Author Archives: Woody

To Travel Hopefully Is On Hold

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Traveling Hopefully

Gets Put On Hold

“The journey,” the 16th Century great Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes said, “is better than the inn.”

Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson agreed, noting 300 years later: “To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.”

These sentiments resonate with added gravity of late as the coronavirus has put most of our journeys on hold for one tends not to travel hopefully when the inns are closed.

Early on during these stay-and-shelter times when I complained mildly of cabin fever, my much-better-half half-jokingly said: “How has your life even changed? You write at home all day before going for a run and you never go to the grocery story anyway.”

She had a point. My normal life leans towards being a writer’s retreat in the seaside paradise of Ventura. And yet she also missed the mark. Without the anticipation of various events, big and small, my retreat became the same Groundhog Day most everyone has been experiencing.

For example, suddenly I could not escape to a coffee shop to do some writing. Similarly, looking forward to pints at a local microbrewery with author friends – or non-author ones – as a dangling carrot to cure Writer’s Block disappeared.

“Friday Date Nights” similarly vanished as lighthouses guiding me, and countless married couples, through the rough waters of a workweek. And what of single people suddenly unable to travel hopefully toward a dating weekend?

Bigger events being erased from our calendars, like inns disappearing from the landscape, took away the anticipation of traveling hopefully for many of us. It is remarkable how much pleasure a long-planned trip – or concert, party, celebration – provides in the months and days leading up to departure.

I bet my list of cancellations and letdowns varies from yours only in specifics: high school and college graduations; a milestone birthday oversized gathering; an anniversary cruise for two to Italy and a family trip to Hawaii that logistics-wise was harder to solve than a Rubik’s cube; my daughter’s debut novel book signing at Barnes & Noble here in her hometown with a lifetime of friends and family and teachers able to celebrate in person; attending a series of lectures by famous writers and thinkers; a music concert; and finally seeing the play “Hamilton.”

On the heels of last weekend’s column about filling a mason jar with smooth beach stones, sea glass, sand and ocean water as a metaphor for how to live a full life, I am reminded of a bookend story.

Mr. Hawkins, my fifth-grade teacher, explained to our class how he had a large jar resting atop his dresser and every time something wonderful happened in his life he would drop a marble inside. His goal was to fill the jar, maybe even two or three, to overflowing by the end of his lifetime.

After getting married, I finally embraced my old teacher’s example, although substituting pennies for marbles.

A couple weeks ago, I added a twist to this with a new smaller jar. Instead of a penny or marble for something special I have just experienced, whenever I think of something I want to do – but cannot right now – I write it down on a slip of paper and drop it in.

Here are just a few items on my Coronavirus Delayed To-Do List: visit Italy; visit my quarantined dad; enjoy a crowded happy hour; have a belated crowded 60th birthday party; hug my friends; hug a helpful stranger; on and on, big things and small.

Later, when it is safe to do so, I will travel hopefully all the way to the bottom of the jar.

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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” …

  • Personalized signed copies are

Life Lesson Inside A Glass Jar

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Life Lesson Inside

A Glass Jar

Many years past, one of my college professors gave a demonstration on our final day of class that seems especially fitting to share during the graduation season.

I was reminded of Mr. Lloyd’s lecture, which had nothing to do with Speech 101, when a dear friend sent me a YouTube video by Meir Kay featuring a professor giving a nearly identical life lesson.

In my mind’s eye, the two professors are one and the same. And thus, since I do not remember Mr. Lloyd’s specific words well enough to quote at length, I shall lean on the video titled, “Amazingly Simple Theory for a Happy Life.”

The Professor enters the classroom, greets his students, and then displays a mason jar.

“We all have just one life to live,” he says, “a fleeting shadow amongst all that exists in this vast universe. We have the ability to accomplish anything, truly anything, if we use our time wisely.”

From his leather briefcase The Professor takes out a box of golf balls and feeds them into the jar until there is room for not one more.

“Is the jar full?” he asks and the students answer as one: “Yes.”

The Professor now adds pebbles which filter into the open spaces.

“Is it full now?” he asks and again the answer is, “Yes.”

The Professor pours in sand, shaking the jar so the grains settle into every nook and cranny, until it reaches the top.

“And how about now – is the jar full?”

“Yes,” more loudly this time.

Like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, from his briefcase The Professor produces two bottles of beer. He opens one and pouring slowly fills the jar to the brim.

A quick aside. Mr. Lloyd, perhaps on account of us being at UC Santa Barbara, employed a beach theme by using smooth stones instead of golf balls; colorful sea glass instead of pebbles; sand of course, but ocean water instead of beer.

Also, my professor used two jars – one small, one large – because, he explained, lifetimes come in different sizes.

“Now, I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life,” The Professor on YouTube resumes. “Golf balls are the important things: your family, your friends, your health and your passions.

“The pebbles are the other important things: your job, your car, your home.

“The sand is everything else: just the small stuff. If you put the sand in the jar first, you won’t have room for the pebbles or the golf balls.”

Also, as Mr. Lloyd pointed out, if you put the sea glass in first you will not have enough room for all of the larger important stones.

“The same is true in life,” The Professor continues. “If you spend all your energy and time on the small stuff, you won’t have time for all the really important things that matter to you.

“Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Take care of the golf balls first. Set your priorities because everything else is just sand.”

A student in the video raises his hand and asks: “Professor, what does the beer represent?”

“I’m glad you asked,” The Professor answers. “It goes to show that no matter how full your life may seem to be, there’s always room for a couple of beers with a friend.”

Mr. Lloyd, meanwhile, explained the ocean water’s metaphor as meaning there’s always time to go to the beach.

I think both professors are right: there’s always time to enjoy a beer at the beach with a friend.

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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” …

  • Personalized signed copies are

Sweet Thank You For Heroes

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Sweet Thank You

For Frontline Heroes

A cupcake is a small thing.

One thousand cupcakes is quite another.

Stephanie Nelson had the very big idea of honoring frontline heroes at Ventura County Medical Center with gourmet cupcakes. She selected National Nurses Day on May 6 for the confectionary celebration.

Because National Doctors Day passed two months earlier without any festivities due to the urgency of COVID-19 preparations, docs were also mixed into the new cupcake batter. In fact, because every worker in the medical profession is indispensible, it was decided that each and every member of the VCMC staff would be thanked with a fancy cupcake.

This was no small undertaking for Nelson, Director of Volunteer Services at the hospital, and her helpers. To deliver successfully required the harmony of an ICU team during a Code Blue situation. Call this a Code Red Velvet.

The baking angels were called upon at “Heavenly Cakes & More” in Oxnard to create a variety of gorgeous offerings in chocolate, vanilla, lemon and, of course, red velvet. The frosted artworks featured swirls, sprinkles and powdered dustings.

On the morning of Nurses Day, Nelson and two fellow cupcake crusaders – Mary McCarthy, a member of the VCMC Auxiliary; and Patient Advocate Marie Castaneda – picked up the baked bounty.

In a bakery’s version of Tetris, they puzzle-pieced 84 pink and white cardboard boxes, each holding a dozen delicacies, into their three cars and rushed them – “Stat!” – to VCMC.

“It took quite a while to load the cars and then unload them,” McCarthy shared in apparent understatement, for the boxes naturally had to be handled and stacked with care.

After the cupcakes were set out in various break rooms throughout the hospital, Nelson sent out word about the goodies to department managers. During brief reprieves from caring for patients, their work seemingly more nonstop than ever during this coronavirus era, staff members snuck away to savor a little taste of Heavenly.

Despite a sweet discount by Heavenly Cakes and a kind Samaritan stepping forward to pick up the tab for 100 of the cupcakes, dough was still needed to pay the balance. In stepped the Auxiliary with funds it raises from sales in the hospital gift shop.

The Auxiliary itself is a collection of hero volunteers. It routinely buys toys, books and games for young patients in the Pediatric and NICU wards and also stages holiday parties for the kids.

“It’s tough for them to be there, especially at holiday times,” McCarthy says of the hospitalized children. She further notes that because of COVID-19, the volunteers currently cannot visit the kids but instead must drop gifts off at the nursing stations.

As grand as the cupcake party was, here is something even more beautiful than a red velvet with a swirl of white frosting: for each of the 1,000 smiles delivered to VCMC there surely has been a similar deed of coronavirus-related kindness in Ventura County these past few stay-and-shelter months.

The cupcakes, however, seem a perfect metaphor for these times – and for a hospital. Unlike a giant-sized fancy cake where the cut slices touch one another, cupcakes are individually wrapped in paper liners – like tiny Personal Protective Equipment. Boxed together, or arranged on a table, they are the equal of any whole cake.

“I know it’s a small gesture,” McCarthy shares, “but I am so grateful to all those on the frontlines. The hospital is under enormous pressure. Hopefully the cupcakes provided a bit of cheer. Never underestimate cupcake power.”

Asked if all 1,000 cupcakes made it to the staff lips, Mary offered a confession: “I had a red velvet one – heaven!”

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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” …

Special Delivery for Mother’s Day

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Special Delivery for

Mother’s Day

The first Mother’s Day gift I remember giving my mom was a bouquet of flowers fashioned from colored tissue paper and pipe cleaners, plus gobs of paste and a bigger glob of love, that we made in first grade.

Mom, naturally, acted as thrilled as if it were a dozen long-stemmed roses because that’s what moms do.

The final Mother’s Day gift I gave my mom, 28 years ago – it is difficult to believe it has been that long – was a bouquet of real flowers. More importantly, I delivered them in person with a hug. She probably would have preferred a single dandelion and a bouquet of hugs.

These bookend reminisces bring to mind a story, perhaps apocryphal, that seems fitting to share on Mother’s Day Eve.

Harry was an extremely successful, and busy, businessman. The Friday before Mother’s Day his secretary called in sick and he realized he had not asked her to order flowers for his mom.

Harry believed in supporting local businesses so instead of going online he took a quick break and walked to a florist shop a few blocks from his office.

The owner began to show off a variety of special arrangements, but Harry was in a hurry. Truth is, he was always in a rush. In the business world, time is money after all. He hastily ordered a dozen long-stemmed red roses to be delivered two days hence on his mom’s doorstep 200 miles away.

“Those are for my mom,” Harry noted, adding: “Give me another dozen of the same, wrapped to go, for my wife.”

Exiting the shop, in a blind rush back to work of course, Harry collided with a young boy standing beside a bicycle.

“Watch where you’re going!” Harry snarled.

“I’m sorry, sir,” said the boy. “Um, could you lend me three dollars?”

“Don’t you mean give you three dollars?” Harry acerbically corrected the boy. “You aren’t planning to pay me back. Why do you need three dollars anyway?”

“Today’s my mom’s birthday and I want to buy her a beautiful flower,” the boy explained. “But I don’t have quite enough money.”

Harry’s heart softened, slightly. While reaching for his wallet he asked the boy where he lived.

“About five minutes that way,” replied the boy, pointing down the street.

Harry left his wallet in his back pocket. He had a better idea and plucked one of the roses from the bouquet for his wife – surely she would not even notice the difference between a dozen and 11 – and handed it to the boy.

“Give this beauty to your mom,” Harry offered with a wink.

“Wow! Thanks!” said the boy. “I’m gonna take this to her right now!”

With that the boy hopped on his bike and began to ride off – in the opposite direction of where he had indicated that he lived.

“Hey, son, I thought your house was that way,” Harry said, gesturing.

“It is,” the boy replied. “But the cemetery is this way – my mom died last year.”

“I’m so sorry,” Harry said, his voice cracking.

Eleven heartbeats of silence passed, one for each rose in Harry’s hand, before he spoke again. Handing the boy the remainder of the bouquet, he said: “Here, please put these on her grave.”

The boy took the full bouquet of roses and rode off while Harry wheeled around and went back inside the florist shop.

“I need to cancel that out-of-town delivery I just ordered,” Harry said. “Instead, I need you to put together two dozen roses to-go as quickly as possible. I’ve decided to deliver them today personally.”

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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” …

Highlights During Low Times

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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High Moments During

These Low Times

With facemasks the new normal during these coronavirus times, seeing a smile can seem as rare as a bluebird sighting. Here are some bluebirds…

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Josh, a young man I know who faces food and shelter insecurity, recently went to the grocery store for a friend and received a tiny tap on his shoulder.

“Behind me was a sweet middle-aged woman with a gentle voice,” Josh retells. “She mumbled, ‘Can… can … you help me with some food?’

“My heart sank because I could tell she was in great need, but then my spirit reminded me that in this moment I could do something. We walked over to the deli and I was able to buy her lunch. I don’t have much; I often don’t know where my meals may come from; but this shared experience gives me great compassion and understanding for those less fortunate and in need.

“Her heart and words flowed with gratitude. I was able to put some of my own worries aside and focus on where I could give some love. It was a beautiful experience to be a part of!”

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The owner of a small commercial building in downtown Santa Rosa phoned his 60-year-old son, who manages the property, and instructed him to cut the tenants’ rents in half for April.

Shortly thereafter, according to The Santa Rosa Democrat newspaper, he called his son back: “No, tell them there will be no rent for April.”

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A longtime customer at a donut shop in Upper Arlington, Ohio – where, coincidentally, I grew up – purchased a single custard donut for a whopping $1,000.

The generous Samaritan, who has been going to Tremont Goodie Shop for nearly half a century, explained he wanted to help the store stay in business.

The kind act proved contagious after word spread, including a $100 tip by another customer.

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“Look For The Helpers” began a post on social media along with a photograph of a girl inside her home, paper and pencil in hand, looking outside at a man kneeling on the front walkway.

“A 12-year-old girl was having difficulty with her math homework during the lockdown. So she emailed her teacher for help. He came over, brought his whiteboard, and taught her through the window.”

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Another helper is Nemat Azizi, who came to America as a refugee from Afghanistan.

“He got married, had a family, and started a business,” read a Facebook post. “When COVID-19 hit, he knew he wanted to help. He’s now paid for the groceries of more than 300-plus families in Nebraska.”

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An 8-year-old boy in Australia has been bullied because of his name: Corona De Vries.

The boy wrote a letter to actor Tom Hanks, who spent two weeks in quarantine Down Under after testing positive for COVID-19, saying: “I heard on the news you and your wife had caught the coronavirus. Are you OK?”

He further mentioned that kids at school called him “Coronavirus” which makes him “sad and angry.”

Hanks, who collects typewriters, composed a reply on a Corona portable model and then mailed both the letter and the pristine machine to the boy.

“Your letter made my wife and I feel so wonderful!” Hanks typed. “You know, you are the only person I’ve ever known to have the name Corona – like the ring around the sun, a crown. I thought this typewriter would suit you. Ask a grown up how it works. And use it to write me back.”

In his own writing hand the two-time Academy Award winner added: “P.S. You got a friend in 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” …

 

Worst Day Leads to “Best Week”

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Worst Day Leads

To “Best Week”

What was the best week of your life to date?

It is an impossible question, really, with your answer likely depending on the phase of the moon and your current frame of mind. Was it your wedding day and honeymoon? Maybe summer camp as a child? Or the miraculous first week as a parent?

Traveling to Ireland and sensing the ethereal presence of my great-great-great-grandfather who sailed from those shores, alone at age 14, to America is another contender for me.

Ideally, we do not have a single best week but many. Hence, this is my new best week because my daughter’s debut novel, “The Best Week That Never Happened” from Month9Books, has just been released. It is a childhood dream come true for her, which makes it my dream come true as well.

As you might imagine, a thousand images have flashed across my imagination this week. One memory is of a 6-year-old girl sitting at the kitchen table and typing on my Radio Shack portable word processor. Using one finger, and slowly searching out each key, she wrote her stories.

In second grade, she had a poem – “Peanut Butter Surprise” about a PB&J sandwich made with a jellyfish because the grape jelly ran out – printed in The Star’s “Kids Corner” feature. She never looked back, self-publishing a book in fifth grade that sold 2,000 copies; released two more short-story collections; had a play produced off-Broadway; received the John Steinbeck Creative Writing Fellowship; and now reached No. 1 on Amazon’s list for Young Adult New Releases. Each, and countless more highlights amidst, has been a best week at the time it happened.

And yet “The Best Week That Never Happened” has me thinking of a worst week that did happen. A week of overwhelming grief that began on Jan. 26 five years past. At 5 a.m., my daughter phoned and said in a tear-choked voice: “Daddy, Celine is gone.”

One of her two best friends in the world was in India for a wedding, during one of the best weeks in her 26-year-young life, and the taxi she was riding in was broadsided by a bus.

On its homeward voyage, Apollo 11’s Command Module “Columbia” crossed an invisible Rubicon where the moon’s gravitational attraction yielded imperceptibly to the pull of Earth’s gravity. Mourners experience a similar invisible line where the gravity of grief and loss are overcome by the pull of healing and happiness.

After Celine’s death, my daughter’s Rubicon seemed too distant for a rocket ship to reach. For long stretches, she even stopped writing. Then, out of the blue, came the proverbial lightning bolt of inspiration and she began pouring out her grief through the QWERTY keyboard.

“On some level,” my daughter says now, “I was writing – trying to write – a different ending for Celine than the one she was dealt.”

The result is a YA novel of love, mystery and magic set in Hawaii that is not about Celine at all, yet she is throughout its pages.

The result also is testament to the wisdom of the great poet Robert Frost: “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.”

And the result is, according to bestselling author Jennifer Niven, “A poignant and gripping heart-tug of a page-turner filled with heart and hope. I couldn’t put it down. Magic.”

The most magical result is that the moment my daughter typed out the ending sentence she found herself crying and smiling simultaneously. Her grief was coming and going at once. She had crossed the imperceptible Rubicon.

Another best week in Dallas’s life had arrived.

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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” …

 

Mrs. Figs’ “Storytime” is Magical

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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“Storytime With Mrs. Figs”

Offers Magical Healing

It is said that reading aloud to young children fosters a love for books and literature that lasts a lifetime. Connie Halpern, however, pays lip service to this noble notion.

Literally.

Four weeks past, in an effort to make these shelter-in-place days and nights a little less confining for children, Connie started a not-for-profit channel on YouTube.com entitled “Storytime with Mrs. Figs.” She believes even coronavirus cannot quarantine a child’s imagination.

You may well recognize Connie’s pseudonym because for the past decade, before recently selling her independent bookstore, Connie was the effervescent shopkeeper of “Mrs. Figs Bookworm” in Camarillo.

“I believe strongly in the healing qualities of stories,” Connie says in explanation of why she created “Storytime.”

Down the road, again literally, Connie plans to travel by motor home and read to children all across America. For now, she is spreading the healing qualities of stories online.

Connie Halpern, aka the marvelous “Mrs. Figs.”

To date, Mrs. Figs has posted eight fireside Storytimes, including: “The Day the Crayons Quit” by Drew Daywalt and its bestselling sequel, “The Day the Crayons Came Home”; “Wild About Books” by Judy Sierra; “After the Fall” by Dan Santat; and “All in a Day” by Cynthia Rylant. More stories promise to be added as she receives copyright permission from publishers and authors.

Previously, the favorite fireplace I had ever seen was in Mark Twain’s home in Hartford, Conn., in his library to be specific.

Making it special is the elaborately carved oak mantelpiece that came from Ayton Castle in Scotland. Displayed upon it, from left to right, are a painted round vase; large seashell; marble figure of a woman; tall blue vase; silver serving platter; framed painting of a woman wearing a red winter coat and black hat; bronze tile of Twain’s profile; matching tall blue vase; white pottery water jar; small blue vase; a typing paper-sized painting of a cat’s face surround by ruffles; and a tiny bronze harp figurine.

I detail the items because each evening the master storywriter became an oral storyteller by making up a new tale for his young daughters in which he incorporated the entire ensemble, always beginning with the “Cat in a Ruff” painting. To imagine Twain performing one of his off-the-cuff stories is to imagine magic.

Connie’s “Storytime” is surely similar magic brought to life. She even reads while sitting beside an elegant fireplace, flames flickering as warmly as her voice, the handsome wooden mantle filled fully from left to right with books. It is my new favorite fireplace.

To say Mrs. Figs reads aloud is not quite accurate. Rather, she performs, the words seemingly memorized as she displays the illustrations to the listener/viewer. Additionally, she offers introductory thoughts about each book and other wisdoms.

“The only thing that you absolutely have to know,” Albert Einstein said, “is the location of the library.” During stay-and-shelter with children, knowing the location of “Storytime With Mrs. Figs” on YouTube is an absolute must.

Reading a book has been called a time machine. Mrs. Figs further proves that for adults, listening to a children’s book can magically transport us back to kindergarten naptime or even younger while being tucked into bed as our mother read us to sleep.

“Now you get to close your eyes,” Connie even coos after finishing one performance.

“It is my prayer that stories will be one small way that we can ‘stay-connected-while-sheltered’ during ‘stay-and-shelter,’ ” Connie allows, her words echoing the spiritual origins of Mrs. FIGs: Faith In God.

“Until next time, much love to you,” Connie signs off each episode. All that is missing is a kiss on the forehead.

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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” …

 

Readers Share “Warm” Memories

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Readers Share Own

“Warm” Memories

Two weeks back in this space, I turned back the calendar five decades and shared a story about a kindergarten boy who embarrassingly did not making it to the classroom’s bathroom in time.

That column, headlined “Cowboy boots filled with a warm memory,” resulted in a flood – pun intended – of emails from readers.

In hopes of offering a brief distraction from COVID-19, and perhaps a few laughs in the process, here are a few of the responses.

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“You gave me the best laugh of the week with ‘– Squish! Squish! Squish! –’ ” wrote Patrick Martin, who then returned the favor with this observation: “Ironically, now that we are at the other end of the age spectrum, such an event might be in store for us again. I wonder if Depends makes absorbent socks?”

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“You nailed it!” wrote Fred Romero, hitting the nail on the head himself with this: “I’m sure a lot of us adults can relate in one fashion or another.”

Mike Pedersen, for one, related with a memory from when he was 8 or 9:

“My story would be my grandmother finding soiled underpants in a drawer of their 2 bed, 1 bath on 24th Street in Del Mar – right across Highway 1 from the beach.”

The important fact was the one bathroom, as Mike explained the cause of his accident: “Grandpa was taking forever in the bathroom.”

His grandmother’s reply: “He gets a little constipated sometimes.”

“May have been the first time I’d heard that word,” Mike recalls.

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Rick Throckmorton related with this: “7th grade for me! Old Ocean View School on Olds Road. 2 classrooms, 1 bathroom. 60-70 kids and 2 teachers!

“I think it was built in the ‘teens. Guess educators back then figured it was sufficient, since we were surrounded by citrus orchards. Which, by the way, were used – at least by us boys – frequently during recess.

“Won’t tell you what happened, it’s still embarrassing,” Rick continued, but hinted with this: “Had to do with the bottom of the ninth, I think, and I was on-deck. Or was it bottom of the 3rd at recess?

“Mom and Dad worked the fields, no phones, certainly no cell phones, and therefore no dry clothes! But a (now old) buddy loaned me his sweatshirt, which I wrapped around my waist and hid most of the incriminating evidence.”

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This heartwarming “happy little memory of mine” came from Sharon Bisaccia:

“Thanks for today’s sweet story about a little boy and his cowboy boots.

I laughed until I had tears in my eyes. I loved it! It reminded me of another little five-year-old, my youngest grandson.

“One day, I received a call from the kindergarten teacher at Ojai Elementary School when I was at work at Ojai Village Pharmacy. She explained that Cody hadn’t made it to the bathroom in time. She was unable to locate his mother and could I possibly come and take care of him.

“ ‘Well, of course,’ was my reply.

“I arrived at the school to pick up my precious forlorn-looking little grandson.

We sped home where he trustingly allowed me to remove his damp clothing and to sponge him off and to find him dry clothing.

“With a hug and a smile, I returned him to school and all was well.

“I have never forgotten the look of relief on his face and the complete trust that little boy placed in me. This all happened many years ago. That little boy is now almost 30 and he and I have been great pals for many years!”

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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” …

 

Linked Hands In A Wheat Field

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Our Hands Linked,

Even If Only Virtually

 

Ventura County is rightly renowned for its strawberry fields. But my hometown also makes me think of wheat—specifically, a wheat field in a tiny farm town in Ohio.

The story goes like this:

A young girl wandered from home and became lost in the family’s wheat field that had grown taller than she. Her parents called out her name repeatedly, searched frantically, but could not find her.

Soon her three siblings, then neighbors as well, joined the hunt. But as daylight dimmed and disappeared, the little girl still had not been found.

By now seemingly half the townspeople were hectically racing through the wheat field trying to find the little girl, but with no success. The wheat field was simply too vast.

“Wheat Field With Crows” by Vincent van Gogh.

Night fell and with it the temperature. If the little girl was not found soon, she would surely perish from hypothermia. At long last, her father called everyone in from the wheat field.

No, he had not given up on finding his dear daughter. Rather, he had an idea. He gathered all the volunteers together and had them join hands to form a long human chain. More accurately, they formed a human comb.

They then walked together, side by side by side, combing through the tall amber waves of grain. In this manner they did not miss a single area as had happened when they randomly searched separately.

Within ten minutes, the search party of more than one hundred individuals – now united as one – found the little girl curled up on the ground …

… shivering and trying to stay warm, but still alive.

In a grander sense, it seems to me, the wheat field represents Ventura County – and even the world – most especially during challenging times like these COVID-19 “stay-at-home” days and nights.

All of us figuratively get lost at times and need the help of others. Our local healthcare professionals, restaurant staffs providing takeout meals, pharmacy and grocery workers, Instacart shoppers and retirement home caregivers, and so many more are now linking hands on the front lines, so to speak, to help the rest of us.

The rest of us, in turn, by “sheltering-in-place” as asked are figuratively linking hands to help keep our most vulnerable citizens – those over age 65, those with compromised immune systems, those with asthma – as safe from coronavirus as possible. Additionally, many in our “human comb” are further helping our small businesses by ordering takeout meals or having other products delivered to our homes.

Here is what else I see in our “wheat field.” I see people “social distancing” as advised, yet still “connecting” with others with a smile and a wave outside from safely afar or though a window; with phone calls, emails and video chats; with Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

With our hands linked, virtually, we will eventually emerge from this current wheat field challenge. Perhaps we will be shivering, as though having stayed in the ocean too long; but, as if wrapped in a beach towel, we will quickly warm up again.

When this frightening moment in history passes and the warmth of normal returns, and with it the warmth of real hugs replacing virtual ones, I hope we will be better because it.

Correction. I am convinced we will be better because if it.

Already, I believe, we are seeing one another – from doctors and nurses to grocery workers and pizza delivery drivers, from co-workers and neighbors to the elderly and shut-ins – with a new appreciation.

Yes, when I think of the wheat field story, the new soundtrack is by Beatles: “Strawberry Fields Forever.”

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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” …

 

Boots Filled With Warm Memory

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Cowboy Boots Filled

With A Warm Memory

            A photo-essay showing playgrounds starkly empty due to COVID-19 caused my heart to sink with sadness, but a black-and-white image of a lonely swing set was a time machine that made me laugh. I figure we can all use a dose of levity during these trying days, so here is a social-distancing memory from the 1960s.

My best friend Dan and I were in kindergarten. In our imaginations on this day, the swing set was our airplane and we were paratroopers fighting in the Cold War. We would pump as high as we could and then, at the zenith of the forward surge, launch ourselves airborne.

The danger of a broken leg or chipped tooth from this human-catapult game only added to our recess revelry.

After a few landings behind Russian lines, I had to go to the bathroom. Naturally, I ignored nature’s call. I figured I could hold out until the bell rang.

This became more difficult with each ensuing parachute-less landing, sometimes in a tumble, on the blacktop. Wearing hard-heeled cowboy boots rather than rubber-soled PF Flyers made the impact all the more jarring to my legs and, in turn, to my bloated bladder.

The end-of-recess bell still had not clanged, but I could hold it in no longer. I pumped my legs on the swings one last time, rose towards the clouds, released my grip at the perfect moment and soared far into enemy troop territory.

I then raced inside Classroom 2 to its single-person restroom. The smooth soles of my cowboy boots skidded to a stop on the tile floor and I turned the doorknob …

… LOCKED!

I felt a stab of panic. My five-year-old mind had not anticipated this perilous possibility. Frantically, I danced the I-Have-To-Go-Number-One Texas Two Step and knocked on the door. A girl’s voice said the restroom was in use.

“Hurry up,” I urged and danced faster.

Seconds passed like minutes.

“Hurry, pleeeease!” I pleaded.

By now my bladder was like a balloon hooked to a water faucet and rapidly being filled to the bursting point. Finally, the toilet flushed and its whooshing water was music to my ears – and like Pavlov’s bell to my bladder.

More running water in the sink.

“No, don’t wash your hands!” I thought. “There’s no time!”

I knocked yet again and begged with full urgency: “Please, pleeease, let me in!”

CLICK! At long last the door unlocked and swung open. A girl exited and I rushed in.

For unpracticed kindergarten fingers, a pants zipper can be as difficult to solve as cracking a safe. Before I could dial the opening combination, Hoover Dam breached and warm waterfalls cascaded down both my legs.

Remarkably, not a drop of the five gallons of pee spilled onto the floor. This was because two-and-a-half gallons filled my right cowboy boot and two-and-a-half gallons poured into the left.

Events then took a turn for the worse. Before I could sneak out of the restroom and get help from Miss Bower – dry pants would be nice; a disguise even better – the recess bell rang and in stormed the rest of the class.

Knock, knock!

“Go away!”

A long moment passed as I remained sheltered in place.

Knock, knock!

Through the locked door and through tears: “Tell Miss Bower (sniffle) I need her.”

Like nurses and grandmas, kindergarten teachers are angels on earth. Miss Bower came inside, hugged me, and then escorted me – Squish! Squish! Squish! – down a mile-long hallway to the office to wait for my mom to bring dry clothes and shoes.

Thankfully, there wasn’t a photojournalist around.

 *   *   *

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” …