Author Archives: Woody

Column: Super Bowl “Tin Man”

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.TinMan

 

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.

 

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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 at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.

 

Column: No More Mr. Nice Guy

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.”Beiber

 

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.

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            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?

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            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?

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            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.

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            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.

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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 at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.

 

Column: Let Service Ring

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.

 

            MLKWhat 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.

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

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

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

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“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?’ ”

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

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

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

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“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.”

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

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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

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“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.”

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

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

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

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“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.’ ”

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

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“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.”

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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 at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.

 

 

Column: Board Game Fun has Risk

by Woody

Board game fun comes with a Risk!

 

            In the back of my son’s bedroom closet is a family heirloom of sorts that has not been removed from its tattered cardboard box in decades. It is kept on the top shelf, out of reach of young hands, for safety’s sake.1Risk

 

            Inside the rectangular flat box is a very early edition (circa 1963 according to the faded Rules For Play booklet within) of Risk, the Parker Brothers board game of world domination – and sibling warfare. I can tell you firsthand that Risk! can turn brothers into Cain and Abel.

 

            Screeds have been written about the evils of video games so I will mention just one statistic here: according to the website education.com “a nationally representative study found that the average American 8-to-18 years old plays video games for 13.2 hours per week.”

 

            In other words, about the same amount of time it takes to complete one game of Risk! or two playings of Monopoly.

 

            I imagine one of the positive things about the arctic blast that has swept across the United States like troops of Risk armies across colored continents is that bored snowbound families have dusted off board games and enjoyed some spirited battery-free fun.

 

            Instead of arctic air, the storm that put The Big Chill on my family’s winter break was my son celebrating his 24th birthday with the unwanted gift of mononucleosis hepatitis. Too tired to read, and never much of a TV watcher, he pulled out the old board games.

 

            Who knew a time machine came in a long, flat box? With a roll of the dice, my son and 26-year-old daughter became 8 and 10 again. So did my wife (I’m too wise to share her pre-time machine age) and I.

 

            I vetoed us playing Risk due to lingering PTSD from battles with my two older brothers. While our boyhood Monopoly wars were fierce and usually included accusations of cheating, and counter accusations – some true – it was a marathon Risk showdown (God probably could not complete a game of Risk in six days) that saw our Cold War go nuclear.

 

Risk “battles” are decided by dice, and a hot streak by one brother would inevitably result in a demand by the opposing brother to switch dice. If this change of dice did not change the losing warrior’s luck, he would often throw a tantrum – and the dice. It’s remarkable no one lost an eye.

 

            Still, this was mild compared to what happened during one especially contentious game in the late 1960s that see-sawed on the caprice of the dice snowy day after snowy day.

 

The specifics of what transpired next depend on whom you ask. Jim and I contend under oath to this day that Doug ran into a record-breaking streak of bad luck with the dice at the same time Jim and I each got hotter than James Bond at a craps table. The result was Doug crapped out: his stockpiled armies were decimated by both Jim’s and my own smaller forces.

 

            Doug cried foul, claiming that Jim and I forged an illegal alliance that defied the United Nations, Geneva Convention and Risk’s official Rules of Play. There is no way, Doug still insists four decades later, that we could not have possibly anticipated his genius strategy that was more remarkable than the D-Day invasion and the battle of Gettysburg combined.

 

            As an exclamation mark to his accusation of our cheating, General Doug launched the entire Risk playing board across the family room as small red and black and green and blue and yellow wooden armies shot airborne like a rainbow of shrapnel from a hand grenade.

 

            And that is how The Last Game of Risk We Ever Played ended.

 

            By these standards, my family’s recent Sorry! battle was mild despite spousal attacks followed by sarcastic “I’m soooo Sorrrrry!” apologies and various alliances that proved more fickle than the social status of teenage girls in middle school.

 

In the end, The Kid With Mono snuck from dead-last to first.

 

He celebrated with a victory nap.

 

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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 at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.

 

Column: 2014 Crystal Ball

by Woody

A Crystal (Ball) Clear Look at 2014

 

            With apologies to the Ventura County Star’s resident sports seer, Loren “The Lock” Ledin, the only psychics I have ever known who could predict the future with eerie accuracy were Jim “Swami” Parker and Derry “Swami II” aka “The Deuce” Eads.CrysstalBall

 

Unfortunately, Swami and Deuce have retired their Mattel Magic 8 Crystal Balls, leaving the prediction science open to mystic charlatans and wannabes such as the Denver Psychic Development group that predicts 2014 will see Earthquakes in the Midwest that cause the Mississippi River to change course; an earthquake registering almost 8 on the Richter Scale hitting Northern California between May 12 and May 16; and NASA revealing that its data shows there is currently life on Mars.

 

Meanwhile, psychic Sydney Friedman’s predictions include: Edward Snowden will return to the United States and will NOT face trial; snow falls in Southern Florida; and strange, eerie rumbling sounds are heard in the Midwest –

 

perhaps around 8 p.m. Thanksgiving?

 

And from Nikki, Psychic to the Stars, comes this dark handful: The pyramids in Egypt will sink; a worldwide power blackout; the Empire State Building will tip, and a shark will kill somebody at Coney Island.

 

Well, I have a few predictions of my own, as well as some wishes, for the coming year.

 

Prediction: Nikki will be wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

 

Wish: That Nikki is about as accurate as my NCAA Basketball Tournament pool picks.

 

Prediction: The telemarketing industry finally realizes it makes zero sales at the dinner hour and stops calling everyone then.

 

Wish: The Do Not Call Registry worked.

 

Prediction: A CHP officer pulls over Justin Bieber on suspicion the pop star’s car is stolen because it is not being driven recklessly.

 

Wish: Instead of hounding the rich and famous, the paparazzi would flat-out ignore them until they suffered Spotlight Withdrawal Syndrome and begged for the chance to pose for magazine and tabloid photos.

 

Prediction: NBC restructures Monday Night Football analyst Cris Collinsworth’s multi-million-dollar contract with a disincentive clause deducting $1,000 per word he says on air.

 

Wish: The “Silence is Golden” clause becomes the industry norm – except for Vin Scully’s contract which shall award a bonus per word spoken.

 

Prediction: The First Family of Tennis – Wayne, Kathy, Mike and Bob Bryan – will be inducted into the Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame.

 

Wish: Same as above.

 

Prediction: UCLA hires Fox News personality Megyn Kelly as a professor in Afro-American Studies.

 

Wish: Fox & Friends hires a UCLA Afro-American Studies professor.

 

Prediction: The Cleveland Browns get truly serious about raising breast cancer awareness by changing their team name to the Pinks and wearing uniforms to match all season, not just in October.

 

Wish: The American Cancer Society’s Relays For Life had no reason to exist.

 

Prediction: The U.S. Supreme Court will rule in Humpty Dumpty v. Alice which centers on this argument: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” . . . “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” In a rare 9-0 decision, the High Court rules it can make the Constitution mean so many different things.

 

Wish: That 5-4 decisions were not so common.

 

Prediction: An American 10-year-old boy wins the gold medal in the luge while sledding on a store-bought Flexible Flyer at the Sochi Winter Olympic Games.

 

Wish: Every athlete who makes it to the medals podium in Sochi bows his or her head while raising a fist of protest – a la Tommie Smith and John Carlos in the 1968 Summer Olympics – inside a rainbow-colored mitten.

 

Prediction: Tina Fey wins an Emmy, Oscar, Tony, and Golden Globe in 2014 while hosting each awards show.

 

Wish: Tina Fey finally breaks through Hollywood’s glass ceiling.

 

Prediction: A great white shark, launched airborne by a giant tsunami caused by an 8.0 earthquake, will land on the Ventura Pier and eat a tourist’s fish taco.

 

Wish: A fish taco right now.

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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 at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.

 

 

 

Column: List For Santa

by Woody

Last-Minute List for Santa

 

            Okay Mr. Ho Ho Ho, it’s almost go-go-go time. Before you finish checking your list twice and taking off on your Amazing Race around the world, here are a few last-minute gifts to pack in your sleigh.

 

            Give anyone who is upset about Ventura’s new ban on plastic shopping bags a couple reusable ones or a roll of dimes to pay the fees for paper bags.

 

Give small local businesses more of our business.

 

Give the world another Nelson Mandela – or as close a facsimile as possible.

 

Give a lump of coal to bullies – and a deadly computer virus to cyber bullies.

 

Give the NSA 40,000 copies of George Orwell’s “1984” for all its employees – or, more simply, just play one audiobook version over a cell phone and the NSA will take it from there.

 

Give Vin Scully a few more years behind the mic.

 

Give Dodgers fans the same as above.

 

Give Russia some enlightenment on homosexuality.

 

Give many Americans the same as above.

 

Give the 2014 Boston Marathon the most glorious Patriot’s Day imaginable.

 

Give all CEOs the mindset of Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard who helped create the “1% For The Planet” program and since 1985 has donated 1% of company sales ($46 million) to the preservation and restoration of the natural environment.

 

Give each and every member of Congress a pink slip.

 

Give America some sensible gun-control laws.

 

Give teachers extra school supplies so they don’t have to use their own money to buy them for their students.

 

Give every child spending the holidays in a hospital cancer ward a complete cure.

 

Give all adults battling cancer the same as above.

 

Give Rhiannon Potkey, who daily displays far more determination and courage than the athletes she covers, a cure for Fibromyalgia.

 

Give Mike and Bob Bryan each an extra trophy case – they’ll take care of filling it.

 

Give the Star’s Julius Gius Bellringer campaign a record total.

 

Give my humble Holiday Ball Drive, as it nears 100 new sports balls donated this year, a few more assists like these already dished out by, to name just a handful: Howard Reich, nine basketballs; Tom and Karyne Roweton, one football and one soccer ball; Sally and Tom Reeder, one volleyball, one soccer ball and one basketball; Glen Sittel, one football, one soccer ball, one basketball; and Alan Hammerand also one football, basketball and soccer ball, noting: “I chose the Boys and Girls Club because I saw the valuable services they provided to our youth during my career in probation. Quality after-school programs are a critical component in steering kids away from delinquency.”

 

Meanwhile, Linda and Jerry Mendelsohn donated 10 basketballs and 10 soccer balls to the Westpark Community Center, but the recipient children aren’t the only winners. As Jerry shared: “I took my grandson Garrick, now 3 ½, to purchase the balls with me, explaining to him how some kids are not as fortunate as he with toys, sports equipment, etc., and doing this will make them happy as well as us for helping out.”

 

And Jim Cowan helped out with his annual gift of 10 NBA basketballs, explaining: “These are in honor of the many people in my life that assisted me in developing enough skill at basketball that I was able to receive a college education! Among these folks was my dad, John Cowan. He nailed a coffee can to the garage door when I was a little boy, gave me a tennis ball to shoot with, and that was my start.

 

“Also my many coaches, including Cal Houston, Ventura Junior High School (now Cabrillo) who just turned 95 on Dec. 7; Bob Tuttle, Ventura High School; Elmer McCall, Ventura Junior College; and Aubrey Bonham, Whittier College. They not only taught me about basketball, but many life lessons as well. They were models I tried to emulate when I went into the field of education.”

 

Who can you honor by dropping off a new ball at a local youth group, fire station or other worthy charity in the next couple days? (If you do, email word of your donation to woodywriter@gmail.com).

 

Lastly, Santa, give anyone who reads this far a happy holidays and healthy 2014.

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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 at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.

 

Column: This, That and Ball Drive

by Woody

Notes, Thoughts and Ball Drive Update


            It is beyond remarkable the number of organizations – too many to begin to list them all – and countless individuals in Ventura County who provided gift toys and winter coats and meals to those in need this holiday season.WonderfulLife

 

Seemingly every day of December My Favorite Newspaper ran a story about a person or group that has helped turn Ventura County into Bedford Falls by selflessly giving to those in need.

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Speaking of Bedford Falls, my two cents says “It’s A Wonderful Life” remains the best holiday movie followed by “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

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            Three unsung “heroes” people love to see: the UPS deliveryman on Christmas Eve when you were worried that the last-minute gift you ordered wouldn’t arrive in time; a plumber on Thanksgiving when your house is filled with guests and a pipe has broken or the hot-water tank has burst; and a tow truck driver when your car breaks down on the freeway.

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            Another often-unsung “hero” is a gifted and caring family medicine doc who through the years provides such warm and expert care – especially to your kids, even when they become adults – that he (or she) seems like a member of the family.

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            It is amazing and maddening how many rude drivers there are on the roads, but perhaps more amazing and gladdening is how many polite ones.

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            It is a small thing, but I hate it when I’m paying cash and the total due runs a few pennies over a round dollar figure and I don’t have any small change and there’s no “Take A Penny, Leave A penny” dish at the register – meaning I am going to now have a pocketful of coins.

 

            But I love it when this happens and the employee rounds the figure down and hands me back the dollar bill that was going to cover the few cents.

 

            And I really love it, because it’s so unexpected, when this kindness happens at a big-name franchise that can usually seem so impersonal.

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            While I am generally not a fan of “big box” stores, Costco is the huge exception because its return policy is unbelievable. Basically, with a few exceptions for electronics, if you have a receipt they will cheerfully give you a full refund with no explanation for your return required. If you aren’t happy, they want to make it right.

 

            For example, while waiting in line to return a memory foam mattress topper that didn’t live up to expectations after three months – and feeling a little guilty because I waited so long while still sleeping on it – a woman in front of me returned half of a huge package of chicken. While it looked like it might have already fed a family of six, the customer walked away with a full refund no questions asked.

 

So did I.

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            However, my favorite store for customer service and a return policy that is second-to-none is our local (and world as well) treasure Patagonia Great Pacific Ironworks.

 

            When a zipper broke on a year-old backpack, I took it in to see if they could repair it and instead they replaced it – with a newer, better model.

 

            And when an aluminum water bottle got smashed beyond use after a couple years of heavy – and careless – use, I showed it to a worker almost to brag at the abuse it took while purchasing a replacement and to my great surprise was not charged. In my view, that even trumps refunding the full purchase price for half a bag of uncooked, dripping chicken.

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            Facebook makes keeping up with friends easy year-round, but there is simply nothing like an old-fashioned holiday card – usually with a photo, often with a newsletter – that arrives in the mail.

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Lastly, deepest thanks to each and all who contributed to Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive this year, including these Good Samaritans from the past week – Ron Bale, Brad and Mia Ditto, Ann Drescher,Draza Mrvichin, Roselind Seats, Jo Stalder, Stephenie, and Anonymous – who collectively donated 38 new sports balls to help bring the total of smiling faces this Christmas morning to 103!

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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 at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.

 

Column: A Christmas Story

by Woody

Visiting Santa in a Nick of Time

 

            Seeing children visiting Santa at the mall the other day made me wonder what they are asking for – Xbox One, Razor Crazy Cart, and Big Hugs Elmo top the Toys“R”Us 2013 hot toys list – and also got me to reminiscing.

 

The winter I was five there was only one thing I wanted for Christmas. No, not a bike or baseball mitt. I already had a twice-hand-me-down two-wheeler with coaster brakes that could skid on a dime and a thirdhand mitt better than brand new because it had been broken-in to supple perfection by my two older brothers.Santa

 

What I wanted was a rope. Moreover, for some reason it had to reach from the far wall of the dining room across the house to the kitchen’s furthest wall.

 

            Mom had always taken us to Lazarus Department Store to see Santa; always on the very first day he arrived; and always she came home on the edge of a nervous breakdown after trying to keep three rambunctious young boys in line – and in line – for an hour.

 

But this year Pop promised Mom he would take us. As each day passed and Christmas drew nearer and nearer, he kept putting the visit off. When Jim, Doug and I started to whine, Pop took us aside and shared a big secret we were not to tell Mom.

 

            “If you go too soon,” he explained, “Santa sometimes forgets what you asked for. Think of all the kids he talks to. So the closer you wait until Christmas, the better the chances are Santa will remember who you are, where you live, and what you asked for. If we go see Santa on Christmas Eve afternoon, there is no way he will forget you.”

 

Pop’s real secret, of course, was this: There is no line whatsoever to see Santa on Christmas Eve afternoon because only a knuckleheaded parent would torture kids by making them wait so very long.

 

            Christmas Eve finally arrived, and sitting on Santa’s lap I said: “I want a rope that reaches all the way from the kitchen wall to the dining room wall.”

 

            “Ho-ho-ho. What else do you want, young man?”

 

            “That’s all, Santa. A long cowboy rope.”

 

            Like my parents, and Saint Nick, you surely are wondering, “Why a rope?”

 

            Gee whiz, to make a lasso for roping our dog Mac and swing from a tree like Tarzan and play Batman by making foot traps to catch Penguin and Joker (my big brothers) and a thousand other things.

 

            When we returned home from our Lazarus excursion a half-hour later – the 10-minute drive each way included – Mom shot Pop a stare that would freeze Prestone and scolded: “I told you that you waited too long! Santa was gone and now don’t you feel terrible? I’m so sorry kids … ”

 

            Pop: “They saw Santa.”

 

            Jim, Doug and me (in happy unison): “We didn’t even have to wait in line!”

 

            I’m guessing Mommy didn’t kiss Santa Clause underneath the mistletoe that night.

 

            Early Christmas morning, we tore down the stairs and tore open our presents and inside one was a fat, silky-soft, white nylon rope, the tips of both ends melted coal black to prevent unraveling.

 

Before celebrating the glorious gift, I made Pop hold one end against the dining room wall while I marched across the house with the other end.

 

            Pop admitted many years later he was literally at the end of his rope in panic because he had not measured the actual distance between the two walls; he just went out and bought a generous length of the nicest rope he could find.

 

He also confesses that as I neared the far kitchen wall, and the rope began to grow taut, he pulled his end away from the dining room wall about two feet – which, in my excitement, thankfully went unnoticed by me.

 

Indeed, I not only thought Santa came through meeting my exact specifications but I was certain this was because we waited until Christmas Eve afternoon to see him so my gift request was fresh in his mind.

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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 at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.

 

Column: My 2013 Reading List

by Woody

‘So many books, so little time’ in 2013

 

“I guess there are never enough books,” the great author John Steinbeck once said while the late musician Frank Zappa offered this contrary observation: “So many books, so little time.”

 

I think they both hit the mark. Indeed, because I was so busy this past year writing my own contribution for the world’s endlessly expanding bookshelf – “Wooden & Me” – I found there was far too little time to reach my annual reading goal of 52 books.CaliforniosCover

 

From the 44 books I have read thus far in 2013, here is a short stack of high recommendations.

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“The Art of Fielding: A Novel” by Chad Harbach. This is not a sports novel, it is simply a terrific novel with a backdrop that happens to be a baseball diamond. Imagine Rocky Balboa as a scrawny shortstop at a tiny college suddenly destined for greatness in the Big Leagues – although underdog Henry Skrimshander’s gift could be music or painting or any other passion. Add in love and death, second chances and friendships, and a series of roller-coaster story lines and you have a one-hit shutout that keeps you on the edge of your seat until the final out – or throwing error.

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In 2012, I recommended “The Grapes of Wrath” and “East of Eden.” This year I went on a full-out John Steinbeck spree with “Cannery Row”, “Sweet Thursday”, “Tortilla Flat”, “The Winter of Our Discontent” and “Cup of Gold.” I recommend all five, and highly, although I think “Sweet Thursday” is my favorite of the handful.

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Jeff McElroy, a gifted author from Ventura County whose awards include first place in the national Writer’s Digest Short Story Contest, has long admired Steinbeck’s work and the influence is on display in “Californios: A Collection of Stories” that features powerful and gritty, yet elegant, storytelling that the master himself would have surely enjoyed.

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            Were I picking only three books to endorse this year, “The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics” byDaniel James Brown would without question make the podium – and perhaps atop in the gold-medal position. This inspirational true story is the eight-oar crew racing equivalent of the track-and-field standard “Chariots of Fire.”

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            On the topic of battling long odds, “David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants” by Malcolm Gladwell is a flat-out winner from start to finish.

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“One Summer: America, 1927” by Bill Bryson is a historical tapestry weaving together a wide range of people and events, although my favorite piece of yarn is Charles Lindbergh’s quest to become the first man to fly nonstop across the Atlantic.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald was on my reading list twice this year with “The Great Gatsby” which stands the test of time and “This Side of Paradise” which I wish I had left on the bookshelf to gather dust.

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            Speaking of paradise, Ventura author Ken McAlpine gets my nod of admiration for the third consecutive year. Previously, I enjoyed his nonfiction travel narratives “Islands Apart” and “Off-Season” and then his foray into fiction with “Fog” and “Together We Jump.” Now I recommend his new collection of personal essays titled “West Is Eden: Reflections On This Gift Called Life.” While it is thin on pages at 74, it is deep in emotion and enlightenment. McAlpine says, “Life’s little moments aren’t little at all” – nor is this small book little.

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Another paradise-themed book, though thicker at 440 pages, that beautifully examines the gifts of life – and nature – is “Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir” by Linnie Marsh Wolfe.

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Lastly, the first book I read in 2013 definitely merits mention: “The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates” by Wes Moore. “Our roots help to determine our routes” is a line from this book that features one Wes Moore who had roots trying to grow on cracked pavement and fed by drugs and negative role models while the other Wes Moore – the author and Rhodes Scholar – had a network of strong nurturing roots reaching deep into hearty soil, albeit inner-city soil, that refused to let the gale winds he encountered topple him.

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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 at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.

Column: Holiday Ball Drive

by Woody

Ball Drive Rings In Another Year

 

“The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you,” the Greek philosopher and sage Epictetusadvised, “whose presence calls forth your best.”

 

In this space today I therefore welcome the company – or at least the words and spirit – of Mother Teresa, Julius Gius and Chuck Thomas.BallDrive

 

Let me begin with Chuck, the longtime sage and philosopher of this Saturday column who passed away four years ago on this date. He once wrote: “If there’s someone whose friendship you treasure, be sure to tell them now — without waiting for a memorial service to say it.”

 

In a similar vein, Chuck wisely said, “Help someone today because you may not have the opportunity tomorrow.”

 

Helping people, specifically local disadvantaged children, is the aim of Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive that officially kicks off again today.

 

The inspiration for this endeavor was twofold, beginning about 20 years ago at a youth basketball clinic when former Ventura College and NBA star Cedric Ceballos awarded autographed basketballs to half a few lucky attendees.

 

Leaving the gym afterward, I happened upon a 10-year-old boy who had won one of the prized keepsakes – and was dribbling it on the rough blacktop outdoor court and shooting baskets, perhaps imagining he was Ceballos all the while. Meanwhile, the real Ceballos’ Sharpie signature was wearing off.

 

Curious why he hadn’t carefully taken the trophy basketball home to put on display safely in a bookshelf, I interrupted his playing to ask.

 

“I’ve never had my own basketball to shoot with before,” he answered matter-of-factly between shots.

 

Months later I thought of that boy – and boys and girls like him who don’t have their own basketball to shoot with, or soccer ball to kick or football to throw – and bought one of each to donate. The following year I doubled my giving but wished I could help at least 100 kids have a merrier Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa.

 

            As mentioned, my Holiday Ball Drive had two seeds of germination. The second was Julius Gius, the late, great editor of this paper and esteemed humanitarian. Gius’ lasting legacy of leadership and philanthropy includes creation of the The Star’s annual Christmas Bellringer campaign that to date has raised more than $1 million for the Salvation Army.

 

Instead of asking readers to drop loose change and bills into a holiday kettle, I was inspired to ask them to drop off a brand new sports ball for a kid in need.

 

You dear readers have responded like true MVPs – Most Valuable Philanthropists – by donating thousands of new basketballs, soccer balls and footballs over the ensuing years. Kids “with” have even helped kids “without” by raiding their piggybanks or cashing in recycled aluminum cans.

 

A great thing about a basketball, football or soccer ball as a holiday gift is that no batteries are required. Also, unlike most toys, a rubber ball is all but unbreakable.

 

A greater thing is this: studies show that youth involved with sports do better in school and are less likely to drop out. Girls, additionally, are less likely to get pregnant in their teens and more likely to have higher self-esteem.

 

In the Introduction to a collection of his “Editor’s Notebook” columns that he self-published in 1988, Gius wrote: “I have had a rich and rewarding life. Everything has come up roses for me. . . . I count my blessings every day and wish them for everyone.”

 

If you similarly have been blessed, I beseech you to be uplifted by Julius Gius’ example and before Christmas drop off a new sports ball at a local Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, Special Olympics chapter, church or temple. The organization directors will pass the gift balls into deserving young hands.

 

(If you do help deck the halls with balls, please let me know of your gift by e-mail at woodywriter@gmail.com.)

 

Mother Teresa famously said: “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then just feed one.” Together, calling forth our best, we can “feed” a hundred children or more this holiday season.

 

Repeating Chuck Thomas’ wisdom, “Help today because you may not have the opportunity tomorrow.”

 

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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 at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.