Author Archives: Woody

Column: Zoey’s will be missed

by Woody

Zoey’s – Those Were The Good Old Nights

 

Frank Sinatra’s 1973 song “There Used to Be a Ballpark Right Here” came melancholically to mind when the 101 Drive-In theater was demolished in 2001 and again when the Cabrillo Racquet Club permanently took down its tennis nets in the winter of 2007.

 

In the summer of 2008 it was the treasured indie bookstore Adventures For Kids that was lost, reminding me of Carly Simon’s 1971 hit “Anticipation” because when I took my two children to A4K (as loyal patrons called it) I knew “these are the good old days” that couldn’t last.Zoeys

 

Now another local touchstone has been lost. Zoey’s Cafe, a magical music mecca, killed its mics for good last Saturday. Another song from the early 1970s, “America Pie” by Don McLean, fits the moment beginning with the very second line: “I can still remember how that music used to make me smile.”

 

The music at Zoey’s made me, and countless others since Steve and Polly Hoganson bought it seven years ago, smile. The names of the musicians I saw there – mostly at the original location on Ventura’s Main Street with its upstairs “listening room” that was as intimate as a home den – escape me, but I remember this: those “good old days” in cozy Zoey’s were as magical as big-name concerts I have seen in the Hollywood Bowl.

 

A sample of this homey magic from my 26-year-old daughter: “I saw many wonderful singers at Zoey’s – most recently my friend from high school, Lauren Sexton, who came out with her debut CD ‘Home by Morning.’ And when I was going to Purdue in Indiana, I remember being homesick and feeling so happy and comforted when I saw ‘Zoey’s, Ventura, CA’ listed on Tony Luca’s concert T-shirt as a stop on his tour!”

 

In honor of Zoey’s and in thanks to the Hogansons – and also as a reminder of how important it is for each of us to frequent and support locally owned-and-run businesses – here is a “mash-up” created with lyrics from “Anticipation” (Simon), “America Pie” (McLean) and “There Used to Be a Ballpark Right Here” (Sinatra).

* * *

I can still remember how that music used to make me smile (McLean)

 

And the air was such a wonder (Sinatra)

 

And, I knew if I had my chance that I could make those people dance (McLean)

 

And maybe they’d be happy for a while (McLean)

 

And the people watched in wonder (Sinatra)

 

And, there we were, all in one place (McLean)

 

With a joy I’d never seen. (Sinatra)

 

How they’d laugh and how they’d cheer (Sinatra)

 

Them good ol’ boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singing (McLean)

 

And tomorrow we might not be together (Simon)

 

Man, I dig those rhythm and blues (McLean)

 

’cause these are the good old days (Simon)


Can you teach me how to dance real slow? (McLean)

 

I rehearsed those lines just late last night (Simon)

 

Can music save your mortal soul? (McLean)

 

I met a girl who sang the Blues (McLean)

 

These are the good old days (Simon)

 

Now, do you believe in Rock and Roll? (McLean)

 

We can never know about the days to come (Simon)

 

But we think about them anyway, yay (Simon)

 

We all got up to dance, oh, but we never got the chance  (McLean)

 

I knew I was out of luck the day the music died  (McLean)

 

I went down to the sacred store (McLean)

 

Now the children try to find it (Sinatra)

 

Where I’d heard the music years before, but (McLean)

 

The man there said the music wouldn’t play (McLean)

 

And the sky has got so cloudy (Sinatra)


When it used to be so clear (Sinatra)


And the summer went so quickly this year (Sinatra)

 

And, in the streets (McLean)

 

We (Simon)

 

Cried (McLean)

 

On (McLean)

 

The coast the day the music died (McLean)

 

Yes, there used to be (Sinatra)

 

Lovers (McLean)

 

And poets (McLean)

 

Right here (Sinatra)

 

Bad news on the doorstep (McLean)

 

Something touched me deep inside the day the music died (McLean)


So, bye bye (McLean)

 

Z (Sinatra) O (Simon ) EY (McLean ) ’S (McLean).

 

*

 

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME is available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.

 

 

 

Column: Enlightened Darkness

by Woody

Shining Example Amid Darkness

 

Hearing my 23-year-old son talk about seeing kids in Ghana who walk three miles to and from school, and they consider it a privilege because there are some years when their village cannot afford to hire a teacher, shines a new light on education.

 

From another Third World trip, to Mali, my son tells of village children cut off from attending secondary school for four months each winter because a river with no adequate bridge floods during the rainy season.DarkBooks

 

            And so every time I see a new report with same old news that the United States is slipping down the educational ladder – ranking 17th according to a global report by the education firm Pearson – it angers me. Any excuse offered for this dismal showing is as lame as a fourth-grader claiming, “My dog ate my homework.”

 

            I wish every American youth could travel to Ghana or Mali or someplace similar and witness first-hand how kids there value the opportunity to attend school.

 

            More simply, I wish every classroom in America would require its students – and parents – to watch a three-minute documentary by award-winning filmmaker Eva Weber titled “Black Out.” (You can see it online at http://www.one.org/us/2013/10/08/the-dark-side-of-education/).

 

            Imagine countless Rocky Balboas with a tattered textbooks and you get a feel for “Black Out.” It should make every American student embarrassed to not finish a homework assignment or fail to study for an exam.

 

            The powerful video opens with this somber statistic: “Only a fifth of Guinea’s 10 million people have access to electricity” followed by this dark reality: “Every day during exam season, as the sun sets, hundreds of school children begin a nightly pilgrimage to find light.”

 

            Onscreen on a dark, lonely night we see a teenage boy, wearing a backpack, sitting next to a gas pump and studying under the outdoor lights overhead.

 

 “We don’t know what to do,” the boy says, his words translated into English. “We don’t have electricity at home. We have to go outside where the electricity is working. We study out here and then go back home.”

 

A handful more students turn the gas station into a library al fresco. One boy uses a trashcan as his desk and a girl speaks this cold truth: “I come from far away to study here. Sometimes I have to spend the night here. As a woman it can be dangerous to go back around 11 p.m. Sometimes were are forced to spend the night here because of the lack of electricity.”

 

One recent evening shortly after first seeing this video, I saw a girl of similar age reading a textbook at a local soccer practice. As dusk arrived she did not move to beneath a light at the restrooms or in the parking lot. There was no need; there will be illumination at home later. She pulled out a video game.

 

The kids in “Black Out” have no lamps, no desks, no chairs. They balance schoolbooks on their knees and on trashcans; they sit on curbs and on the ground.

 

Two minutes into the mini-documentary comes the most chilling, and yet the most inspiring, footage of all. Outside the international airport is a large parking lot. The lined spaces are empty of cars, but the lot is not at all vacant – the blacktop is filled with kids reading, doing math problems, studying.

 

            A boy in the parking lot explains the young human gridlock: “We all come here because we don’t want to fail our final exams.”

 

Jets arrive and depart, but the kids stay through the night.

 

Another boy with no electricity at home adds this: “My parents are a little bit worried. We are worried, too. We want a different future. That’s why we come here.”

 

They come by the hundreds. Beneath the glow of streetlights meant to prevent crime, crime is being prevented in the best way possible – with education for brighter futures.

 

“Black Out” then fades to black, but its message is enlightening. Every American kid who offers an excuse for not doing his or her homework should be forced to study in a supermarket parking lot for a week.

 

*

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME is available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.

 

Column: Wooden and Friendship

by Woody

Wooden Made Friendship a Fine Art

 

Monday – October 14 – would have been John Wooden’s 103rd birthday. Below, excerpted from my new memoir Wooden & Me: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” (signed copies available at WoodyWoodburn.com and unsigned paperbacks at Amazon.com), is an example of how he walked his talk.

 

* * *

 

The next time I joined Coach John Wooden for a brisk morning walk, I did something I embarrassingly neglected to do in all my excitement the first time: I brought a gift of thanks for his hospitality.

 

Coach with two very happy young visitors in his home: my son Greg and daughter Dallas.

 

Coach thanked me for the book while insisting a gift was completely unnecessary. Shortly thereafter I received a handwritten thank-you note; included within was a postcard-sized printed poem authored by Wooden 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 would turn the words into deed when my spirits fell – particularly when my mom passed away in 1992 and when I was severely injured by a speeding drunk driver in 2003.

 

Even when my spirits were already high, Coach had a gift for raising them further. For example, when I next visited him he recited a poem from the Rumi volume I had given him. I must confess I did not know whom Coach was quoting until he told me. It was not surprising, however, that his selection was titled “Love” since Coach always insisted it was the most important word in the English language.

 

What a thoughtful and eloquent gesture, what rare grace. It was a simple reminder that saying “thank you” is nice, but to show thanks is far better. Write a note of thanks, certainly, but also 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. Time and again in ways big and small, Coach put into practice the fifth rule printed on his father’s seven-point creed: “Make friendship a fine art.”

 

One of Coach’s many exceptional qualities was how he made people feel special by giving each individual he was interacting with his undivided attention. For example, he was perhaps the slowest, and the most gracious, autograph-signer in history because he made a conscious effort to engage each fan in a brief conversation.

 

Similarly, 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 the phone in the first place rather than risk the prospect of having to be in a rude rush.

 

I fondly remember visiting Coach when the phone rang and he let the call go through to his answering machine. The message conveyed was that I was his guest and thus merited his complete focus. This unspoken kindness became even greater 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 did not move towards the phone and instead replied 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.”

 

*

 

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. WOODEN & ME is available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.

 

 

 

 

 

Guest Review of “Wooden & Me”

by Woody

“Wooden & Me” is the Playbook for Readers’ Lives

By KEN McALPINE

John Robert Wooden was teacher, mentor and friend to many, but few have gotten to the heart of Wooden (and, with Wooden, it’s the heart that matters) like Woody Woodburn.

Woodburn’s new memoir “Wooden & Me: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to ‘Help Make Each Day Your Masterpiece’ ” is a marriage made in writing heaven. Two men cut from the same Midwestern cloth — woven with integrity, honesty and a need to do for others — Woodburn, a national award-winning columnist, and UCLA coaching legend Wooden forged a special bond, and a friendship that lasted over 20 years.

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upWoodburn first met Wooden as a youth basketball camper in 1975 and the magic begins here. But this is not a book about basketball. Wooden’s gift was to see the bigger picture, and Woodburn possesses the same gift. The result is a book that moves and motivates and makes you care about the not-so-simple values that make this world a better place.

John Wooden’s sporting accomplishments were almost beyond belief. His won-loss record, his NCAA championship wins, we could list the numbers here, but Coach made little of these accomplishments. “What was the biggest highlight of your career?” he was once asked, Woodburn shares. “When Nellie married me,” he said.

This was a man, writes Woodburn aptly, of “rare grace.”

Woodburn’s prose also is rare grace. Wooden was larger than life because he didn’t try to be; Woodburn writes a lovely book because he has a simple, unselfish aim.

“Coach helped shape my life, and grandly,” writes Woodburn. “My friendship/mentorship with him was a precious gift, one that came wrapped with a bow of responsibility to share with others the life lessons he shared with me the best I can strive for is to pay forward in some small measure by sharing his wisdom with others ”

That Woodburn knew Wooden doesn’t distinguish him from hundreds of others: what distinguishes Woodburn is he cares about people and good things. Wooden knew this, and so the two became real friends (Woodburn has a stack of letters from Coach that he keeps in a fireproof safe along with other pen-and-paper family heirlooms).

Wooden’s friendship deepened to include Woodburn’s two children through their growth into young adulthood. Because they were real friends, “Wooden & Me” touches every chamber of the heart. At times the book is funny and upbeat, at times, poignant and sad. Woodburn often got through his own difficult times with help, actual and inspired, from Coach, and Woodburn returned the favor. Together they raised friendship to an art.

The value of friendship, honesty, integrity and hard work, these are things that always merit reminding and are evident throughout the pages of “Wooden & Me (currently available through www.WoodyWoodburn.com). Indeed, Woodburn turns the lessons he learned from Wooden into lessons we can all use.

“Remember, Woody,” Coach told him more than once, “good things take time — and good things should take time. Usually a lot of time.”

This book is a very a good thing.

*

Ken McAlpine is the author of the novels Together We Jump and FOG and the nonfictionbooks Off Season: Discovering America on Winter’s Shore and Islands Apart: A Year on the Edge of Civilization.

Column: Trophies Don’t Tarnish Kids

by Woody

Trophy Generation is older than you think

 

“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

 

            Some complaints never change, although if Socrates made his above cavil today he would surely add, “And why do kids always get awarded trophies?” Trophy

 

            Interestingly, this latter grievance about the Millennial Generation and Generation Z is often made by men remarried to young “trophy” wives or women wearing jewels they didn’t get for winning a 5K race or tennis tournament. Indeed, Boomers and Gen X might be the real Trophy Generations. But I am getting ahead of myself.

 

            It has become a regular occurrence writers and TV talking heads to publicly take today’s youth to task for being raised on praise, feeling entitled, being lazy, loving luxury (and video games), having bad manners and gobbling up their junk food.

 

These generalities are, to quote Wonderland’s Alice, “stuff and nonsense.” Sure, plenty of kids are spoiled punks – and thus it has always been as Socrates suggests – but so are a lot of adults.

 

            Most recently, Ashley Merryman, co-author of “NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children” went all Socrates on kids in an Op-Ed essay in the New York Times headlined: “Losing Is Good For You.”

 

            Merryman un-merrily opened her missive: “As children return to school this fall and sign up for a new year’s worth of extracurricular activities, parents should keep one question in mind. Whether your kid loves Little League or gymnastics, ask the program organizers this: ‘Which kids get awards?’ If the answer is, ‘Everybody gets a trophy,’ find another program.”

 

            You would think trophies are as dangerous as extra chunky Jif is to a school kid with a peanut allergy.

 

            Merryman continued: “Today, participation trophies and prizes are almost a given, as children are constantly assured that they are winners.”

 

            And: “If I were a baseball coach, I would announce at the first meeting that there would be only three awards: Best Overall, Most Improved and Best Sportsmanship. Then I’d hand the kids a list of things they’d have to do to earn one of those trophies. They would know from the get-go that excellence, improvement, character and persistence were valued.”

 

            Here’s the thing: kids aren’t stupid despite what some clueless adults think. Kids know that excellence, improvement, character and persistence are valued. They also know that receiving a participation trophy at an AYSO season-ending banquet doesn’t mean they were their team’s superstar.

 

The same may not be said for many adults who equate driving a flashy, expensive car with being an MVP. And isn’t the workplace replete with participation trophies like reserved parking spaces and Christmas bonuses awarded for time on the job rather than job excellence?

 

If prizes should be given only to “Best Overall” or for true “excellence,” then aren’t today’s adults showered with undeserved trophies considering everyone who finishes a marathon – even if they walk the entire way – receives a medal the size of a hubcap? How is this different than a Little League “participation trophy” or a “participation certificate” in a school spelling bee?

 

Another curmudgeonly “Hey-kids-get-off-my-lawn!”-like complaint Merryman and her ilk make is that today’s youth feel entitled to good grades. I’m guessing that Merryman – like most every employee between the ages of 30 and retirement in all professions – feels they have been greatly wronged upon receiving anything less than a sterling annual work review.

 

Merryman concludes: “. . . we need to refuse all the meaningless plastic and tin destined for landfills. We have to stop letting the Trophy-Industrial Complex run our children’s lives. This school year, let’s fight for a kid’s right to lose.”

 

A plastic trophy isn’t meaningless – nor all meaning. It’s merely a nice memento, like a team photo or 10K finisher’s medal.

 

This school year, let’s fight for a kid’s right to have adults lose the Socrates-like contemptuous chip on their shoulders.

 

*

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME is now available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.

 

Column: Different Slant On Autographs

by Woody

A Different Slant On Autographs

 

The Black Death had a rival scourge in the Middle Ages. Call it The Black Ink because according to historians the pursuit of autographs dates back to this period. It seems the hunt for signatures of the famous came about after the hunt for religious relics waned.

 

Centuries after bubonic plague had been largely erased, Albert Einstein weighed in with his scientific view on the autograph terming it the last vestige of cannibalism.Hancock

 

After 25 years of watching the signature savageness as a sports columnist, including seeing grown men push children out of the way in pursuit of autograph, I think Einstein was being too kind.

 

But something really cool happened last weekend that changed my viewpoint. An autograph show was held in a hotel lobby in the historic town of Gettysburg and instead of home-run heroes and Hall-of-Fame slam dunkers and Olympic gold medalists, the “heroes” signing their signatures truly were heroes. Specifically, they numbered nearly half of the 79 current surviving recipients of the Medal of Honor – our nation’s highest military award.

 

If I collected inked autographs, these warriors’ John Hancocks would be on my Most Wanted List.

 

Instead, over the years I have collected autograph of a different slant: oddball stories from athletes I’ve interviewed. Let me share a few.

 

“I am frequently asked to sign Pennzoil cans,” shared Arnold Palmer, who has done countless TV commercials for the petroleum product.

 

Similarly, Hall of Fame pitcher – and Advil pitchman – Nolan Ryan said he often gets asked to autograph bottles of the pain reliever.

 

“I enjoy people, so I don’t mind autograph requests at all,” legendary broadcaster Vin Scully began. “Why not sign? They’re paying me a compliment by asking.”

 

And what are some of the stranger “compliments” he’s had?

 

“I’ve signed a lot of baseballs as you can imagine, but also golf balls and even a hockey puck which is sort of strange, I should think.

 

“Paper napkins seem popular,” Scully continued, “even dirty napkins. I think it’s all they have on hand. I don’t expect them to keep it, but I sign anyway because hopefully they will keep the moment.”

 

“I’ve signed dollar bills for homeless people who you know were going to spend it and not save it,” echoed Olympic gymnastics champion Kerri Strug. “And I’ve signed first-graders’ body parts with pencils – which is hard to do.”

 

Skin is popular from head to toe. I’ve seen Magic Johnson sign a bald head with a black Sharpie marker and Muhammad Ali do so on kids’ arms, legs and feet. But the most memorable thing I saw Ali autograph was a jogging bra . . .

 

. . . being worn by the young woman.

 

Speaking of dirty laundry, Olympic softball gold medalist Kim Maher added this footnote to my signature collection: “A kid handed me a sock to autograph – a gross, dirty sock!”

 

Did the former Buena High star sign it?

 

Maher: “Oh, yeah, of course.”

 

Olympic marathon champion Frank Shorter can relate: “Over the years I’ve been asked to sign some pretty grungy running shoes.”

 

Echoed Billy Mills, America’s last Olympic gold-medal winner in the 10,000 meters in 1964: “I was asked by a school fundraiser to send an autographed pair of shoes. ‘The worse-smelling the better,’ they said.” He sent a pair he’d worn only a couple times.

 

More memorable laundry. “The oddest thing I’ve been asked to autograph is a diaper,” Carl Lewis replied, chuckling at the memory. The nine-time Olympic gold medalist went on: “Luckily it wasn’t on the baby at the time – the mom pulled it out of a bag. I’d have had to draw the line at signing a dirty diaper, I think.”

 

Fellow Olympic sprinter Jon Drummond might have crossed that line, noting: “I was once asked to sign a baby’s diaper – while the baby was wearing it.”

 

Bottom line, did he sign?

 

“Yep,” Drummond answered. “If they kept the autograph, I hope they changed the diaper before it was too late.”

 

What would Einstein think?

 

I think a soiled napkin suddenly seems like a nice keepsake.

 

*

 

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME is now available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

 

Column: Thoughts On This & That

by Woody

This, That and Some Other Thoughts

 

            Warning: Pepto-Bismol is advised before sampling this smorgasbord of thoughts and comments guaranteed to cause anger and indigestion to some readers.

*

            If you have ever badly sprained your ankle and had to soak your foot in a tub of ice water, you know how the initial freezing shock turns into a burning pain before your foot eventually goes numb.

 

            I fear that mass shootings in America are now so common, so routine almost, that our shocked hearts are becoming numb.

 

            Surely we are numbskulls if we cannot find some common-sense common ground to fight this insanity, and quickly before the next senseless shooting – or three or six or . . .

*

            Tennis legend “Big Bill” Tilden used to defeat “Little Bill” Johnston with such regularity in the 1920s that newspapers reportedly kept the headline “Tilden Beats Johnston – Again” set in type to save time.

 

            Sadly, TV stations today probably similarly keep “Mass Shooting” and “Shooting Rampage” graphics programmed into save-get keys.

*

            Did I miss the story in the sports section about Major League Baseball holding an “Ugliest & Scraggliest Beard Contest” among its players this season?

*

            I have to agree with the naysayers who have jumped on Michelle Obama’s case for suggesting we all drink one extra glass of water a day to improve our health. Our First Lady should have added: “And drink one less Big Gulp of sugary soda pop!”

*

            If TV weather men and weather girls insist on patting themselves on the back as if they personally gave us beautiful skies and nice temperatures, then I insist they start taking the blame for the stuff that causes floods, droughts and wildfires.

 

            And by the way, isn’t it well past time they were called “weather WOMEN.”

*

            If you have or know a young reader, or reader-in-training, mark your calendar three weeks from today – Oct. 12 – for the seventh annual StoryFest from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the park area of the Ventura Unified School District’s Education Service Center at 255 W. Stanley Ave. in Ventura.

 

            The fun-and-free event will feature storytime readings aloud for children (who will all be given a book to take home), food and entertainment, as well as information about education and heath services offered by co-coordinators Ventura Education Partnership and First 5 Ventura Neighborhood for Learning.

*

            Speaking of literacy, congratulations to the Ventura County Writers Club for celebrating its 80 th anniversary of working to find a cure for the dreaded affliction “writer’s block.”

*

            Video game industry CEOs can cite a few studies until they are blue in the face that there is no connection between shooting/killing games and violent behavior, but anecdotal evidence – the latest being that Washington Navy Yard assassin Aaron Alexis was reportedly addicted to violent video games – shouts otherwise.

 

For one thing, studies on violent video games contain statistics – and we know what Mark Twain said: “There are lies, damned lies and statistics.”

 

For another, the military employs video simulators to train and desensitize soldiers.

 

            Also, if what we watch doesn’t affect our thinking and our actions, then why is video advertising on TV screens, smartphone screens and movie screens so effective?

*

            If the NRA changed its aim, and name its to the National Reefer Association, is there any doubt marijuana would be quickly legalized? I mean, if the National Rifle Association can help make it legal for the blind to carry guns in public in Iowa, wouldn’t pot be an easy slam dunk?

*

            Look-alikes: Washington Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan and Ventura County Supervisor Steve Bennett.

*

            Last week I saw nearly 3,000 small American flags dramatically displayed row after row after row on Pepperdine University’s Alumni Park lawn overlooking the Pacific Ocean, each flag honoring a life taken by the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

 

          Seeing a handful of flags at half-staff around town this week in honor of the 12 people murdered by a mad gunman Monday was no less heartbreaking and perhaps more maddening because unlike after 9-11 we are not rallying together to prevent the next similar tragedy. 

*

 

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME comes out later this month and is available for pre-order at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

 

 

 

Column: Pop’s Winning Smash

by Woody

Octogenarian Out-Smashes Nadal

 

            Today’s theme is tennis, but only loosely. So if you are not a sports fan keep reading anyway. The plot includes stinging suspense and fright in the night.

 

To begin, poor Novak Djokovic. You had to almost feel sorry for the world’s top-ranked tennis player in the finals of the U.S. Open. At times during his recent 6-2, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 loss to Rafael Nadal inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, Djokovic looked like a guy swinging a broom at an angry wasp inside a family room.

 

            In other words, Djokovic looked like yours truly. Remarkably, no light fixtures or picture frames were harmed in my showdown; more remarkably, the wasp eventually was by a two-handed swat.

Pops "The Bat Slayer," right, with grandson Greg and me.

Pops “The Bat Slayer,” right, with grandson Greg and me.

 

            While visiting my dad later that day, before I even mentioned my Man vs. Wild victory he nonchalantly one-upped me by a mile.

 

Switching channels between an old Western, a baseball game and the U.S. Open, Pop turned down the TV volume from its normal “Jet On A Runway” to “Leaf Blower” so I could hear as he filled me in on what he’d been up to the past few days.

 

            After current events were exhausted, I nudged him into retelling some of his favorite old stories. This is kind of like putting on an old Bill Cosby album – you know the routines by heart, but you smile and laugh each time anew anyway.

 

Only a month ago, I would have told you I knew every single one of my dad’s stories word for word. Then out of the blue in a span of 48 hours I heard two new ones that had escaped my ears for 53 years: my dad had been a mailman a couple years during the Christmas rush while in college and that he nearly got a big tattoo of a panther on his shoulder while in the Navy but decided not to for fear of hepatitis.

 

The latter story was prompted by a heavily tatted football player on TV, so now as my dad casually asked, “I told you about the bat, right?” I naturally assumed the Dodgers game on the screen had reminded him of yet another story I had never before heard.

 

Perhaps the bat in question was related to his boyhood, like the time he met Babe Ruth but didn’t have a baseball to get autographed? Maybe in the attic he had just found a baseball bat signed by Ted Williams?

 

 “No, you didn’t tell me about the bat,” I replied.

 

I was right about the attic, but wrong about what had triggered the story. It had been the tennis match (I’ll soon explain the connection) on TV, not the baseball game. The bat in question was a . . .

 

            . . . BAT! Of the pointy eared, sharp-fanged variety.

 

            Pop had been watching a movie – he forgets which one, though it is as safe as gold in Fort Knox to say it was filmed before 1960 – and after seeing that it didn’t end differently on his 57 th viewing, went to bed. No sooner had he turned off the lights when a black bumblebee on steroids started zooming around overhead.

 

            A wasp in broad daylight made my pulse rev like racecar, but a bat in his dark bedroom didn’t make Pop’s 86-year-old heart with a decade-old stent so much as skip a beat.

 

            “I’ve never had a problem with bats,” he said surprisingly given that rats give him the heebie-jeebies.

 

            This bat soon had a problem with my dad.

 

After shooing it into the bathroom and shutting the door, Pop fetched a tennis racket from the attic. Specifically, a Jack Kramer wooden model more suitable for appraisal on Antiques Roadshow than battling a bat in the belfry – or bathroom.

 

            Armed with the old-school racket and limping slightly on an old leg that required total knee-replacement surgery a few months ago, my dad rushed the net so to speak by entering the bathroom.

 

            As I said, Nadal couldn’t have done any better. With one swing – “kind of an overhead smash” the victor recalled – it was game, set and match.

 

            “I gave it a pretty good pop!” Pop said proudly.

 

*

 

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME comes later this month and is available for pre-order at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

 

 

 

 

 

Column: Special Samaritans

by Woody

Serving Up Random Kindness

 

            Following a morning that included a dentist’s drill, a handful of cell-phone-talking drivers so recklessly rude they made me grit my numbed teeth, and a slow-moving line at post office, I was in a mood to write a column of rants.

 

            This changed when I was in line at the supermarket and a woman with a hand basket of items kindly told a young mother with a full cart, and a fussy baby, to go in front of her. This same woman soon allowed another person to leapfrog her, and then a third who also seemed in a rush.SpecialNote

 

            “I’ve never seen anyone let more than one person go ahead of them,” said the cashier, smiling in admiration.

 

            Thus clouds yielded to sunshine, which brightened further with a few feel-good stories that arrived on my computer screen via links on Twitter, Facebook and The Star’s on-line edition. The latter chronicled more than 500 Cal Lutheran University students who, as part of CLU’s “You Got Served” program, spent a day cleaning up hundreds of pounds of trash nearby Olivas Links Golf Course and Harbor Boulevard in Ventura.

 

            Across the country in a pizza parlor in China Grove, NC, Ashley England and her family “Got Served” a surprise when the dinner bill arrived.

 

Ashley, in a story reported by North Carolina’s WBTV, explained that her 8-year-old son Riley has special needs resulting from a severe form of epilepsy. His seizures, which number up to 100 per day, began at age 18 months and have robbed his ability to speak. The boy’s frustration at being unable to communicate leads to outbursts, like the one at the pizza parlor.

 

“He threw the phone and started screaming,” Ashely noted. “The past few weeks have been very hard and trying for us, especially with public outings. Riley was getting loud and hitting the table and I know it was aggravating to some people.”

 

Before she could calm the storm, a waitress came to the table – not to ask Ashley to take her son outside, but to tell her that another customer had paid her family’s dinner bill and also sent over this note: “God only gives special children to special people.”

 

The mystery Samaritan’s kindness made Ashley cry.

 

“To have someone do that small act towards us shows that some people absolutely understand what we are going through and how hard it is to face the public sometimes,” said the grateful mother.

 

            A similar anonymous kindness recently transpired at Tampa International Airport when a traveler had his credit card declined at the check-in counter.

 

Confused and in a rush to make his flight, and perhaps most of all “extremely embarrassed,” the man stepped out of line to check his credit-card balance.

 

Upon returning to the counter with the matter hopefully sorted out, he learned that a Good Samaritan had generously paid his baggage fee and left a note reading: “Hey, I heard them say your card was declined. I know how it feels. Your bag fee’s on me. Just pay it forward the next time you get a chance. Have a safe flight. :)”

 

Here is a third random act of kindness I read about this same day. While vacationing with his family a father was approached by a man trying to sell a flower for money to buy food for his own family, or so he claimed.

 

Remarkably, generously, and perhaps naively if he thought the money would go for food and not alcohol, the vacationing father gave the man a 100-dollar bill.

 

“Fifteen minutes later,” the vacationer was quoted in the on-line story, “we see the same guy walking on the sidewalk again. This time, he had at least 10 bags of groceries hanging from his arms, one of which contained diapers.”

 

Touched by the above examples, I went back to the supermarket and bought a turkey sandwich and Gatorade which I gave to a woman out front who looked down on her luck. I know we are encouraged to donate to worthy charities in order to discourage panhandling, but sometimes you just have to do a “You Got Served” deed right now.

*

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME comes later this month and is available for pre-order at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

 

 

 

 

Column: Back to School with Batman

by Woody

Back to School with Batman

 

            Social media was all a-Twitter with outrage earlier this week when it was announced Ben Affleck has been cast as Batman in the upcoming sequel to “Man of Steel.”

 

            As someone who routinely wore Bat Gloves complemented by a bath towel safety-pinned around my neck to kindergarten, I am more steamed that Batman is guest starring in a Superman movie rather than the other way around.BatmanLunchbox

 

            But here is what really got my Bat Tights in a twisted bunch – the fact that my mom long ago tossed out the “Batman and Robin” lunchbox I used in first grade. On eBay these lunchboxes produced in 1966, the year the Batman TV series debuted, are now collectibles selling for more than $200 – higher if the Thermos is still intact. The fact that any of the Thermoses have survived nearly five decades boggles my mind because I am fairly certain I dropped mine and shattered its glass liner within five days.

 

            The lunchbox itself was far more durable. This was a good thing because while Batman had to contend with the Joker, Riddler and Penguin, my super villain was Adam – a lunch-stealing black lab about the size of a grizzly bear who lived along my walking route to school.

 

I should point out that my mom packed my lunch pretty much every school day of my elementary life. That is roughly 1,100 lunches. All of them, I believe, were Oscar Meyer bologna on white Wonder Bread along with either two Hostess Ho-Ho’s or one larger Ding-Dong.

 

My great friend Dan Means’ mom, meanwhile, always packed him a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich and Fritos. One memorable day in first grade, Dan had trouble opening the mini-bag of corn chips. His frustration growing, Dan gripped the opposite sides of the bag extra tightly and gave a mighty tug and . . .

 

. . . RIPPP! Whoosh! The entire sealed seam at the top gave way, sending Fritos flying everywhere, high and far, like confetti shot from a cannon. A few Fritos even got caught in the long florescent light fixtures high overhead that looked like ice-cube trays turned upside-down.

 

In my entire life I have yet to meet someone with a better laugh than Dan’s – it was half-cackle and half-emergency-asthma attack – and he never used it more enthusiastically than at that very moment.

 

Adam, however, was no laughing matter. I cannot tell you how many times I was lunch-jacked by him on my walk to school, though an estimate of two dozen might be on the shy side.

 

The first couple times Adam confronted me, I tried freezing in my tracks and commanding him to stop. This was as pointless as asking a mugger to put his gun away and leave nicely. The best thing to do was drop your lunch and run before Adam knocked you over while taking it. Trying to outrun Adam from the get-go was futile.

 

            You might think my bologna sandwich and Ho-Ho’s were safe inside my metal Batman lunchbox. You would be wrong. Somehow he managed to unlatch it. I reckon Adam could have cracked open a bank safe if there were Ho-Ho’s inside.

 

            Even kids who did not have to walk or ride their bikes past Adam’s house on the way to school were not safe from his lunch-jackings. Like a hungry dragon, if Adam was not sufficiently fed he came looking for villagers.

 

Adam routinely got loose and roamed a mile to school before the morning bell. At the sight of him the playground would erupt in frenzied terror with screaming kids scattering and fleeing this way and that like frightened beachgoers in the movie “Jaws.”

 

            After each incident, teachers would tally up the casualties and the principal would phone the mom of the family who owned Adam. Mrs. Young would then make, pack and bring the required number of replacement lunches.

 

            To be honest, except for the trauma of it, having your lunch stolen by Adam actually was not so bad – it was sort of a badge of honor. Plus, Mrs. Young packed homemade chocolate-chip cookies.

 

*

 

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME comes out in September and is available for pre-order at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.