A Farewell To A True Inspiration

May 1, 2021 by Woody

Louie Zamperini, the American Olympic distance runner and indomitable POW during World War II, is without question one the most courageous and inspiring people I met during my three decades as a sports columnist.

Alvin James Matthews is undeniably another. “Unbroken” is Laura Hillenbrand’s bestselling biography about Zamperini and that title equally described Alvin, who passed away in his sleep at age 50 on April 17.

Alvin was not famous, but his fortitude was measureless. The Ventura native ran two-dozen marathons around the globe in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica and the North Pole, which had a race-day temperature of minus-27 degrees Fahrenheit that made even the polar bears shiver.

Alvin Matthews after finishing the 2016 Los Angeles Marathon.

But the most amazing race by the 1989 Buena High graduate was reaching the finish line of the far-warmer 2016 Los Angeles Marathon because he did so powered by his arms rather than his legs.

Two years earlier, Alvin slipped off the rooftop of his apartment and fell three stories. He landed on concrete, on his neck, suffering a “catastrophic spinal-cord injury at levels C5 to C7.” Translation: quadriplegia. Doctors called his survival “a miracle.”

But Alvin did more than survive – he thrived. Through numerous operations and endless physical therapy, he regained movement in both shoulders, arms and hands, albeit limited.

His tenacity, however, was limitless. “Pedaling” a recumbent three-wheeled racing handcycle Alvin navigated the L.A. Marathon escorted by two friends, Mike Pedersen and Brian Dao, running by his side.

“Before the race I was worried, ‘Can I do this?’ and I didn’t want to let myself down,” Alvin admitted to me afterward. “But as the race went on, I knew I couldn’t let down all these people who were supporting me.”

While the cheering from friends and strangers alike warmed his heart, Alvin’s body temperature was at constant risk of overheating because paralysis robbed his ability to sweat. Out of necessity, Mike and Brian doused him with water every mile until Mile 23 when a steady downhill to the finish line allowed the entrant in bib No. 307 to pull away from his two-man entourage.

Magically, wonderfully, unexpectedly, Alvin soon gained two new speedy escorts when his boyhood friends Chris Pryor and Roge Mueller sneaked onto the course pedaling beach cruisers. Together, the trio shared a joyride the final two miles and crossed the finish line as the race clock ticked 5 hours, 34 minutes.

In a photograph with the shiny finisher’s medal draped proudly around his neck, a neck once shattered and the reason he was laying supine in an aerodynamic handcycle, Alvin’s smile is golden and beatific. It is the jubilant smile of a boy in a Matterhorn sled at Disneyland for the first time. A smile of triumph, not tragedy.

“My accident has brought me closer to my mom and my brother,” Alvin shared then. “It has given me new friends. There is so much bad stuff in the world, but I’ve found there is also so much good. So many people have come out of the woodwork to help me, even strangers and anonymous angels. They have all helped me realize I still have a great life.”

Shortly before his great life far too soon ended, Alvin and I talked about getting together after our vaccinations for a Happy Hour for the first time since the pandemic began. Instead, I toasted his memory alone on a cheerless day.

And yet here is an amazing thing about Alvin: I could not help but smile thinking about his ever-present smile – and imagining him now running on healthy legs again.

* * *

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

A Few Of My COVID-19 Butterflies

April 24, 2021April 24, 2021 by Woody

I am guessing that at one time or another, perhaps in a grade-school class or maybe on your own on the windowsill of your childhood kitchen, you placed a caterpillar inside a big jar along with a twig for it to climb on and some leaves or milkweed to eat, and then waited for the magic to happen.

One day, unless you forgot to poke air holes in the jar lid, the caterpillar spun a silky cocoon. Then, inside this protective casing, it wondrously transformed into a chrysalis before emerging as a beautiful butterfly.

It seems to me we have all been like caterpillars this past year, forced inside our stay-and-shelter cocoons. Now, thanks to the scientific magic of vaccines, it is becoming time to safely emerge.

The question is, do we have new wings or are we unchanged caterpillars?

Early on during the coronavirus pandemic, I shared a quote from my hero, John Wooden – “Things turn out best for those who make the best of the way things out” – and suggested this piece of wisdom seemed especially pertinent during these trying days and nights.

Fully a year later, I am curious if – and if so, how? – you have made things turn out for the best? Perhaps you became an expert baker or learned a new language or took up painting? Here are a few of my COVID-19 butterflies…

Visiting with loved ones and friends, while wearing facemasks and keeping a safe social distance, has made me appreciate hugs like never before.

Having a long-planned and greatly anticipated anniversary vacation to Italy cancelled gave me a greater appreciation for travelling than the trip itself could have. When we finally leave home for Rome, I believe my wife and I will savor it tenfold.

Although not quite a phobia, I truly do not like going to the grocery store and so discovering home delivery apps has been a godsend and something I will continue to use.

Despite taking no vacations during the pandemic, I did “travel” to The Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Conn., via an online virtual guided tour. Similarly, I re-“visited” The Edgar Allen Poe House and Museum in Baltimore and The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West for special presentations by expert storytellers. These “trips” required no air flights or hotels and were either free or nearly so and I plan to continue searching them out moving forward.

Similarly, I “attended” more than two dozen book talks given around the globe by award-winning authors – including George Saunders, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Anne Lamott and Nikole Hannah Jones – and even asked questions during the Q & A, while sitting on my couch!

I learned that my wife can put up with me 24/7 even after 38 years of marriage.

We have gotten into the habit of visiting with our daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter, and our son and his fiancé, almost daily via Zoom chats.

With Date Nights with my much-better half and Happy Hours with friends and most other social gatherings basically cancelled, it has been like having more hours in the day and even extra days in a month. Thus, things turned out for the best for me with more books read than my usual 52 annual goal – and also in writing a novel manuscript.

Returning to Coach Wooden, as I often do, I believe as the tragic tally of COVID-19 deaths has grown from heartbreaking to mind-numbing and beyond, the pandemic has made my favorite butterfly-beautiful Wooden-ism resonate more powerfully than ever: “Make each day your masterpiece.”

* * *

Gold Coast Inspired Earth Day

April 17, 2021 by Woody

My friend Derek doesn’t walk on water, of course, but he can paddle on it while standing up. And when he’s out and about on his paddleboard he does a miraculous thing: he turns ocean water that is polluted enough to whine about a little cleaner.

The 51st annual Earth Day is Thursday and this year’s theme is “Restore the Earth.” This, it seems to me, is exactly what Derek does in his own small way. He helps restore our harbor waters, and beyond, by plucking out small piles of soggy trash – from common plastic grocery bags, coffee cups and fast-food wrappers to random items like lost life jackets, lengths of rope and most anything else that will float.

In truth, I know quite a few paddlers and surfers and beachgoers who make a goal of picking up three pieces of litter each time they go to the beach. I bet you know such a person and may even be one yourself.

A recent haul of soggy trash by Derek…

In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy was said to be so beautiful her abduction caused the Trojan War and inspired the sobriquet “The Face That Launched A Thousand Ships.” Well, Ventura County’s Gold Coast is so beautiful as to have helped launch the modern environmental movement by inspiring the first “Earth Day” on April 22, 1970.

This is true. Of all the breathtaking landscapes and pristine beaches on Earth, our very own scenic coastline is the Helen of Troy of beauties. When she was abducted, so to speak, by a monumental oil spill a national call to arms rang out.

While Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking 1962 bestseller “Silent Spring” raised public awareness about environmentalism, it was the devastation caused by a blowout of Union Oil’s Platform A in the Santa Barbara Channel on Jan. 28, 1969 that pushed U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin to create Earth Day.

In his book, “The Beach Colony Called Land & Sky: A History of Solimar Beach,” the late William Hart, a local pioneering cardiologist-turned-historical-author, wrote: “In January 1969, one of the worst of many oil spills to afflict our planet took place when a Union Oil drilling platform leaked about 21,000 gallons of raw crude oil per day.

“The oil slick eventually covered about a 200-square-mile area extending from the Standard Oil pier at Carpinteria to Pitas Point. The riprap, sea wall and ocean-facing decks at Solimar were soiled with tar and oil. Many shore birds and other sea life were killed. In truth, there has been seepage of oil and tar in this area at least since the Chumash inhabited the Rincon, but this was an exceptionally large spill.”

Exceptional, indeed, with an estimated final tally of 3 million gallons. At the time it was the largest oil spill in United States waters and five decades later still ranks No. 6, more than five times larger than the seventh-worst disaster.

Capitalizing on intense national media coverage and public outcry, Sen. Nelson 15 months later founded Earth Day with 20 million Americans taking part in coast-to-coast rallies that proved instrumental in creating the Environmental Protection Agency as well as passage of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act.

“Restore the Earth” can seem impossibly overwhelming, but I think Derek is onto something important: he celebrates each day as Earth Day by focusing on restoring his own little piece of paradise.

Alone, Derek – or you or me – can’t clean up mankind’s entire Colony of Land and Sea, but as Mother Teresa wisely noted: “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”

* * *

TLC From Gardening Readers

April 10, 2021 by Woody

Like an abundance of zucchini from a single plant, last week’s column about my lack of a green thumb resulted in a bushel of TLC – Tender Loving Comments – from gardener readers.

One reply was actually from a Gardner, first name Rick, who wrote: “I am inept with plants despite my last name. I had to marry a woman with a green thumb to salvage my family credentials.”

I believe that’s called “marrying up,” Rick. Alas, my much-better half is no better at making a campfire than myself so my Woodburn-ing family credentials remain unsalvageable.

More seriously, Marcella Klein Williams replied by sharing the wisdom of a philosopher: “I think we all grow a little straighter when somebody reads or sings to us.”

Truth be told, Marcella has made a career out of helping young people grow a little straighter – and taller and more confident – as an elementary school teacher, principal, administrator and now STEM Director at Oxnard College.

“I have a green thumb,” Lauren Siegel wrote proudly while making no such claims about her singing voice. “I confess I have never read to my plants. Now I’ll be singing to them and they will probably start to droop, lol!”

I am reminded of the grade-school experience of my elder brother who, week after week, was released from music class early. He proudly said it was because he sang so well, but the truth turned out to be he simply sang so awfully loud – and loudly awful – that he could have made a plant droop and was distracting the rest of the chorus.

Dorene Cowart was one of numerous readers who commented on my column about the famous Victory over Japan Day photograph of the sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square: “I was at Grace Hospital School of Nursing when that photograph appeared in the paper. Needless to say, we were ecstatic.

“There’s a song from WWII, ‘When the Lights Go On Again (All Over the World).’ Now I go around singing, ‘When the Masks Come Off (All Over the World).’ Soon, soon, soon, we’ll be back to normal.”

So, Dorene, which of the two songs do you think your plants prefer? Asking for a fern.

Alex Jannone also shared a V-J Day memory: “Your column made it seem like it was my yesterday, being eight years old at the time. I was born in Bay Ridge, but raised in St. Albans. Over the years, I saw many casualties coming and going at the St. Albans Navel Hospital.

“That V-J Day weekend, there were very large family-oriented parades everywhere in New York and Long Island. My mom gave me two pot covers and my older sister joined us. Somehow, we got separated. I’m lost. All the streets looked the same. I’m crying like a baby. Strange people held on to me until somebody knew me and took me home. I lost my pot covers, but there was my mother and sister crying on the front stoop.”

Alex added a postscript to my earlier column reminiscing about paperboys that also mentioned how these days my newspaper often winds up under my car, dead-center and out of reach, as if the adult delivery person is playing a prank on me.

“What is this, contagious?” Alex asked. “For 45 years, I never, never got the paper stuck under and inside my front truck tire. A few days after your column, I had to get on my knees, in my pajamas.”

In other words, Alex, you were dressed for a work meeting on Zoom?

* * *

Can A Poison Thumb Turn Green?

April 3, 2021April 3, 2021 by Woody

In college, for a girl I had a crush on, I agreed to care for her cat and a houseplant over winter break. The CliffsNotes plot summary: I overwatered the plant, overfed the feline, and overestimated the girl’s feelings for our relationship.

Of the three, only the fat cat survived.

For a different girl I met in college, years later I planted a dwarf orange tree as a gift for her 15th wedding anniversary. I did everything the gardening expert at the nursery advised: from choosing an ideal location with optimal sunshine, to digging a hole of the prescribed circumference and depth, to using the right soil mixture and watering amply but with care.

Alas, for our 16th anniversary I did not give my wife a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice in bed because the tree had already died. Fortunately, our wedded family tree is still thriving after 38 years.

Some people – such as my great-grandfather, who developed his own registered “Woodburn Golden Dent” corn variety that won countless state gold medals and was popular well beyond the borders of his native Ohio – have green thumbs.

My thumb, on the other hand (on both hands, in fact) is funeral black. To trees, plants, lawns, roses and even full gardens, I am a human Dust Bowl. And so it was with great trepidation that I agreed to care for my son and his lovely fiancé’s small potted succulent named Spikey.

While my wife has developed a light-green thumb to compensate for my inabilities, I wanted to make amends for the departed orange tree and thus assumed the care of Spikey. How is it going, you might wonder?

Believe it or not, my future daughter-in-law tells me Spikey is thriving like never before! Further truth be told, I must share credit with a dear friend of mine. “Sus,” who has a bright emerald thumb, shared with me a few of her secrets.

First off, she told me I must occasionally take Spikey outside for “recess” in the fresh air. This sounded both reasonable and doable.

Secondly, less reasonable and much less doable, she advised me to sing to Spikey. Sus leans towards church hymns for her houseplants and specifically noted that her bonsai tree, “Little Harmony,” is partial to “I Come To The Garden Alone.”

Understand, Sus sings in a choir and has a voice so enchanted it could turn weeds into roses. My voice, I fear, would do the opposite. Thus, Sus agreed I could instead play radio music for Spikey under one condition – that I must at least read to him.

“You’re joking, right?” I said.

It turns out Spikey seems to enjoy hearing “The Runaway Bunny” and “Goodnight Moon” from my lips nearly as much as does my two-year-old granddaughter. When I confessed to Sus that I felt silly reading children’s books to a plant, however, she suggested trying a novel.

“You’re kidding, right?”

I think Spikey’s vocabulary is growing almost as steadily as he is.

It seems I have become a plant whisperer of sorts. As such, I have now been temporarily entrusted with six of Spikey’s relatives: Lundy, short for London, who needs to avoid direct sunlight and Lexa, who likes a little sunshine; Phillip and Mariposa, who each must have their support stakes routinely checked for straightness; and Verny and Junior, who should both be watered sparsely.

As for books, I was thinking they might all enjoy if I read aloud “Where The Red Fern Grows” – but certainly not “The Giving Tree” for it would surely give them nightmares.

* * *

Imagining a COVID Victory Day

March 27, 2021 by Woody

It remains one of the most iconic American photographs of the 20th century, of World War II specifically, a single image telling a thousand joyous words.

The black-and-white picture, taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt and published in Life magazine, was snapped in New York City’s Times Square on August 14, 1945 – “V-J Day” – after the news came of Japan’s surrender that effectively ended the war.

Close your eyes and, especially if you are old enough to be on the current COVID-19 vaccination age eligibility list, I bet you can see it in your mind’s eye right now:

In the middle of the crowded street that looks like a New Year’s Eve celebration albeit in daylight, a sailor in a dark uniform and white cap kisses a woman wearing a white dress, white stockings and mid-heeled white pumps. It is not just a peck kiss, but a swooning smooch that seemed choreographed by Hollywood.

The sailor leans the nurse slightly backward, pulling her close with his right hand on her arched back while his left arm cradles her shoulders and neck, and plants the kiss. As if in a romantic movie, she lifts one foot with bended knee behind her. In the background another sailor and a group of older women look on with amused smiles.

This famous photograph has been on my mind ever since the vaccinations for COVID-19 started ramping up. While coronavirus has certainly not surrendered, or been defeated, the end of this pandemic war is at least finally imaginable.

Yes, “V-S Day” (Victory over Stay-and-shelter Day) and “V-Q Day” (Victory over self-Quarantining Day) and “V-PJ Day” (Victory over wearing Pajamas every day Day) are imaginable.

In fact, it seems to me that each day now becomes a Victory Day worth celebrating for those who get their two vaccines – or one shot with the Johnson & Johnson.

Instead of kissing a stranger on the street, different iconic moments are happening as day by day more and more of us are celebrating our own Vaccine Day victory…

Grandparents are hugging their grandchildren for the first time in many months, if not for the first time in a full year.

These same grandparents are as well often hugging their own children for the first time in ages.

Senior citizens are happily embracing friends and fellow residents in assisted living facilities.

Uncles are hugging nephews and nieces, and nephews and nieces are hugging aunts, and aunts and uncles are hugging each other as well.

Some school children are even safely hugging their vaccinated teachers and, I imagine, teachers and principals and custodians and coaches are all embracing each other as well.

On and on, day by day, a parade of people are having 1945 Time Square moments in 2021.

Coincidentally, or thanks to what one of my dear friends calls “a god wink,” a random playlist on my computer recently played a Billie Holiday song from 1944 wartime titled, “I’ll Be Seeing You.” The lyrics, like the kissing photo, make me think of the happy days COVID-19 vaccines are making possible.

The song goes, “I’ll be seeing you … in all the old familiar places that this heart of mine embraces … in that small café … the children’s carousel” and so on. Of course, seeing in one’s imagination, as Holiday sings about, can’t compare to seeing each other in person without social distancing.

So if you have been vaccinated, or when you finally are, I urge you to have a little fun and recreate your own Times Square-like celebratory kiss – or, if more appropriate, a hug.

* * *

Things I (And Others) Can’t Stand

March 20, 2021 by Woody

If you were expecting 600 words of maple syrupy sweetness this morning, put down the newspaper and go video-chat with your grandma – and get out of your pajamas bottoms first! I’m in an annoyed I-made-pancakes-and-oops-we’re-out-of-syrup kind of mood.

Actually, one thing has me smiling. I came across #1thingicantstand on Twitter and it turns out I’m not alone in my complaints about #manythingsicantstand. Here are some actual Tweets of common pet peeves plus a few from @WoodyWoodburn mixed in.

“1thingicantstand is 40 registers – 3 of them open.”

“Gas prices.”

@WoodyWoodburn: Changing the clocks twice a year – let’s pick one (Daylight Saving Time gets my vote) and stick with it!

“When u let someone borrow something and u never get it back, or u get it back broken, or u gotta ask for it back.”

“A LOUD cell phone convo in a public place.”

“People who talk talk talk talk but never listen.”

@WoodyWoodburn: Calamari.

“There’s actually a lot of things I can’t stand – ignorance, bullying, lying and cheating are a few examples.”

“1thingicantstand is people who chew gum like cows.”

“People who complain more than they appreciate!”

@WoodyWoodburn: 2thingsicantstand are facemasks – when people don’t wear one and also when they wear one that is a really cool fashion statement that makes my mask look lame.

“ ‘Username or Password is wrong’ – tell me which one!”

“Telemarketers and Spam (both kinds).”

“1thingicantstand is people who look at the cup half-empty instead of half-full. Be positive!”

“pouring a bowl of cereal all hyped – then finding no milk.”

@WoodyWoodburn: when someone says “no problem” or “no worries” instead of “you’re welcome” in reply to a sincere “thank you.”

“You ask me for a starburst and you automatically expect a red one? No, you’re getting a yellow one.”

“1thingicantstand is people littering.”

“When my teacher calls my name knowing that my hand isn’t raised.”

@WoodyWoodburn: 1thingicantstandis when I load dirty dishes into the dishwasher without realizing it’s already clean.

“1thingicantstand – low battery on my phone.”

“people being mean to one another. We are all in this life together. Treat others like you’d want to be treated.”

“a slow driver in the fast lane.”

“Missing a green light because the fool in front of you doesn’t know how to turn.”

@WoodyWoodburn: Getting takeout for dinner and forgetting to check inside the bag at the restaurant only to get home and find half the order is wrong.

“1thingicantstand is sunglasses worn when the sun’s not out.”

“When an airline loses your luggage & they give you an airport food voucher – snacks are nice but I can get my (stuff) back?”

“seeing Ugg boots in 100-degree weather.”

@WoodyWoodburn: 100-degree weather.

“1thingicantstand is when i’m watching a movie for the first time and someone tells me what’s going to happen.”

“When ppl act all spiritual on Sundays, but Monday-through-Saturday they be doing the worst/fakest!”

@WoodyWoodburn: Ppl who park straddling the line taking up two spaces.

“When people go back with their ex. It’s like buying your clothes back from Goodwill – there’s a reason you got rid of them.”

“1thingicantstand is rude people.”

@WoodyWoodburn: Comments that begin as a compliment and then comes the “but…”

“people who don’t admit they’re WRONG even when they KNOW they are.”

“Single-use disposable plastic, of course!”

“the fact that people take elevators to go up or down one floor.”

“1thingicantstant is cold French fries.”

@WoodyWoodburn: soggy fries, too.

Lastly, a Tweet I fear seeing after today from one of my three loyal readers: “1thingicantstand is columnists who get others to write a column for them.”

* * *

Readers Deliver Paperboy Memories

March 13, 2021 by Woody

Today’s column is being delivered the old-fashioned way, by paperboys – rather, former ones – who flooded my email inbox with their own memories in response to my newspaper-throwing tale last week.

“On days when the paper was thin,” Bob Escobedo shared, “I would fold each copy of The Star-Free Press one extra time, making it skinny like a hammer handle. This added velocity and accuracy to my throws. I busted many a screen door in my time.”

Bart Bleuel had a similar confession: “Your column brought back memories of my paper route days. As I remember, my target was the milk bottles on the porch rather than the doormat. Yeah, I didn’t get all that many tips.”

“Tossing accuracy shows up in tips at collection time,” Dick Baldwin echoed, “but sometimes the wind does bad things to a toss and off it goes to who knows where?”

“Substitute Don for my older brother, and you for me,” wrote Brian Ford, “and I lived your story. You only forgot to mention the extra hassle with inserts!”

“I, too, was a paperboy back in the days of The Star-Free Press,” Larry Alamillo recalled fondly. “If memory serves me right, I had around 110 customers. I divided my route with my brothers. We would end at a certain intersection and ride home together. That job taught me responsibility, dependability, perseverance and many business lessons to boot.”

“I had a paper route when I was 12 and living in Nebraska,” John Acevedo wrote. “I recall being delayed on my route once because of a dog pack. It was a standoff – them at one end of the street, me on the other! I finally won when they dispersed.”

Dick Pillow’s paperboy days started out going to the dogs before he was rescued. He shared: “Being a lower middle class boy in a windy, dusty little town in the south plains of the panhandle in Texas, I was in the middle part of the seventh grade when I got my first regular-paying job.

“It was great getting up in the morning, going to the front of the Post Office, getting my papers, preparing them for delivery and walking to deliver them. Yes, I had no bike and no means of getting one.

“After a month or so of this, my supervisor found out I had no bike and was delivering the papers on foot. He felt sorry for me, I guess, so a few days later when I went to get papers – guess what? The most beautiful old, used bike was there with the papers! It was one of the happiest days of my life at that time. He left a note saying the bike was $8 and he would deduct $1 from my pay until it was paid off. I can tell you I took the best care of that bike that anyone could.”

Lastly, from the star of last week’s column, Don McPherson: “Boy, you nailed it for me and anyone who had a paper route. You took me right back to that Stingray and zig-zaggin’ the streets.

“The timing was perfect – I was going through a stack of old saved newspapers the day before. They were the old wide format and were a heavier paper from the ’80s and ’90s. I showed Patricia how these were good folding papers and tried to show her what a pro I was at folding them. I started to go into the tri-fold vs. the double-fold, but she has heard it before.

“Here’s to our youth experiences and the Ventura of old. Cheers.”

* * *

Horseshoes and Thrown Newspapers

March 6, 2021 by Woody

This morning, like most every morning, I will start the day by getting down on my knees.

Not in prayer, but to retrieve My Favorite Newspaper from beneath my car in the driveway. Actually, sometimes I do wish to God my arms were a little longer so I could reach the newspaper without having to move the car out of the way.

I cannot help but think my newspaper carrier is having a little fun on his early-morning rounds, like he or she is playing a version of “horseshoes.” A toss that skids to a stop dead-center out of reach is a “ringer” and anywhere else under the car is a “leaner.”

It simply cannot be by accident that roughly five newspapers a week are leaners and at least one is a ringer. Tom Brady wishes he had such an accurate arm.

Before we had our front lawn replaced with drought resistant landscaping, having the paper wind up shaded by the car was actually welcomed because it kept the newsprint safe and dry from the morning sprinklers. Truth be told, I still look forward to seeing if our carrier has hit the horseshoe stake each morning.

Tossing a newspaper from a moving car or pickup truck and hitting a driveway, much less a bull’s-eye under a car, is no small feat. But one of my great boyhood friends could top that by landing a newspaper on a front porch, and even on the “Welcome” doormat, while pedaling a stingray bicycle at full speed.

Indeed, Don could make perfect throws overhanded, backhanded, side-armed and I think even behind-the-back. He was like Pete Maravich on a fastbreak, but on a bike. This was way back when My Favorite Newspaper was still called The Star-Free Press and was an evening paper, except for Sunday mornings.

One of the casualties of most newspapers switching to morning publication seven days a week was the necessity of replacing paperboys and papergirls with adult carriers. I say this because kids with paper routes, thanks to the dedication and responsibility instilled, always seemed to grow up to be standout adults. Don, for example, became Ventura City Fire Chief.

On occasion I would help Don fold and rubber-band his 100 or so newspapers, me doing one for every four or five he did, before loading them into a huge double-pocketed canvas bag he strapped to the handlebars of his stingray.

I will never forget the first time Don asked me to sub for him. He gave me the list of addresses, including certain houses that had to be “porched” meaning the newspaper couldn’t simply be tossed onto the driveway, and a couple homes where it needed to be tucked inside the front screen door.

It took me ten times longer than Don would have needed, but eventually I got all the newspapers folded and rubber-banded and loaded into the canvas bag. I excitedly rode off, tossing newspapers like Frisbees, and everything was going fine until Don’s stingray became squirrelly and …

… a house or three later, my throw threw me off balance and bike and rider crashed and fell.

Don laughed his great laugh the next day when I told him about my mishap. I had learned the hard way something he forgot to mention: be sure to take the papers alternately out of the left and right sides of the canvas bag or else it will slowly grow imbalanced in weight.

In other words, like the straw that breaks the camel’s back, one too many extracted newspapers topples the bike.

* * *

Today’s Words Brought To You By…

February 27, 2021 by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

Today’s Column Is

Brought To You By…

(Today’s Woody Woodburn Column is brought to you, in part, by the United States Postal Service: “Email, texts, Twitter, Snapchat, Zoom and Facebook are newfangled fads. We’ve been around since 1792 and promise to be here serving you old-school style at least until April 2021!”)

Drastic times call for draconian measures. Newspapers are reinventing themselves in search of new revenue streams, so much so that when I asked my editor for a raise his reply was, “Wood-Bum, I’m of half-a-mind to start charging you to print your drivel each Saturday morning!” That estimate of his brainpower seems about right and also gave me a brainstorm idea.

(The following paragraph is sponsored by Tesla: “Our 2021 fleet of electric vehicles offers the forward-thinking you’ve grown to expect from Tesla – and from Woody’s column.”)

Do you want to become an official sponsor in a future column? Like the sneaker ad says, “Just do it!” Call 1-900-WOODY-AD. Consider this: a 30-second commercial during the 2021 Super Bowl cost a whopping $5.5 million, but for a tiny fraction of that you can be the title sponsor of an entire 600-word essay in this space that takes nearly three minutes to read. What a bargain!

Sure, sure, I know these pop-up ads break the flow of this column, what trickling flow there was to begin with – (This sentence is brought to you by MaxFlo: “We help you go fast, not slow!”) – but sacrifices must be made. I mean, have you watched TV news lately? The sports reports are all “brought to you by” memory enhancement supplements and other products I can’t remember. Furthermore, the P.O.D. (Play Of the Day) highlight has its own P.O.D. (Payer Of the Day) sponsor.

(Today’s P.O.D. – Paragraph Of the Day – is presented by Staples, the official office supplier of Woody’s pens, printer paper and cartridge toner.)

College football bowl games, sports stadiums and arenas all shill their naming rights to corporate America. Meanwhile, pro tennis players and golfers wear so many advertising patches they look like walking billboards. And have you seen a NASCAR racecar? The only place without a sponsor’s decal is a spot on the windshield for the driver to peep out through.

(This segment of today’s column is proudly presented to you by Eyebobs: “Our reading glasses bring Woody’s words into clear focus.”)

A few boxers have even gone so far as to temporarily tattoo ads on their backs. Yes, in the world of sports endorsements, everything is for sale. Well, what’s good for the sports goose is good for the former sports columnist.

Meanwhile, Hollywood is even worse – or better! – with movie plots and TV shows now designed around product placements. Since it all begins on the printed page, why shouldn’t writers (me!) get in on the lucrative action?

(The following Venti paragraph is brought to your coffee table by Starbucks.)

I am also looking to land a computer endorsement deal. If athletes can earn millions to wear a certain brand sports shoe, why shouldn’t writers (me again!) at least get a 20-percent discount on a laptop? Heck, maybe Apple will pay me to use a Microsoft Surface or Dell XPS instead of my current MacBook Pro!

(The closing thought of this week’s column is brought to you by Yolanda’s Mexican Cafe: “Even an NFL offensive lineman can’t finish our Grande Tostada!”)

Is my idea half-baked literary lunacy? Or marketing genius? Well, Mark Twain once observed: “Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.” I’m banking on it.

* * *

WOODY WOODBURN

Writer, "Streaker" & Speaker

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