Author Archives: Woody

Column: The Music of Friendship

by Woody

Rekindling the Music of Friendship

 

            The memory hadn’t flashed across my mind’s eye in three decades, yet here it was in sharp focus and brilliant Kodachrome color.

 

The year was 1975 and the yellow VW Bug was already old and the summer was hot and here’s the thing I most remember all these years later: There was no way to turn off the heater in my friend Jim’s car.

 

            Even with the windows rolled down we simmered like astronauts inside an Apollo capsule during re-entry with the heat shield glowing red-hot.

 

JamesBoz

The James Broz. Band — J.D., right, with son James.

 

            You remember funny things, like this: getting ice cream cones after a practice session and coming out to find Jim had locked the keys in the VW. We borrowed a coat hanger from the nearby dry cleaners and, as the ice cream melted, took turns trying to break in.

 

The next time it happened, which it did, we ate our ice cream first.

 

I can’t tell you what songs played on Jim’s car radio that summer, but my guess is they included Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Lodi” and “Motherless Child” by Eric Clapton and “Blue Sky” by The Allman Brothers Band and Paul Simon’s “Diamonds on the Soles” and “Can’t You See” by The Marshall Tucker Band.

 

I say this because those were all on the play list by The James Broz. Band on a recent August night inside a Ventura Harbor venue not much roomier than Jim’s VW Bug, although thankfully, much cooler.

 

The James Broz. Band is not brothers but rather a father and son – Jim and James Wolff. Actually, Jim goes by J.D. now, which keeps tripping me up.

 

Until last weekend, I believe I had seen Jim – I mean, J.D. – only twice in the past quarter-century. Both times he was playing drums in bands at large charity gatherings so we were unable to catch up.

 

(J.D. will join The Bryan Bros. Band for a few songs at Mike and Bob Bryan’s annual All-Star Tennis Festival fundraiser on Sept. 27 at Spanish Hills Country Club. Visit www.bbtennisfest.com for information.)

 

One of the great things about social media is its ability to reconnect lost friends. Through Facebook, I learned about the two-man James Gang’s small gig and showed up. I am so glad I did.

 

J.D. is as talented with guitar strings as he was with strings in a tennis racket and his son is no less musically gifted. Between songs J.D. kindly gave me a shout-out, although in the intimate gathering shouting was not required.

 

“I want to thank my ol’ friend Greg for coming out,” Jim said, using my given name before quickly adding: “I mean, Woody.”

 

There was no need for the correction – he’s grandfathered in.

 

JDphotos

Further evidence of J.D.’s talents!

Between sets we got to visit and it was like a time portal. Jim’s laugh is as unchanged as his fingerprints and I was reminded of a quote by the writer E.B. White: “I’ve never been able to shed the mental image I have of myself – a lad of about nineteen.”

 

For me, make that about 15.

 

Now in our 50s but both of us dressed like teens in jeans and flip-flops, Jim and I learned our sons have been to Africa on humanitarian sojourns and we each have a remarkable daughter and an amazing wife. I wanted to know more about his music; he wanted to talk about my new memoir.

 

We promised to get together, and soon, and we will.

 

Moments earlier Jim had sung Bob Dylan’s “My Back Pages” with the quintessential lyric, “Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”

 

Ah, we were so much younger then in that VW sauna, but that’s all right because it takes a long time to grow an old friend.

 

*

 

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

 

Column: Celebrity Shopping

by Woody

Celebrity Shopping Within Their Means

 

            News item: Billionaire media mogul Oprah Winfrey says she encountered racism in Switzerland, playground of the super rich and famous, when a sales clerk at Trois Pommes, a boutique in Zurich for the super rich and famous, refused to show the TV personality a handbag with a price tag of $38,000, telling the super rich and famous movie actress she couldn’t afford it.MoneyGold

 

“She said, ‘No, no, no, you don’t want to see that one,’ ” Winfrey quoted the clerk as saying. “ ‘You want to see this one. Because that one will cost too much; you will not be able to afford that.’ ”

 

The clerk slightly miscalculated: Winfrey, according to Forbes magazine, could afford it based on her $77 million income last year.

 

Here are a few similar, but unconfirmed, faux pas . . .

 

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Rather than a $38,000 wallet from Trios Pommes, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates has set out to “buy” the worldwide eradication of polio.

 

Twenty-five years ago, polio was endemic in 125 countries with an estimated 350,000 people – primarily young children – paralyzed by the disease annually. Immunization efforts have since reduced polio cases globally by more than 99 percent and saved more than 10 million children from paralysis.

 

Polio is now endemic in just three countries: Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Last year fewer than 250 cases were reported compared to 650 cases in 2011.

 

Gates is currently the world’s richest man with a reported net worth of “More Money Than God” – which in U.S. currency is $72.7 billion. Additionally, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has an endowment of more than $36 billion.

 

Still, in April when the foundation donated $1.8 billion to continue the surge against the scourge polio, the response Gates heard was: “No, no, no, why don’t you look at something more in your price range – like maybe trying to eradicate the sport of polo off the face of the earth.”

 

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            Tiger Woods was playing a round of golf with Donald Trump at Trump’s Trump National Golf Club on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, soon to be renamed Trump Peninsula.

 

The signature 18th hole alone cost $61 million to build, making it “the most expensive chunk of golf real estate on the planet” according to an actual quote from the man with the biggest chunk of ego on the planet.

 

Woods’ drive on No. 18 landed in green rough more tangled than Trump’s platinum hair. After taking three swings to get out of the pricey weeds, Woods, who according to Forbes magazine has a net worth of $600 million, angrily snapped his wedge in two and told Trump, “I want to buy your club.”

 

“No, no, no, you can’t afford it,” Trump replied, thinking Woods meant $264-million Trump National and not Trump’s $120 58-degree loft TaylorMade ATV Wedge with a KBS Tour 90 steel shaft.

 

*

 

TaylorMade ACM (American Country Music) superstar Taylor Swift attended a charity auction where she bid on a dinner date with pop idol/bad boy Justin Bieber. When Swift opened with $100,000 (plus all traffic fines and bail for Beiber if required), the auctioneer shouted, “No, no, no, you are a young woman who probably still has student loans and surely can’t afford this!”

 

“That’s fun money for me,” replied Swift, who ranks No. 6 on Forbes’ Celebrity Top 100 with $55 million in earnings the past year. “Besides, if I write another break-up song after the date I can write it off as a business expense.”

 

*

 

Oprah Winfrey encountered a second wrong-headed “No, no, no, you can’t afford it” comment while attending the 2013 Ventura County Fair and trying her hand at the softball throw.

 

“How many times do I have to knock all the milk bottles down to win that pretty handbag,” Winfrey asked the carney, who replied: “No, no, no, you can’t afford enough tickets to win the purse – why don’t you try for the little stuffed shark?”

 

Winfrey prevailed, winning the purse encrusted with faux diamonds and it only cost her $38,000 – $48 worth of fair game tickets plus $37,952 for orthopedic surgery to repair her rotator cuff.

 

*

 

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

 

Column: Celebrating Summer

by Woody

Turn! Turn! Turn! The Season is Summer

 

            Remember when you were six or 12 and summer was a three-month recess and the only interruption to your fun was being called inside for dinner?

 

Then adulthood arrives and carefree summers depart.

 

            One of my earliest summers of freedom was 1965. This was also the year The Byrds’ version of “Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There Is a Season)” hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts.

 

            I have this song stuck in my head because everywhere I turn, turn, turn, I see reminders that the season now is summer. I also hear, taste, smell and feel summertime’s touch.KidsPlaying

 

            Here are a few recent encounters, broken down into the five senses.

 

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Sight.

 

            Four girls and a boy, all between the ages of about four and six, playing on the grass at a local park. Specifically, they are racing around a small mud bog created by a faulty sprinkler.

 

            The giggling grows louder. The kids grow wilder. One of the girls cuts a corner too closely and a sneaker gets sucked off in the mud.

 

            The laughter, of course, instantly doubles in decibels. Soon another shoe is snatched. Instead of an obstacle, the mud bog has become the main attraction.

 

            Did I mention the children are wearing nice clothes, not swimming suits?

 

            I should also mention they are being watched by the mother of one of them. More accurately, she is a contender for Mom of the Year. I say this because of her reply when I passed by and commented on – and laughed at – the messy delight.

 

“It’ll all wash off,” she said, smiling happily.

 

            What a beautiful attitude. And what a beautiful summer it promises to be for those five kids.

 

*

 

            Sound.

 

            Watching a collection of elementary school-age kids play different games at a summer day camp is fun, but listening to them is the real joy.

 

            For example, judging from the laughter and squeals of delight, even playing in mud can’t compare to throwing spongy playground balls at one another. Part of this is surely the novelty because many schools have banned dodge ball. Safety issues? In half an hour of battle no tears are shed, no Band-Aids required.

 

            Meanwhile, if you have never heard a game of outdoor musical chairs that begins with 30 kids and 29 chairs and one boom box, you are missing out.

 

            This, however, paled on the noise meter measuring the fun of a supervised water balloon battle!

 

            In other words, this 2013 day camp is a success because it duplicates the everyday summer life of kids growing up in the 1960s.

 

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            Taste.

 

            A lot of things just seem to taste better in the summer. Hamburgers, hotdogs or basically anything fresh off the barbecue, for example. Watermelon, certainly. All county fair foods. Iced tea and lemonade, margaritas and beer.

 

            But it says here nothing improves more in tastiness during the summer (and this is saying something because it’s delicious year-round) than ice cream. Amazingly, ice cream may taste its very best not on a blistering summer day but rather on a dreamy warm midsummer night.

 

            Rocky Road, to my taste buds, is best of all.

 

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            Smell.

 

            Just as hearing an old song can be a time machine of sorts, so too can scents.

 

Few things transport me back to my Wonder Years of summers as quickly and powerfully as the smell of sunscreen filling the air at the pool or beach.

 

*

 

            Touch.

 

            Speaking of the beach and swimming pools, one of summer’s special senses of touch can also be seen and heard: the “ouch-ouch-ouch” and “hot-hot-hot” mutterings of someone as you watch them quick-stepping barefoot across broiling sand or cement.

 

            Meanwhile, instead of the soles, summer romances touch souls and hearts with held hands and kissed lips.

 

Turn, turn, turn. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

 

And summer, taking the best from the verses in the Book of Ecclesiastes, is a time to laugh and dance and embrace and love and cast time away.

 

*

 

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

 

Column: Inocente’s Story is Powerful

by Woody

Artistic Perspective of Homelessness

 

             When you see a dandelion, do you see a flower? Or a weed?

 

            Or, perhaps, as happened a couple weeks ago when I was walking along a sidewalk on my way to a movie, you step over a dandelion without seeing it at all.

 

            Dandelions are a lot like the homeless. Perspective is everything.

 

            Along with about 200 others attending “Summer at the Oscars,” a fundraiser held by the nonprofit Ventura County Housing Trust Fund at the historic Camarillo Ranch, my perspective was brought into a sharper focus.

For more artwork by Inocente, visit www.inocenteart.com

For more artwork by Inocente, visit www.inocenteart.com

 

            My vision, however, was briefly blurry. Watery eyes will do that. Watching “Inocente” will do that.

 

            “Inocente,” which earlier this year won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short, is the best film of any length and genre I have seen in years. It is “Rocky,” only grittier; “Cinderella,” only more magical. It is 39 minutes of hard-to-watch reality with a happy ending.

 

Inocente Izucar, the teenage subject of the film, had a physically abusive father who beat her with extension cords. After escaping his torment, Inocente and her mother and three younger brothers lived a nomadic existence on the streets of San Diego. They slept in homeless shelters and crowded motel rooms. This was on good nights.

 

 “I don’t think children should have to wake up in the park,” Inocente says, knowingly, in the film.

 

The truth is, too many children do wake up in parks. And in shelters. According to the National Center on Family Homelessness, 1 in 45 children will experience homelessness during their lives. That is nearly one child per classroom.

 

This includes 4,000 kids locally, according to the Ventura County Office of Education. You might never guess which children; Inocente says she was able to keep her hardship a secret from schoolmates.

 

More perspective: 3.5 million people experience homelessness in the U.S. annually and more than 1.6 million of them are children. In California the figure for homeless kids is 226,000.

 

By any measure it is a huge problem. Countless people and agencies are fighting the good fight, including the Ventura County Housing Trust Fund. But all of our combined efforts need to be redoubled. And redoubled again.

 

Different things can unlock a brighter future for a homeless person: food and shelter, of course, but also counseling; clean clothes for a job interview; access to showers in order to keep a job.

 

For Inocente, the magic wand had horsehair bristles: a paintbrush. At age 12 she enrolled in an after-school program for disadvantaged kids called ARTS: A Reason To Survive.

 

For Inocente, art was a way to thrive.

 

Given her grim background, one might expect her paintings to be dark and foreboding. Rather, they are the opposite – happy and uplifting; hearts and bunnies; vibrant reds and sunshine yellows and brilliant blues.

 

Inocente’s obvious talent was one of the reasons she was selected as the subject for the documentary. Her first big art show, which she earned on merit, is part of the film’s storyline. Thanks to the spotlight of the Oscars, her career has taken off. She has had loftier art shows, including in New York City. Prints of her work typically run $200 with some reaching $1,000. A small original piece she donated to “Summer at the Oscars” sold for $2,000 and was likely a steal.

 

After growing up in a nightmare, 19-year-old Inocente is living her dream as an artist. Her dream of living in her own apartment is also a reality. Like her work on canvas, in person she radiates brightness. She gives you a new perspective of what a homeless person is – and can be.

 

Asked how the rest of us can best help the homeless, besides making donations to worthy causes, Inocente’s answer is simple: “Show them you believe in them.”

 

Taking the same sidewalk back to my car after the screening, the dandelion did not go unnoticed under my foot. This time I saw its yellow bloom and green stalk poking up through a crack. What strength to survive its cement hardship. And what beauty.

 

Indeed, it was not a weed. It was a sunflower by van Gogh. No, by Inocente.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com or through his website www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

 

Column: Glory Days

by Woody

Looking at Life in the Rear-View Mirror

Bruce Springsteen’s classic “Glory Days” played on the radio the other day and it got me thinking about athletes who spend their post-playing days looking — and living — in the rearview mirror.

Such as New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath who coolly guaranteed, and more coolly delivered, victory in Super Bowl III against the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in 1969. Three decades later, Namath told me: “It was the pinnacle of my life. It was a high I haven’t felt or equaled since. If I could be any age again, I would want to stay 25.”

And, yet, staying forever 25 would mean he would have missed out later on having his two daughters.GloryDays.png PM

Another Hall of Famer, Bill Bradley, once wrote of retiring from the NBA: “What’s left? To live one’s days never able to recapture the feeling of those few years of intensified youth.”

In other words, even being a U.S. senator was a letdown from being a young shooting star with the New York Knicks.

“What’s left?” How sad to ask this at age 25 — or even 35, dotage for most pro athletes.

In “Glory Days” Springsteen sings: “I hope when I get old, I don’t sit around thinking about it / But I probably will / Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture / A little of the glory of, well time slips away / And leaves you with nothing, mister / But boring stories of glory days.”

Fifteen years after his glory days as an All-American high school quarterback, Neely Crenshaw, a character in John Grisham’s novel “Bleachers,” returns to his small hometown to visit his old coach who is dying.

Crenshaw suffered a career-ending knee injury in college and tells his former teammates: “When you’re famous at 18, you spend the rest of your life fading away. You dream of the glory days, but you know they’re gone forever. I wish I’d never seen a football.”

How tragic. Can you imagine a gifted teacher wishing she’d never seen a chalkboard; an astronomer lamenting ever touching a telescope; a concert pianist ruing a keyboard?

The night he lost his heavyweight title to Rocky Marciano, Joe Louis was asked whether Rocky punched harder than Max Schmeling had 15 years earlier, the only other time Louis had been stopped.

“The kid,” Louis said of Marciano, “knocked me out with what — two punches? Schmeling knocked me out with — musta been a hundred punches. But I was 22 years old then. You can take more then than later on.”

“Later on” comes far sooner for athletes. A writer, teacher or architect may not reach the zenith of his or her powers until age 50 or 80. Physicians, too, for as Benjamin Franklin noted: “Beware the young doctor.”

My dad is not a young doctor. Now 86, he is still enjoying his glory days saving lives by assisting on cases in the operating room.

“I feel I’ve always kept improving as a surgeon,” Pop shares. “My hands are as steady as ever. What I’ve lost is the stamina to do long cases. I used to be able to operate all day long, get called back into the hospital that night to do an emergency operation, get two hours of sleep and come back and do it all again the next day. Not anymore. My eyesight is still there, my technical skills are still there, but I don’t have a young man’s stamina.

“On the other hand, I have continued to gain knowledge so my decision-making is always improving. Maybe when you are younger, you are more aggressive — sometimes too aggressive. So I think as an older doctor, I’m also a wiser doctor.”

John Updike, a highly successful author right up to his death at age 76, once noted, “We all, in a way, peak at 18.”

My dad disagrees. “I don’t think I peaked at 18 or 25 at all,” he allows. “I couldn’t chose one favorite age I’d want to be because I wouldn’t want to have missed everything that came after it. At the time I’ve lived it, every age has been the best.”

That’s a glorious attitude.

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Woody Woodburn is a columnist for the Ventura County Star.

Column: Overrated and underrated

by Woody

These Opinions Might Be Overrated

 

Before seeing the summer action movie “Man of Steel” I figured it had to be underrated with a published review of 1.5 out of 4 stars. After seeing it, however, 1.5 stars made it overrated.

 

Speaking of “Superman,” Dwight Howard has been overrated his entire career.

 

Adam West remains underrated as Batman.

 

Americans gave Congress a 15-pecent approval rating in the most recent Gallup poll. In other words, Congress remains overrated.

 

Teachers are underrated and CEOs are overrated.

 

Streaking (running every day) is underrated; streaking (running naked) is overrated.

Twinkies were slightly underrated until they recently became extinct and were suddenly wildly overrated. Now Twinkies are back, at a slimmed-down 135 calories per cake instead of 150 calories, and their rating has rightly shrunk again.

 

Farmer’s markets are underrated.

 

Donald Trump may be the most overrated person on earth. His hair cannot possibly be underrated.

 

Watermelon is overrated and bananas are underrated.In-N-Out

 

The dangers firefighters and police face are underrated by most of us.

 

In-N-Out Burger is overrated by its fans (guilty as charged) but underrated by everyone else who favors any other hamburger-fries-and-shakes fast-food chain.

 

The U.S. Postal Service is underrated.

 

            Handwritten letters and cards cannot be overrated.

 

Post-it Notes are underrated.

 

Everything about Florida is overrated – except, it pains me to admit, LeBron James.

 

Florida’s juries, courts and judges cannot be underrated.

 

The iPhone is overrated as a phone, but underrated as a computer (as are all smartphones) when you consider these hand-held devices are said to be thousands of times faster and more powerful than the Apollo guidance system that landed men on the moon.

 

Everything about Apollo 11 was underrated.

 

Prosecutors in high-profile murder cases tend to come out looking overrated after the verdict.

 

The importance of a jury selection cannot be overrated.

 

Butterflies and birds are underrated.

 

Having a good mechanic, plumber or handyman is underrated.

 

Newspapers are underrated.

 

The value of having music and art education in our schools is underrated.

 

The long lines and hassles of airport security screening is overrated while the speed and relative ease – and general affordability – of traveling anywhere in the United States in a few hours is underrated.

 

Comfortable shoes are underrated until you are wearing vises on your feet.

 

Before one sees the Grand Canyon in person it cannot help but be overrated; standing on its rim, however, it is impossible to underrate its awe-inspiring grandeur and breathtaking beauty.

 

Yosemite Valley is probably underrated.

 

The Channel Islands are definitely underrated.

 

Taking hundreds of pictures and hours of video on vacation is overrated, even at the Grand Canyon, Channel Islands and Yosemite Valley.

 

Twitter is overrated.

 

Facebook is overrated . . . until you locate a long-lost friend or make some new ones you never would have otherwise.

 

The importance that race plays in America is underrated by too many, including on the U.S. Supreme Court.

 

Novacaine cannot be overrated if you are sitting in a dentist’s chair getting a filling.

 

Local microbrews and wines are underrated.

 

Dogs are underrated even by people who overrate everything.

 

Even if you try to fully appreciate it, good health is underrated until you are ill or injured.

 

Teenagers overrate the calamity of having a few pimples.

 

Older people overrate the calamity a few gray hairs.

 

Local charities that humbly do tremendous work – such as Project Understanding, Casa Pacifica and Caregivers Assisting the Elderly to name just three very worthy ones – are underrated.

 

The Royal Baby Watch is overrated.

 

The “good ol’ days” are overrated and today’s youth are too often underrated by those who were youths back in the “good ol’ days.”

 

John Steinbeck’s novel “Sweet Thursday” is underrated.

 

* The Great Gatsby is overrated. (* the movie, not the book)

 

            * To Kill A Mockingbird is underrated (* movie and book)

 

Intelligence is often overrated but the importance of education is underrated.

 

Common sense is underrated.

 

Public libraries are underrated.

 

A good friendship cannot be overrated.

 

A friendly smile is underrated by the person sharing it with someone else.

 

Pizza is underrated. Period.

 

Chocolate, too. Period.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com or through his website www.WoodyWoodburn.com

 

 

 

 

Column: Honoring 19 Fallen Heroes

by Woody

Heroic Idea Sparked by Oxnard Native

 

“We can’t all be heroes,” Will Rogers once observed, “because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.”

 

This Saturday past, at a small-town parade in Arizona, Rogers had it a little wrong: nobody was sitting on the curb clapping for the heroes.

 

            At the Prescott Frontier Days Parade the spectators all stood to applaud and honor the 19 elite Granite Mountain Hotshots who perished on June 30 while fighting an out-of-control inferno.RiderlessHorse

 

            The parade route on July 6 looked like it could have been the Fourth of July on any Main Street, USA. Indeed, little imagination is needed to picture the parade going through downtown Ventura or Fillmore or Oxnard.

 

            In fact, Oxnard played a key role in the Prescott Frontier Days Parade for it was a local native son who had the idea to honor the fallen heroes with a riderless horse.

 

Brian Besser graduated from Oxnard High in 1971, two years behind his brother John. They well know that what happened to the Hotshots could happen here when the Santa Ana winds howl.

 

The “Besser Boys” also know about horses. In fact, they may have an equestrian gene. When their mother Barbara was in high school in the late 1930s, she frequently rode with Carmelita Fitzgerald, the granddaughter of Adolfo Camarillo. As an adult Barbara rode the famed Camarillo White Horses – specifically the feisty “Paisano” – in the Hollywood Christmas Parade, among others.

 

“Throughout this period Brian seemed to develop an interest in the horses,” shares about his “kid brother,” adding: “I was more interested in one of Carmelita’s daughters.”

 

Fast forward. John is retired and living in Laguna Niguel while Brian has moved with his wife to Arizona near Prescott.

 

Prescott proudly claims to be Home of the World’s Oldest Rodeo, a weeklong extravaganza held annually over the Fourth of July period. The tragic deaths of the Hotshots hit the local community with a vengeance. It would be hard to throw a rope without lassoing someone who either personally knew one of the young firefighters or knows someone who did. Indeed, the brother of Brian’s neighbor was one of the 19. 

 

In past years, Brian has assembled an equestrian unit to represent the popular establishment Matt’s Saloon in the annual parade along celebrated Whiskey Row. As mentioned, this year he decided to honor the firefighters for their ultimate sacrifice with a single riderless horse.

 

Just as a deadly raging fire starts with a single spark, a small idea can grow significant given the right conditions. Thirty-six hours before the parade, Brian shared his plan with a neighbor and the kindle took flame with this reply: “Why not use NINETEEN riderless horses?”

 

            This seemed impossible given such short notice, even in a cowboy community. Understand, seemingly every horse within three ZIP Codes had either already been entered in the rodeo or was committed elsewhere in the parade.

 

            Just as the Hotshots were a unified crew, so is Prescott. Brian’s neighbor provided the name of a woman involved with the rodeo who might be able to help. She did. Some cowboys overheard and said, “We’re in!” Word quickly spread like, yes, wildfire, and just like that a Kentucky Derby field was assembled.

 

            Led by Brian and seven other riders each carrying an American flag at the front, with two more riders carrying Matt’s Saloon flags at the rear, the parade entry had 29 horses in all. But it was the 19 horses in the heart of the procession that caused throats to grow tight and tear ducts to loosen and made the spectators sitting on the curb stand up and clap.

 

The 19 horses were riderless, but not nameless – hanging on each saddle, in purple letters on a black background bringing to mind a Purple Heart medal, was the identity of a fire warrior. Too, resting on each saddle horn was a fire helmet, the majority of them classic red or yellow but a few are black or white. And in the stirrups, reversed, are empty work boots.

 

So solemn, so powerful. It is no wonder that the winner of the Chairman’s Award was no contest.

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

 

 

 

 

 

Column: Story Behind ‘The Streak’

by Woody

 

Streaking Forward While Looking Back

 

            Later this afternoon I will celebrate a happy anniversary.

 

            Too, I will mark a polar one.

 

            Freud would surely argue the two are related. And while this did not occur to me for quite some time, it now seems obvious if not undeniable.

 

            First, the celebratory anniversary. Or, as the United States Running Streak Association – yes, there is such a thing – terms it, “streakiversary.” Today my consecutive-day streak of running a minimum of three miles (with an average of 8.6 miles daily over the span) will reach 10 years – or 3,653 days in a row thanks to three leap years.RunatSunset

 

            If this strikes you as silly or insane or stupid, you are probably right on all counts. However, there are no less than 152 runners who are certifiably (according to the USRSA) crazier than me – including eight Americans with streaks surpassing 40 years!

 

I did not set out to become a “streaker.” As a person caught red-handed in a love affair or addiction – and a running streak is no doubt a little of both – might guiltily explain: “It just happened.”

 

It happened in response to a life-changing event. Early on I believed the tragic catalyst was my being rear-ended at a stoplight by a drunk driver speeding 65 mph. The result was a ruptured disk in my neck requiring surgery to fuse two vertebrae.

 

The result also was permanent nerve damage and chronic pain that stole my recreational passions of tennis and basketball. So when my gifted neurosurgeon Dr. Moustapha Abou-Samra, a fellow marathoner, finally gave me the go-ahead to resume distance running I grabbed hold as if it were a life preserver in a choppy ocean. Each run gave me a daily dose of empowerment over my physical losses from the car crash.

 

Like a U.S. postal worker, I have not been detoured by rain nor sleet nor snow. I have run through injury and illness and at insane hours to accommodate family plans, work, time zones. Hopping off a plane in London, I kept The Streak alive by running three miles in the airport terminal at 11 p.m., causing one Englishman to holler: “Hey, bloke! You must be a Yank cause you’re bloody crazy.”

 

Perhaps, although psychoanalysis might reveal something different at play. Indeed, while I did not realize it for two years, it now seems beyond coincidence that my streak began on July 7, 2003. That was the due date of my wife’s and my third child.

 

A baby lost to miscarriage. Was the streak’s birth a subconscious response to death?

 

The pregnancy was a surprise, a wonderful one, and because my wife was 44, of high-risk. After she made it safely into the second trimester we finally exhaled, allowing ourselves to get fully excited.

 

Then the heartbreak of no heartbeat.

 

It is likely a self-protective mechanism to try to rationalize a miscarriage as “being for the best because something was terribly wrong.” Doctors, family and friends offer similar solace. And maybe the mind buys into this, but the heart does not.

 

We had chosen not to know the gender, perhaps another grasp at self-protection. Again, the heart has its own mind. A few years later my wife had a powerful dream in which she watched a child on a playground swing. The girl, the same age our child would have then been, was happy. Rather than being overwhelmed with renewed grief, my wife felt comforted.

 

I had no similar night vision.

 

However, I have had many a daydream on runs while looking at kids – girls and boys – who are about the same age as my streak and thinking: That’s how old our child would now be.

 

Last week, I had a sleep dream. Surely it was influenced by my wife’s from six years past, as well as by the approach of my 10-year streakiversary – and hence the 2003 summer birthday that never was. In the dream I am running on the San Buenaventura beach bike path, one of my very favorite routes, alongside a child of about age 10.

 

SHE is smiling and happy.

 

I will think of her as I extend my streak today, my eyes likely salty as the sea.

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Column: Capturing Time

by Woody

Old Shoebox Is A Time Machine

 

            While the Great Pyramid of Giza served as arguably history’s earliest time capsule dating back to 2584 BC, the Crypt of Civilization – a stainless steel vault welded shut in 1940 in a basement at Oglethorpe University in Georgia – is considered the first official one in modern times.

 

            An estimated 15,000 registered time capsules have since been created, including in Tulsa where in 1957 a brand new Plymouth Belvedere (filled with other artifacts of the day) was buried to be opened down future’s road.ClockPic

 

Closer to home, in 1966 the City of San Buenaventura marked its Centennial with a time capsule buried by City Hall’s front steps and in 1976 a second vessel was added commemorating the U.S. Bicentennial, both to be opened a century thereafter.

 

            Inside my home is a newer time capsule. Specifically, in my son’s bedroom closet, top shelf, back corner, where a Nike shoebox has gathered more than a decade’s dust. The box is painted orange, his favorite color as a boy, with black spots to make it look like a cheetah. The lid reads: TIME CAPSULE 2000.

 

            The 10-year-old boy has grown into a young man and together we open it for the first time in 13 years. The time capsule in truth is a time machine. I can imagine no single assignment led by his fourth-grade teacher Therese Yasukochi – “Miss Y” to her students – that could have proved a worthier keepsake.

 

            Inside, on top of all the other items, is a size-5 orange-and-black Nike racing shoe. This is fitting because competitive running was already then his passion – and remains so to this day.

 

            Also prophetically are 30 index cards with color-pencil drawings for the cover and each chapter of the book “Island of the Blue Dolphins.” He obviously included these because this was far more than an assignment, but rather a calling that would see him minor in Painting in college.

 

            Too, there is a Nike wrist sweatband – of significance because the boy wore one every single day, sunup to sundown, through the end of middle school. A basketball card for the “2000 VYBA Bulls” reveals the vital stats of “Point Guard Greg Woodburn – Age 10; 4 Feet 9 Inches; 70 Pounds; Favorite Player Kobe Bryant.”

 

            Also within: a snapshot of his new puppy, a cute boxer puppy named Gar; a hand-drawn family tree; a short essay written in excellent script, if not spelling to match, about a field trip to the Olivas Adobe ranchero (“We took a toor of the house. After that we made adobe briks and got reel muddy!); an origami crane made with orange (of course) paper; and Lego Star Wars.

 

“My 4th Grade Album” is a time capsule within the time capsule. “The first day of school” wrote “Miss Y” on the first page below a picture of the boy, sitting at his desk and smiling like it is Christmas morning. Other photos are of fun and friends and field trips, including the “reel muddy” fun mess at Olivas Adobe.

 

I bring this up, and went looking in my son’s closet in the first place, because Ventura’s City Hall is filling a time capsule to commemorate its Centennial. The airtight 14-inch steel cube, scheduled to remain sealed until 2113, will join the previous two beneath the landmark building’s front steps.

 

“Help us capture time,” invites Richard Newsham. “It’s a perfect way to write yourself and your family into history and make a connection with future generations.”

 

The deadline for the public to donate artifacts (to Room 206 at City Hall) is July 10. Items already collected include yearbooks and original artwork, poetry and personal letters, scans of historic documents and, of course, an iPhone. You can also email suggestions of what you think should be included to Newsham at rnewsham@ci.ventura.ca.us.

 

Obviously, I think a newsprint (which might be extinct by 2113) copy of The Star is a must – and, selfishly at that, a Saturday edition when my column runs. There is no question that this time capsule, like all time capsules, is a wonderful undertaking. My only quibble is that they should not be sealed for 100 years before opening.

 

I think 13 years is about perfect.

 

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His 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 available for pre-order at: www.WoodyWoodburn.com

 

Column: Murphy’s (& Woody’s) Law

by Woody

 

What hath Murphy’s Law wrought?

 

            Seven years ago, after a successful 150-year run, Western Union sent the last telegram in U.S. history. The first telegram, sent by Samuel Morse famously read: “What hath God wrought?”

 

            On July 14, India’s state-owned telecom company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited will send the world’s last telegram. I don’t know what it will say, but “God hath wrought text messaging” is my suggestion.

 

            Or, perhaps, Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. STOP.”

 

            Woody’s Law, meanwhile – one of them, anyway – states that when something expensive breaks it will occur a few weeks after the warranty expired.

 

            Perhaps even more frustrating, and more frequent, is when something still under warranty breaks I will have lost the warranty form, sales receipt, original packaging or whatever else the company in question demands in order to honor its contract.

 

            Such was the case a couple days ago when a seven-year-old mattress guaranteed for 20 years suddenly turned as soggy as mashed potatoes. Couldn’t the company at least pay for my visit to the chiropractor to have my wrenched back adjusted?

 

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            Other people had worse encounters this week with Mr. Murphy. Marissa Powell, for example.

 

Asked a question about women in America earning less pay than men for equal work, Miss Utah USA’s train of thought derailed like an Amtrak in a hurricane; her eyes seemed to spin like the colored pinwheel when a computer freezes; and when her mind finally rebooted her response included: “We need to see how to . . . (panicked pause) . . . create education better.”

 

            Not the most stellar answer in pageant history, but Rick Perry, for one, better not be laughing at her expense. I mean at least she was running for Miss USA and not President USA.

 

            Mr. Woodburn certainly is not laughing at Miss Utah. I have the luxury of reading over, re-writing and editing my words before they go to print for public scrutiny and still I often seem to need “education better.”

 

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            Speaking of spinning rainbow pinwheels, another of Woody’s Laws is that your computer will freeze up right before you decide to save two hours worth of work.

 

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            Sometimes, thankfully, Murphy’s Law takes a punch on the nose.

 

            Ventura College gets many things wrong, from cutting popular classes to locking the running track from public use, but it got it totally right and set a lofty example for all California community colleges – in fact, all universities – by recently inducting Beck Santillan Hull into the VC Athletic Hall of Fame. She became the first in her position ever honored by a California school. Let’s hope she is not the last.

 

            Hull did not make headlines by swinging a tennis racket or golf club or swishing 3-pointers. Rather, she was an athletic-specific counselor who made sure Pirate athletes hit the books as hard as the weights and excelled in the classroom so they would be eligible for the playing fields and courts.

 

The life lessons Hull instilled over her 28-year career at VC will have a positive impact on the lives of student-athletes – “my kids” she affectionately called them – long after their newspaper sports clippings have yellowed with age.

 

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The CIF-Southern Section, meanwhile, suffered brain-freeze when it named Rio Mesa/Thousand Oaks high product Marion Jones to its “100 Greatest Athletes” list.

 

Including the disgraced sprinter who was stripped of her Olympic medals for using performance-enhancing drugs is shameful. If she cheated on the world stage, why should we believe she ran clean in high school?

 

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            Sometimes I get the last laugh on Woody’s Laws. Such as midweek when our three-year-old hot-water tank burst.

 

            Sure, it happened at nighttime when a plumber would charge extra to come out – but it didn’t happen while we were gone so that the garage would have become a Great Lake instead of merely a pond before being discovered.

 

            And, of course, I couldn’t find the 10-year warranty – but our plumber had it on file so no worries!

 

            Well, one: the manufacturer has since “improved” the model and hit us with an “upgrade fee.”

 

Murphy’s Law gets the last laugh. STOP.

 

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His 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 available for pre-order at: www.WoodyWoodburn.com