gazed upon the world they had travelled. They looked at each other, smiled proudly, and headed home shoulder to shoulder, with a newfound peace and a bond stronger than ever.”

Along their journey, Mikeandbob have behaved like knights in shining armor. For example, they gave one of their rackets to a 10-year-old boy in Japan who was fighting cancer. More than that, they stayed in touch. When they later learned he was on his deathbed, they rushed a final package to him.

A small thing? The young fan passed away wearing a gift match-worn shirt autographed by his two heroes.

One more example of thousands: For a young girl fan who was in the hospital after attempting suicide, Bobandmike sent a video message complete with a musical performance – Bob on keyboard, Mike on drums – of an original song they wrote specifically for her.

Around the time the young Bryan Brothers posted their castle dream on the refrigerator, their mom Kathy told them: “It’s far more important who you are as person than who you are as an athlete.”

Remarkably, Mikeandbob climbed this Mount Everest, too.

 *   *   *

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” …

 

Friend’s Picture Worth 1,000 Smiles

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Friend’s Picture is

Worth 1,000 smiles

In the late 1960s, World Tennis Magazine held a contest offering $100 to any of its readers who sent in a photograph of Ken Rosewall where his knees were not bent in textbook form while hitting a low ball.

The magazine might as well have offered prize money for a picture of a man walking on the moon. Neil Armstrong eventually made such a photo a reality in 1969, but it seems no image of the great Australian stiff-leggedly striking a tennis ball was ever snapped.

I bring this up because a similar contest could be held offering $100 (safe from risk of payment) for a smileless photograph of my friend Mikey, who lived four rooms down the dorm hallway our freshman year in college.

Every oddly tinted Kodachrome picture of Mikey from those days shows him wearing a smile that looks like it is his 21st birthday. Nothing has changed in the ensuing four decades. His ever-present joyous grin, now captured digitally, remains as wide as a tennis court.

I wish you could see Mikey’s smile, most especially when he is with one of his grandkids – you almost need to wear sunglasses to protect your eyes from the glint.

I dare say it is possible to hear Mikey’s smile in a conversation over the phone. Earlier this week, I could even sense his smile in a text. This was truly remarkable because he texted me from the Emergency Room…

…where he was a patient…

…with COVOID-19.

Mikey was admitted to the E.R. with a high fever, coughing, aches that felt like he had been hit by a bus, confusion and low blood pressure. On top of all that, he is high-risk with only one kidney.

Despite being in the vortex of a frightening health storm, Mikey wanted to share some sunshine with me. His words from the E.R. read in part: “Everyone that picked up a meal was soooo appreciative, saying thanks for looking out for our community. Many other restaurants are also giving away meals. … People care.”

Mikey cares in spades. Despite nervously waiting for his coronavirus test result to come back, he was focused on those who had to evacuate their homes due to the 600-plus wildfires raging throughout Northern California.

Specifically, he was worried about fellow citizens in the Bay Area where he lives and the Napa Valley where he owns a restaurant. Hence, his Osprey Seafood gave free meals to anyone who was displaced by the fires. It also donated many pounds of shrimp salad to the local Salvation Army.

Typically, Mikey humbly credited his manager and staff for embracing the effort to extend helping hands: “This is just what we do for each other in Napa. Through earthquakes, fires and flooding, Napa rises for each other.”

His words of commendation naturally reminded me of how Ventura County’s residents similarly rose up for each other during, and after, the Thomas Fire.

Like Mikey’s smile, the recent unselfishness displayed by Osprey Seafood and staff is their normal. For many years, they have donated to firefighters during firestorms.

“I am most proud of our community for coming together time and again,” Mikey added and again I proudly thought of our local community.

Thinking of Mikey, or looking at a smiling photo of him – with long, ginger curls of the past or shorter, graying hair now – I find it impossible not to break into a grin myself. He’s the Typhoid Mary of smiles by making them contagious.

So you can imagine my beaming face upon learning my dear friend is back home recuperating.

 *   *   *

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 Mail Carrier, Mule, and Gum

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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The Mail Carrier,

the Mule, and Gum

“Did you get the letter I mailed you?” Dan, my best friend throughout elementary school, would ask unsuspecting victims.

“No,” came the reply.

Dan then stamped on their foot, laughing: “I must have forgotten to stamp it!”

I bring up this juvenile joke because of a letter I received earlier this week. Actually, it was a letter I mailed last week and was now marked “Returned to Sender” for lack of postage. I absentmindedly forgot to stamp it!

While I did not stamp on my own foot, I did laugh as heartily as Dan ever did.

A postal wagon similar to the one “Unc” used…

The U.S. Postal Service has been in the news of late, but not for merry reasons. Which is too bad because when I think of the mail it gives me a smile as I am reminded of my great uncle, Dewitt, whom we called simply “Unc.”

Born in rural Ohio in 1889, Unc began working for the Postal Service at age twenty and continued until age 65. He then enjoyed 31 years of retirement filled largely with fishing and gardening.

A quick gardening story before returning to the mail. While my great-grandfather developed a state award-winning strain of feed corn, Unc earned a smaller measure of local fame for his green thumb.

It happened like this. Instead of using wooden stakes for his garden beans to climb, Unc planted a single sunflower seed inside each circle of planted bean seeds. In theory, he reasoned, the beans would be able to climb the rising sunflower stalk.

In practice, the beans withered and died because the sunflowers hogged the water and fertilizer. Not all was lost, however, for Unc was thereafter renowned for growing “the tallest crop of sunflowers in town.”

Back to the mail. Unc began his postal career working on a train. His duties included tossing heavy canvas mailbags filled with letters and packages for delivery off the moving train at each town.

In his next breath, while still rolling along, he would reach out the window with a hook-ended pole and snatch mailbags containing outgoing mail hanging on posts beside the railroad tracks at each depot.

In time, Unc moved up to having his own carrier route covering some forty miles with about 80 delivery stops. Early on his mail wagon, which had a small stove inside to provide warmth during days of sleet and snow, was pulled by a single mule.

Because his workday began long before morning’s first light with mail sorting, Unc had a habit of dozing off after making the final delivery of the day. Falling asleep at the wheel – rather, reins – proved to be of no danger, however. The mule was so familiar with the mail route it simply delivered Unc home without guidance.

Refreshed from his nap, Unc was free to enjoy the remaining late afternoon – usually fishing. Which brings to mind one more story…

My two older brothers and I – ages nine, seven and four at the time – were fishing with Unc. It was a hot summer day and we asked for a root beer treat.

“Chew some gum, that’ll take your thirst away,” said Unc, who had not brought along sodas.

Nor had we boys brought along any bubblegum.

“Here, chew this,” Unc offered, handing my brothers a piece each while I had fortunately wandered off chasing frogs.

“GAHHH! YUCK! PHEWWW!”

My green-faced siblings spit out their words as well as the foul-tasting “gum” which was actually tiny plugs of chewing tobacco.

“They didn’t complain no more about being thirsty,” Unc laughed to my dad when he delivered us home.

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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” …

 

Potpourri of Quotes, Memes, Photos

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Potpourri of Quotes,

Memes and Photos

Let me begin with an award-winning photograph I came across. I wish you could see it. While 1,000 words would not do it justice, I shall try with about 100.

A majestic elephant, long in tusk, is walking alongside a skinny lioness on a sandy patch in the Savannah. The sky is blue and cloudless, visually radiating scorching temperatures.

But one must look closely to see what makes the photo so special: cradled in elephant’s curved trunk is a tiny lion cub. According to the caption, the cub was overcome by heat and having great difficulty walking. The elephant, realizing the cub would die without assistance, carried it to a watering hole.

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The elephant and lioness remind me of this observation by John Steinbeck: “When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you’ve got two new people.”

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From my mentor Wayne Bryan: “If you can give nothing else, give encouragement.”

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A meme with a runner slogging through a snowstorm encourages: “If you wait for perfect conditions, you’ll never get anything done.”

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Similarly, and more beautifully, a meme with a painting of a woman tending a bed of flowers bears this Rudyard Kipling quote: “Gardens are not made by singing, ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.”

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“Never give up on a dream just because of the length of time it will take to accomplish it,” advised H. Jackson Brown. “The time will pass anyway.”

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Echoing time’s theme, I love this answer legendary cellist Pablo Casals gave when asked, at age 90, why he continued to practice: “Because I think I’m making progress.”

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Again from Mr. Brown: “Remember that the most valuable antiques are dear old friends.”

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This unattributed friendship meme made me smile: “What’s your favorite place?”

“I don’t have a favorite place. I have my favorite people. And, whenever I’m with my favorite people, it becomes my favorite place.”

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Similarly, Winnie the Pooh shares with Piglet: “Any day spent with you is my favorite day. So today is my new favorite day.”

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“This is a wonderful day,” Maya Angelou said. “I have never seen this one before.”

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From “butterfly rising”, who like e. e. cummings writes in all lowercase letters, comes this gem: “if i do one thing today / may i be human sunshine / for someone”.

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Speaking of human sunshine, my dear friend Connie “Mrs. Figs” Halpern likes to say, “Where there is love, nothing is too much trouble and there is always time.”

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Anonymous wisdom in a sunflower meme: “You will never speak to anyone more than you speak to yourself in your head, so be kind to yourself.”

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On the topic of kindness, I came across this short but powerful vignette without attribution:

“I heard my mother asking our neighbor for some salt. I asked her why she was asking them as we have salt at home. She replied, ‘It’s because they are always asking us for things – they’re poor. So, I thought I’d ask something small from them so as not to burden them, but at the same time make them feel as if we need them, too. That way it’ll be easier for them to ask us for anything they need from us.”

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Or, as Rumi poetically preached: “Be the one who, when you walk in, / Blessing shifts to the one who needs it most. / Even if you’ve not been fed, Be bread.”

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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” …