Column: Small Appreciations

March 8, 2014 by Woody

Rain, Snow and the Art of Appreciation

As you were drifting off to sleep during the recent storms, did you hear the nighttime raindrops dancing on your rooftop?

I mean really hear nature’s symphony? To these ears, a Mozart piano concerto was never lovelier.

And after the clouds cleared did you see the Monet-like brushstrokes left behind on our mountains? To be honest, I missed them until a friend shared an encounter she had during her daily morning walk.

Standing smack-dab in the middle of the street in her neighborhood was a man she had never before seen. Her first thought was, “What is he doing?” And a second: “I hope he doesn’t get run over.”

As she passed, the man said, “I was just taking a moment before work to appreciate the snow on the mountains. We just moved here.”

With that he climbed into his truck and drove off, his day off to a grander start than had he been in a hurried rush.

As my friend noted afterwards: “We hear all the time about gratitude; appreciation for little things; things we take for granted. Find them – just don’t get hit by a car!”

Sometimes we all need reminders of our blind spots, our deaf spots, of things – both little and large – we take for granted. We need fresh counsel on an old maxim by Walter Hagen: “Don’t hurry. Don’t worry. You’re only here for a short visit. So don’t forget to stop and smell the roses.”

Also, stop and look at the snow on the mountains.

“The journey is better than the inn,” is how Cervantes poetically put this Zen-like ideal in the 17 th century.

Much more recently in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values,” first published in 1974, Robert M. Pirsig wrote about climbing a mountain and how too many people focus only on reaching its summit:

“When you’re no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn’t just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. THIS leaf has jagged edges. THIS rock looks loose. These are things you should notice. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here’s where things grow.”

Here’s where things grow, indeed, and life’s sustaining pleasures happen.

Here’s where mountains are frosted with snow.

Here’s where children laugh on a merry-go-round and smile as melting ice cream drips down their chins and scream with delight when a rogue wave crashes into a sandcastle.

Here’s firefly-like sparks rising above a glowing campfire.

Here’s a child’s kite and a Monarch butterfly both dancing on a shared breeze.

Here’s where the shade beneath the canopy of a magnificent oak is perfect for reading or napping or daydreaming.

Here’s a seagull gracefully suspended without even flapping its wings.

Here’s a father running alongside as his young daughter learns to ride a two-wheeler, the girl unaware her dad is no longer holding the seat to provide balance.

Here’s a speedy mother pushing a jogging stroller, both faces joyous.

Here’s noticing the new beauty in a loved one’s face you have stared at a million times before.

Here’s a friend’s smile and a dog’s tail wag.

Here’s the Ventura Pier, in its own way as majestic as the Eiffel Tower.

Here’s the Channel Islands, as beautiful as Yosemite’s Half Dome.

Here’s a boy tracking mud inside and a Zen-like mother wise enough to know she will too soon miss his messes.

Here’s wildflowers blossoming in springtime and stars doing likewise at nighttime.

Here’s a balletic surfer using the face of a wave as her canvas.

Here’s a painting, as imaginative and wonderful as anything by Picasso, held by magnets on a refrigerator door.

Here’s Two Trees standing sentinel in evening silhouette.

Here’s “young love” walking hand-in-hand along the beach – and old lovers doing so, too.

Here’s the arrival gate at the airport.

Here’s an inspiring sunrise and a clear sunset, and also here’s thunderclouds and a rainbow afterwards.

Here’s where memories grow.

Here’s a reminder to take time to look at the snow-capped mountains – and at all of the “roses” along life’s journey.

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com

Check out 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”

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

Column: Two Special Hoosiers

March 2, 2014March 2, 2014 by Woody

Wooden & Tavis: Two Hoosiers Cut From Same Rare Cloth

Twenty-seven years ago this month, half my lifetime ago, I received the most wonderful of invitations when John Wooden asked me to join him for a four-mile morning walk.

This week I received another heady invite – to be a guest on “The Tavis Smiley Show” (Listen Here) to reminisce about Coach Wooden.

Tavis Smiley is a Wooden-esque role model.

Airing on Public Radio International, the show reaches more than 700 affiliates nationwide. For an author, it is a momentous opportunity. But to be honest, it would have mattered little to me if the mic had failed to record the interview.

No, the thrill among thrills was getting to meet Smiley, whom I have long admired for his gifts as TV and radio host, publisher and best-selling author – and above all for his life-changing philanthropic work. At age 49, Smiley has accomplished enough for three lifetimes. He must get by on two hours sleep.

Though four years my junior, Smiley has been a hero I look up to.

The risk with meeting heroes in person is they rarely measure up to the ideals in your mind. Smiley, however, did not disappoint. Rather, he exceeded all expectations. In this manner and more, Tavis Smiley reminds me greatly of John Wooden, my all-time idol.

The similarities begin with both having grown up in Indiana and working their way through college: Wooden at Purdue and Smiley at rival Indiana University after arriving on campus with $50 in his pocket.

It comes as no surprise that Smiley says the two Hoosiers hit it off swimmingly from their first hello when they met for an interview.

Why wouldn’t they? Smiley epitomizes all 15 blocks in Wooden’s famous “Pyramid of Success” – Industriousness, Friendship, Loyalty, Cooperation, Enthusiasm, Self-Control, Alertness, Initiative, Intentness, Condition, Skill, Team Spirit, Poise, Confidence, and Competitive Greatness.

As a specific example, consider “Intentness” which Wooden defined thusly: “Stay the course. When thwarted try again; harder; smarter. Persevere relentlessly.”

As a college junior, Smiley wrote a letter each week, month after month after month, to Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley seeking a summer internship.

Thwarted, Smiley bought an airline ticket he could ill afford and flew to L.A. – without an appointment – to try to achieve his goal through a personal appeal.

Again told there were no internships available, Smiley persevered. He sent a handwritten letter “from the heart” to Bradley and finally received a coveted position.

Smiley has used this same Competitive Greatness to win his own Wooden-like collection of NCAA basketball titles, so to speak, including being named one of “The World’s 100 Most Influential People” by TIME magazine; receiving the prestigious Du Bois Medal from Harvard University; and, next month, being honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Another similarity: Smiley’s signature “Keep the faith” TV sign-off always makes me think of the Wooden because the top block of the Pyramid of Success is held in place by a special mortar comprised of two ingredients: Faith and Patience.

To be sure, these two devout Hoosiers are cut of the same rare cloth.

Signed copies are available here at WoodyWoodburn.com
Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook at Amazon.com

Another “Wooden-ism” embodied by Smiley: “You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.” He does so through numerous philanthropic donations and deeds, including his nonprofit foundation that has provided “Youth to Leaders” training workshops and conferences to more than 6,000 youngsters.

Indeed, Smiley shares Wooden’s belief that “young people need fewer critics and more models.”

This is actually true for people of all ages.

Before I left the Sheryl Flowers Radio Studios in Los Angeles, Smiley was expressing his admiration for Coach Wooden and Muhammad Ali, among other heroes of his, and opined: “We don’t make ’em like that anymore.”

“Sure we do,” I countered. “Look in the mirror.”

Tavis Smiley smiled modestly, said thanks sincerely, but disagreed humbly.

It is exactly how John Wooden used to respond to superlative praise, no matter how rightly deserved.

Column: 1 Sour Tale, 2 Sweet Ones

February 22, 2014 by Woody

Sour Story And 2 Sweet Tales

Three small boys. Crayons, a toy truck, ice cream. A good-morning hug, a morning smile, tears.

First the ice cream and tears.

Dan Pearce’s “Single Dad Laughing” blog is so hugely popular his most recent post has received 10,730 comments – about 10,730 of them angry.

Not at Pearce, but at what he witnessed in a Costco and wrote about in an essay that is no laughing matter. Headlined “You Just Broke Your Child. Congratulations” the 2,000-word piece begins: “Dads. Stop breaking your children. Please.”

Pearce continues: “As Noah and I stood in line to make a return, I watched as a little boy (he couldn’t have been older than six) looked up at his dad and asked very timidly if they could buy some ice cream when they were done. The father glared him down, and through clenched teeth, growled at the boy to ‘leave him alone and be quiet.’ The boy quickly cowered to the wall where he stood motionless and hurt for some time.

“The line slowly progressed and the child eventually shuffled back to his father as he quietly hummed a childish tune, seemingly having forgotten the anger his father had just shown. The father again turned and scolded the boy for making too much noise. The boy again shrunk back and cowered against the wall, wilted.

“I was agitated. I was confused. How could this man not see what a beautiful spirit stood in his shadow? How could this man be so quick to stub out all happiness in his own boy? How could this man not cherish the only time he’ll ever have to be everything to this boy? To be the person that matters most to this boy?

“We were three from the front now, and the boy started to come towards his dad yet again. His dad immediately stepped out of the line, jammed his fingers into his son’s collarbones until he winced in pain, and threatened him: ‘If you so much as make a sound or come off of that wall again, I promise you’re going to get it when we get home.’

“The boy again cowered against the wall. This time, he didn’t move. He didn’t make a sound. His beautiful face pointed down, locked to the floor and expressionless. He had been broken.”

Pearce goes on to powerfully, and poetically, describe at length what a “gift” it is to be a dad and concludes: “Dads. Every child has the innate right to ask for ice cream without being belittled and broken. . . . Every child deserves a superhero dad.”

Manuel Sanchez is a superhero to someone else’s child.

Sanchez drives a sanitation truck in Ojai and his route takes him past 5-year-old Daniel Mulligan’s home. Daniel is autistic and loves garbage trucks. Every Monday morning he waits out front to wave at Sanchez and excitedly watch as the truck’s mechanical claw reaches out to nosily grab and empty the trash cans.

Last Monday, Sanchez did more than wave back and smile – he parked and gave Daniel a new toy garbage truck. Daniel’s mother captured the magical moment on video. Titled simply “The Gift” it has gone viral on Facebook and YouTube.

Enjoying a laugh, and a hug, with my Little Guy now grown up.

You cannot watch “The Gift” without smiling – and also sadly wishing the boy in Costco had a dad like Sanchez.

Or like Drew Daywalt.

I met Daywalt a few weeks past at Mrs. Fig’s Bookworm in Camarillo when he was signing “The Day The Crayons Quit” which is No. 1 on The New York Times Best Seller List for Children’s Picture Books. As fellow dads and writers, and native Ohioans, we hit it off like old friends.

The day I read Single Dad Laughing’s heartbreaking essay, Drew shared this heartwarming post with his Facebook friends:

“I hugged Reese when we woke up this morning. And I told him he was beautiful. He said, ‘Boys aren’t beautiful. They’re handsome,’ and I said, ‘I dunno man. . . You are really beautiful in my eyes.’ He hugged me and smiled.”

In my book, that’s the picture of a superhero dad.

Just Say Hello: “WOODEN & ME”

February 20, 2014February 20, 2014 by Woody | 1 Comment

Excerpted from WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Chapter 22: FRIENDLINESS

“If we magnified blessings as much as we magnify disappointments,

we would all be much happier.”

– John Wooden

* * *

When I am running it is my nature to smile and give a “runner’s nod” or quick wave to others I encounter on the roads, trails and bike paths. In more intimate social situations, as with many writers, I am a bit introverted. However, Coach Wooden helped me become more outgoing with a folksy story from his life. It remains one of my favorites.

* * *

On the way to the airport after a weeklong stay in Southern California, the visitor from the Midwest complained to his transplanted host: “John, I honestly don’t know how you can stand to live here. No one is friendly here like they are back home.”

“Sure they are,” the host answered. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I’ve been here an entire week and not a single person out on the street or sidewalks has said ‘Hi’ to me.”

“Did you say ‘Hello’ to them?” asked the host.

“Well, no, because I didn’t know any of them.”

John Wooden, the host for his visiting Hoosier friend, shared this anecdote – this life lesson – with me more than a couple times. Each retelling was punctuated by a wry smile.

I was reminded of this story when I traveled to West Lafayette, Indiana to visit Dallas at Purdue University, Wooden’s alma mater, which is only ninety miles from Coach’s hometown of Martinsville. For good reason Purdue proudly claims “Johnny” as its favorite son to this day.

Back to Wooden’s story about the visitor and friendliness. I would like to share a few scenes that played out during my small-town Indiana trip.

At the airport, from across a large room an elderly woman asked the airline workers if they had someone who could help with her luggage. When no response came, she asked again, more loudly, and in more distress. This time an airline worker yelled back, his voice cold and uncaring: “No, ma’am!”

In a blink, a traveler in the middle of a long line gave up his place to go assist the woman. The friendliness did not end there. When the Good Samaritan returned to the end of the line, the person at the very front beckoned him to go before her – which, incidentally, was much further ahead than where he had been standing before he went to help. What is more, the rest of the people in line warmly waved him forward.

Also I saw this: A mother in a parking lot with a small child balanced on one hip, a bag of groceries in the other arm and car keys apparently misplaced in her purse. In stepped another woman who kindly lent a helping hand and also took her shopping cart to the return rack.

Another example: A gentleman in a suit and tie raced out of a bagel shop for about one hundred yards in pursuit of a young woman pushing a stroller in order to give her the pacifier her baby had dropped.

And another: A boy, no older than eight, was a quarter short paying for a smoothie and began searching his pockets for more change. A stranger behind him, college-aged, reached into his own pocket and handed the needed coin to the cashier. A small thing, yes, but it mattered to the young boy.

Lastly: Hellos from strangers; friendly smiles in passing; small talk and small acts of kindness. There is nothing like Hoosier hospitality – except that all of the above travel-day scenes happened in Ventura and Los Angeles International Airport before I arrived in Indiana.

As Civil War Union General Joshua Chamberlain observes in Michael Shara’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Killer Angels: “Home. One place is like another, really. Maybe not. But the truth is it’s all just rock and dirt and people are roughly the same.”

Coach Wooden knew this well. Sometimes you just have to say “Hello” first.

* * *

Excerpted from WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon.
Personalized signed copies are available here!

Column: “Jewell” of a friendship

February 15, 2014February 15, 2014 by Woody

Caregivers is “Jewell” of an Organization

“Giving does not empty your hands,” says my son, Greg, wise beyond his years. “It prepares them to be filled.”

Too, giving prepares your heart to be filled. Caregivers Assisting The Elderly, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary in Ventura County, is proof of this.

Jewell Butcher with her favorite scarf.

A decade past, as a high school sophomore, my daughter became a volunteer for Caregivers’ “Building Bridges” intergenerational program. Her heart was filled by the experience.

“After school and on weekends, groups of teenagers supervised by Caregiver adults visit the homes of senior citizens and help them with gardening, cleaning, and other household chores,” Dallas notes. “But the most requested service is simply providing a few minutes of company.”

Caregivers as friendship givers.

By coincidence, Jewell Butcher lived alone less than a mile away from Dallas.

It was no coincidence Jewell’s house was freshly painted as bright yellow as a sunflower on the outside and inside the blue of a cloudless summer sky. Jewell, then 76, had recently survived a heart attack and when she returned home she wanted to be surrounded by cheerful colors.

“The obvious pleasure she found in our company filled my heart,” Dallas recalls of her first Caregivers visit with Jewell. “She told us a little about herself, but mostly asked questions – about school, about our families, about our dreams.”

Bidding goodbye, Jewell hugged Dallas and warmly said: “Please come back soon.”

Dallas did. She dropped by “The Sunflower House” frequently. Jewell would make tea and the two would talk for hours on end.

“She was a natural storyteller who delighted in the smallest details,” Dallas remembers. “I learned that as a young woman, Jewell and her mother moved to California from Missouri. She had lived in Ventura for more than half a century and I loved hearing what my hometown was once like.”

Long before Caregivers assisted Jewell, she was the caregiver for her mother through a long terminal illness.

“Even when sharing a sad story,” Dallas marvels, “Jewell would end it with a smile and say, ‘I sure am lucky. I’ve had such a blessed life.’ She was an inspiration.”

Around the time Dallas moved off to college, Jewell moved into an assisted living facility. They talked about the similar new chapters in their lives: “I was making new friends in the dorms and going to parties on weekends; she was making new friends in the dining hall and going to bingo nights.”

In Dallas’s absence, her younger brother visited Jewell.

“She never married and had no children, but I like to think Greg and I became her surrogate grandchildren,” Dallas says, adding happily: “Other Townehouse residents often assumed we were her grandkids and she always smiled and never corrected them.”

Going out to lunch delighted Jewell and Dallas laughingly remembers how her frail companion sprinkled Splenda on most everything, even syrupy pancakes and crepes.

But an even sweeter memory was the time Jewell asked Dallas and Greg to drive her to the store because she dearly wanted a disposable camera.

“We had to go right away in the middle of a visit,” Dallas retells. “When we finally returned to her room the urgency of her request became clear – she wanted to take a picture of the three of us to hang on her refrigerator.”

“I miss you when you’re away,” Jewell told them.

“We miss you, too.”

When the photos were developed, Jewell mailed copies to Dallas and Greg. She also enclosed a snapshot of her wearing a sky-blue scarf Dallas knitted as a gift the previous Christmas.

“I love that photo,” Dallas says. “I have it in a frame on my dresser. Jewell’s smile was contagious – still is.”

Having one’s heart filled eventually exacts a steep price: heartache. Three years ago this week a brief illness claimed Jewell’s life at age 86.

“I was living in Indiana and as always sent my dear friend a card for Valentine’s Day,” Dallas shares. “Jewell died on February 12, but I like to think she received my card before she passed.”

I like to think so, too. I know this: Caregivers is a Jewell of an organization.

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.

WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the

Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

Column: Nine Shades of Gray And One Redhead

February 8, 2014 by Woody

Club’s Story is a Real Page-Turner

If her memory serves, and Doris Cowart’s mind is quicker than a Google search, Tillie Hathaway merits credit for starting the first book club in Ventura.

“Her husband was a lawyer and she was an RN who made house calls on horseback, so this was sometime before World War II,” recalls Doris, who herself enjoyed a long post-buggy nursing career after coming to Ventura in 1951. “The club is still going.”

It meets now on the second Thursday each month at rotating homes but always beginning at 1 p.m. with coffee, dessert and small talk about children, grandchildren and great-grandkids, vacation cruises and doctor appointments, before finally turning to page-turners.

Doris, who at age 90 swims one-mile four days a week, joined The Thursday Book Club a full half-century ago when the year’s best-sellers included “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” by John Le Carre and Ian Fleming’s “You Only Live Twice.”

Because nonfiction people only live once, and because of Alzheimer’s, and because of people moving away, membership slowly dwindled. Meanwhile, a second longtime local book club experienced similar losses.

So the two groups had a blind date to see if they were compatible. They were. Today’s merged membership consists of Mary Ann Benton, Annette Clark, Mary Jo Coe, Doris Cowart, Rose Adelle Marsh, Billie Radcliffe, Katherine Stone, Suzanne Sheridan, Barbara Swanson and Arlys Tuttle. Three have been members for 50 years while only two for less than a decade.

To be sure, E.L. James’ “Fifty Shades of Grey” won’t have the staying power of this Nine Shades of Gray And One Redhead. Their hairstyles are short and stylish, varying from straight to curls; lipstick and reading glasses seem required while e-reader tablets are optional.

“Oh, no. No e-reader for me,” says Arlys Tuttle. “I’ll always love books with pages you can feel and turn.”

The problem with e-books, the Nine Shades of Gray And One Redhead agree, is you can’t share one among friends until no one else wants to borrow it, at which time you can donate it to The Friends of the Library to resell for fundraising.

Another fundraising effort is the passing of “The Money Bag” – a blue canvas sack with a drawstring that looks like something a pirate would keep booty in – for each member to contribute loose change.

“If somebody dies we know their interest and buy a book for the library in their honor,” Mary Ann shared.

Added Doris, laughing: “It’s not an honor any of us wants!”

Laughs are frequent.

One woman concluded her review of a book that a fellow member had also read: “Fascinating, didn’t you think?”

“No, I didn’t like it,” came the reply followed by merriment all around.

Another lady, after hearing a positive review, asked to borrow the book next only to see her name written inside the cover as the original owner. She teased herself: “I read a book and forget it two weeks later!”

To be fair, there are myriad books to try to remember considering each member regularly reads two or six or even more a month. They then take turns giving synopses on a couple, good and bad.

A mere sampling of recommended reads on this day included: “And The Mountains Echoed” by Khaled Hosseini; “The Tennis Partner” by Dr. Abraham Verghese; David McCullough’s “Truman” and “John Adams”; “The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild” by Lawrence Anthony; and “Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald” by Therese Anne Fowler.

Also Elizabeth Stout’s “The Burgess Boys” and “Olive Kitteridge”; “The Snow Child” by Eowyn Ivey; “The Racketeer” by John Grisham; “Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before” by Tony Horwitz; “The Round House” by Louise Erdrich; “Winter of the World: Book Two of the Century Trilogy” by Ken Follett; and “The Lowland” by Jhumpa Lahiri.

Oh, yes, and “The Longest Ride” by Nicholas Sparks, of which Doris sheepishly shared: “I hate to admit I bought this in a weak moment, but it was actually one of his better ones.”

No one, however, confessed to reading “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

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.

Book Review: “A very good thing”

February 3, 2014 by Woody

Sports Columnist Forges Bond with Legendary Coach

By Ken McAlpine

Special to The Ventura County Star (June 8, 2013)

(Ken McAlpine lives in Ventura. His magazine articles have earned three Lowell Thomas awards, travel writing’s top award.)

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.

Woodburn 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.

Column: Super Bowl “Tin Man”

February 1, 2014 by Woody

Homeless ‘Tin Man’ has company

I think about Willie from time to time, which is saying something when you consider I met him only briefly 22 Januarys past.

I do not remember much from that Super Bowl XXVII in Pasadena I covered, but I haven’t forgotten Willie.

In truth, I see Willie still. I see him in town and downtown and at our beaches. I see him in parks and parking lots and lots of other places.

Willie was homeless.

I have long forgotten any down-and-out pass patterns run by Dallas Cowboys or Buffalo Bills receivers that distant Super Bowl Sunday, but the image of down-and-out Willie remains stored on my mental hard drive.

Troy Aikman was the game MVP and thus celebrated the Cowboys’ one-sided victory by going to Disneyland; Willie probably celebrated by going to a soup kitchen. To be sure, a restaurant meal was a Fantasyland for him.

I met Willie outside the Rose Bowl stadium a few hours before kickoff when he asked if he could have the soda can I was still drinking from. After I took a final gulp, Willie crushed it with a smooth foot stomp before flipping it into a grocery cart nearly brimming with other flattened cans and empty bottles.

We got to talking and I learned Willie’s nickname was “Tin Man.” While it would have been more accurate, L. Frank Baum never wrote about and the band America never sang about “ALUMINUM Man.”

Certainly “Tin Man” looked as weathered as a rusty can and walked like his knees could use a few squirts from an oilcan.

The Super Bowl is America’s tailgate biggest party, but for Willie it was a workday. The growing litter on the Rose Bowl grounds came into his focus like a field of blooming poppies outside Oz. Indeed, instead of earning the $10 or so he did on a typical day of scavenging, “Tin Man” figured he’d collect a bounty of recyclables worth close to $100.

If he had ever been on it, “Tin Man” veered off the Yellow Brick Road years earlier. The cause might have been a lost job or catastrophic medical bills, alcoholism or drug addiction, mental illness or perhaps a combination of the aforementioned – I didn’t ask, he didn’t tell.

Just as Willie’s shopping cart was overflowing with empty cans, our world is filled with too many Tin Men and Tin Women, Tin Teens and Tin Children.

Even the great Oz would have been powerless in solving homelessness, but that is not preventing Harbor Community Church in midtown Ventura from trying to make a dent. For the past five years its Operation Embrace program’s mission has been to “reach the least of these among us.”

Recently, however, the Ventura Planning Commission denied the church the right to run its homeless ministry on account it is in a residential neighborhood. Upon appeal, the Ventura City Council is now weighing in on whether to grant a conditional-use permit.

Few argue the church’s work is less than worthy. Rather, as is so often the case – and often understandable – the contention against is Not In My Back Yard. And fewer people still want the homeless element it in their schoolyard – an elementary school is next-door Harbor. Furthermore, residents in the area claim crime has increased since Harbor began embracing the homeless.

The obvious compromise is to move Operation Embrace. The reality is feeding 4,000 with two fish and five loaves of bread might be less a miracle than finding a new location. NIMBY, after all. Everyplace is someone’s backyard and neighborhood.

I don’t know the answer, but have one question: Would an increased police patrol be the healing salve?

I know this: there but for the grace of God any one of us could go, needing a caring (Operation) Embrace.

Leaving the press tent after filing that long-ago Super Bowl column, I saw “Tin Man” still toiling. I went back inside and got him a couple hot dogs and a soda.

“Thanks, man,” Willie said, his one-tooth-missing smile flashing warmly on a chilly winter night. “You’re all right.”

Truth is, it wasn’t much at all but doing nothing is all wrong.

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: No More Mr. Nice Guy

January 25, 2014 by Woody

No More Mr. Nice Guy Today

If you were expecting 700 words of nice this morning, read no further because I’m in a Stuck-In-Gridlock-On-The-George-Washington-Bridge kind of mood and I don’t care who is responsible for the closed lanes or why. Honk! Honkkkk!

You want nice? Watch an old Tom Hanks movie. Speaking of which, I’m steamed that Hanks was not nominated for an Oscar for either his lead role in “Captain Phillips” or his supporting performance in “Saving Mr. Banks.”

It has now been 13 years since “Cast Away” when Hanks – a back-to-back Academy Award winner in 1994 and 1995 for “Philadelphia” and “Forrest Gump” – was last nominated for the gold statue.

Suddenly Hollywood’s Nice Guy seems like an Oscar castoff.

You want nice? Curl up with a warm chocolate chip cookie. I’m as steamed as a chef who has just cracked a rotten egg into the soufflé batter.

Speaking of rotten eggs, do we really need to spend valuable Los Angeles County sheriff resources sending deputies with a felony search warrant to raid Bieber’s mansion and seize his cell phone and home security camera system looking for clues about who egged the next-door house (albeit causing an estimated $20,000 in damage)?

How about this for quick justice: let the neighbor throw eggs until his arm grows tired at Bieber’s home.

And speaking of swift justice and throwing, how about if a judge finally throws the book at Bieber after Miami police charged the 19-year-old foul-mouthed pop star with drunken driving, resisting arrest and driving without a valid license at 4 a.m. Thursday morning?

You want nice? Put on a Bieber love song. I’m in a Bieber-cursing-out-the-police kind of rage.

The L.A. Dodgers just signed pitcher Clayton Kershaw to a $215 million, seven-year contract, which works out to $30.7 million per season or roughly $1 million per game he pitches (if he remains healthy); or about $1.5 million per victory in a 20-win season; or $1.9 million if he wins 16 games as he did last season.

But what has me Dodger Blue-in-the-face mad is that on top of an annual salary of about 90 teachers combined, Kershaw will receive a $1 million bonus for winning the Cy Young Award and $500,000 for any second- or third-place finish.

For $30 million annually, shouldn’t he have to GIVE BACK $1 million if he doesn’t win the Cy Young Award?

Speaking of wasted money, I am HOT under the collar about the Ventura County Transportation Commission recently approving the expenditure of $111,000 to hire a consultant to do a feasibility study for adding 31 miles of HOT – High Occupancy Toll – lanes in both directions on Highway 101 from the Los Angeles County line to Highway 33 in Ventura.

Kudos, and good rush-hour karma, to Linda Parks who was the only commissioner to see the value in putting $111,000 to better use.

You want nice? Go watch a Southern California sunset.

Which is another thing I am ticked off about – locals posting photographs of our spectacular Gold Coast beach sunsets on Facebook and Instagram for everyone in the country suffering through the Arctic vortex to see and get jealous and angry at us about.

Heck, Monet would have gazed at our recent evening skies and set down his paintbrush in resignation, knowing full well he could not do the scene justice.

I am reminded of a winter trip we took with my wife’s family to a beautiful resort in Mexico. Each evening at Happy Hour everyone would sit on the beach and marvel as the sun gently dipped into the ocean’s horizon.

“Ooooh!” and “aaaah!” the others said, while my much-better-half and I had a reaction of “ho-hum.” There were no clouds to become ablaze; no distant islands to frame the vision.

We felt like Norma Desmond, the faded silent movie star in “Sunset Boulevard” who dreams of making a triumphant return to the screen, when she says: “We didn’t need dialogue. We had faces. There just aren’t any faces like that anymore.”

There just aren’t sunsets anywhere like here. Suddenly, I’m in a nice mood again.

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: Let Service Ring

January 19, 2014 by Woody | 1 Comment

Let Service Ring on MLK Day

A number of years ago, a wise newspaperman – no, that is too limiting; a wise man – shared with me a recent scene that had made him smile and feel more hopeful about the world.

What he saw was this: a young white boy and his African-American friend riding double on a bike.

What he said next was this: “It was wonderful, but then I realized what would be even more wonderful was if I had simply seen two boys riding double.”

Those words come to my mind each year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day –

which is this Monday – because they so vividly echo this line from Dr. King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech: “I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.”

MLK Day is unique among federal holidays because in 1994 Congress designated it a national day of service – “a day on, not a day off” – when Americans are encouraged to participate in volunteer projects. (To find local MLK Day of Service events go to http://mlkday.gov/serve/find.php)

Congress gets so many things wrong, but honoring Dr. King with a day of service seems right on. As King said: “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’ ”

In this same light, he noted: “Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
And this: “Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.”

As a service in giving me the rest of the day off, I will let Dr. King’s words finish this column.

“Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.”

“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”

“I have decided to stick to love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

“The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’ ”

“The time is always right to do the right thing.”

“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.”

“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”

“We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.”

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

“If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.”

“Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”

“No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”

“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.”

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’ ”

“It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.”

“Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.”

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.

WOODY WOODBURN

Writer, "Streaker" & Speaker

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