Gifts Learned Through Sports

July 27, 2019 by Woody

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Sports and Learning

Go Hand-in-High-Five

The Star’s annual high school Scholar-Athletes were announced last week and, as always, their academic deeds are every bit as impressive as their physical feats. Indeed, their GPAs and SAT scores are perhaps even more eye-popping than any RBIs and TD totals.

Headlined by female and male Scholar-Athletes of the Year Peyton Erickson (Ventura High, soccer) and Kevin Daniel (Royal High, tennis), the 26 honorees further add to their remarkable resumes a series of leadership endeavors, community service work and club activities.

While it might seem there must be pixie dust in the Gatorade potions they drink, in truth the magic elixir is sport itself. This was evidenced at the Laureus Youth Leadership Summit held in Los Angeles a week past with dozens of youths and also adults meeting to explore such topics as “What it means to be a young leader”; “Why sport is uniquely positioned to develop leadership skills”; and “How skills are transferred from sport to all areas of life.”

Speakers in the two-day conference included four-time Olympic gold medalist runner Michael Johnson and Olympic sabre fencing bronze medalist Ibtihaj Muhammad, but the real stars were the youth themselves who shared their own insights. For example, one exercise featured a chalkboard that began as a clean slate except for this prompt at the top: “Sports showed me…”

Throughout Day One of the summit, participants of all ages picked up sticks of white, blue, red or pink chalk and fully filled up the board. In printed letters as well as in script, sometimes using all caps for emphasis or underlines, here are some of the values of sport as written by young athletes and their mentors:

“How to play as a team. Make new friends. How a team can become a family.

“How to interact with others as family (heart). Family, work, life, opportunity, community. To have fun!!!

“It’s okay to make mistakes! (heart) Helps me improve my self-confidence. Feels like a painter painting a masterpiece.”

“The world (underlined). New experiences. Go new places.

“Seek out those who will help you achieve your GOALS!! I am capable of so much! Independence. Leadership.

“Hustle & Dedication. Motivation. Courage! Patience (underlined twice). Assertiveness. Inspiration. Discipline.

“Minor setback for major comeback! Not to give up. Dedication is key! HOW TO GET BACK UP again and again. Giving up is not an option.

“Youth leadership is harnessing a platform with vision, integrity and an open mind.

“The young people are NOT (underlined) the future, they are the NOW (underlined three times)!

“How to be an ambassador through play. It’s more than just a win or a loss. FUN!

“Help break racial barriers. It doesn’t depend on the gender you are. Brings others together. To not be a judgmental person. Helped me understand others, learn for others, listen to others.

“Do your best! Be curious & vulnerable. Sportsmanship. Passion.

“Teamwork makes the dream work! (heart) Learn who can help you achieve your dreams.

“Compassion and Love. Be yourself. Staying true to yourself is the way to live.

“How to be a better person. How to express myself and connect w/ multiple kinds of people. Give the same respect that I want to receive.”

Had I been asked to contribute to the colorful chalkboard, I might have quoted tennis legend Billie Jean King: “Sports teaches you character, it teaches you to play by the rules, it teaches you to know what it feels like to win and lose – it teaches you about life.”

The 2018-19 Star Scholar Athletes have each learned all this and now lead by example as well.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at woodywoodburn. His books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

Apollo 11 Pitched “Perfect Game”

July 20, 2019 by Woody

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Apollo 11 Pitched

A “Perfect Game”

A number of years ago, a press-box sage shared with me a story about a New York newspaper hiring a famous novelist to cover the 1956 World Series between the Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers.

All went well with the guest columns until Game 5 when the Yankees’ Don Larsen pitched the first – and still only – perfect game in the history of the Fall Classic. An hour after Larsen had jumped into the celebratory embrace of catcher Yogi Berra, the big-time author buried his face in his palms and muttered: “I can’t, I just can’t. It’s too big for me to write about.”

That famous October 8 date in baseball history comes to mind when I think of July 20, 1969 when Neil Armstrong leapt into history with one small step: “It’s too big for me to write about. I can’t.”

But I must try.

Neil Armstrong’s historic small step/giant leap on lunar surface.

The biggest stories are often best told in the smallest ways, macro being revealed in the micro, and so perhaps recalling NASA’s “perfect game” through the eyes of a 9-year-old boy has merit.

I was, of course, that young boy. Like nearly all American boys – girls, women and men, too – in the 1960s, I watched the Space Race unfold on television with Cape Canaveral launches and space walks and ocean splashdowns. Because of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, growing up to become an astronaut superseded being a fireman, cowboy or Major League baseball player as the No. 1 dream of most schoolboys.

Slumbering in dreamland is where I would have normally been when Neil Armstrong climbed out of the lunar module because on earth it was nearing 11 p.m. in Ohio, too late for 9-year-olds to be up even in summertime. But this was not a normal night. This was the night sci-fi writers like H.G. Wells and Jules Verne miraculously became authors of nonfiction.

Before camping in front of the television, I remember going outside and staring up at the moon with naked eyes and full imagination. My fantasy thoughts were in many ways more clear than the grainy, ghostly, black-and-white TV images to follow.

Fuzzy as the broadcast was, seeing Neil Armstrong hop down the spider-legged Eagle’s ladder, pause dramatically on the footpad, and then step onto the lunar surface remains as vivid in my mind a half-century later as when it happened “LIVE FROM THE MOON” (as the screen text declared) at 10:56 p.m. Eastern Time while I watched transfixed sitting on the floor six feet from a 25-inch TV screen.

My family had recently gotten its first color television, a Zenith console, and in all honesty “Bonanza” and “Star Trek”, both always popping with vibrant colors, paled to this historic moonwalk episode aired only in black and white.

“That’s one small step for (a) man,” Armstrong famously said, either forgetting the “a” or more likely it being swallowed by space static, “one giant leap for mankind.”

Another quote became nearly as famous, this one employed in myriad situations by the general public: “If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we (fill in the blank)?” Fill in the blank could be anything from make a toaster that doesn’t burn toast to forging world peace.

Putting a man on the moon in 1969 seems all the more impossibly magnificent as we look back through the prism of time because it was accomplished with slide rules and early generation computers that filled massive rooms. Similar computing power now fits into the smartphones owned by most 9-year-old kids.

On today’s golden anniversary, Apollo 11’s “perfect game” seems bigger than ever.

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Inspiring Memes Speak Volumes

July 13, 2019July 13, 2019 by Woody

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600 Words About

1,000-Word Memes

My late friend, mentor and longtime steward of this space before me, Chuck Thomas, believed in taking the day off now and again and filling his column with words borrowed from other people. In this same spirit, here are some quotes from inspiring memes I’ve come across in recent weeks that are worth 1,000 words – or, in this case, 600 words.

“Gardens are not made by singing, ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.” – Rudyard Kipling.

“Fill your life with adventures, not things. Have stories to tell, not stuff to show.” – unattributed.

“Kids don’t remember their best day of television.” – unattributed and featuring a photograph, snapped from behind, of two kids around age 6 or 7, walking side by side down a dirt path in the woods. Carrying walking sticks and sleeping bags, and wearing fishing hats and hiking boots, the boys are dressed for adventure from head to toe and echoed another meme: “Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.” – John Muir

“No road” – or dirt path – “is too long with good company.” – unattributed.

“There is absolutely no reason to be rushed along with the rush. Everybody should be free to go slow.” – Robert Frost.

“It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius.

“When you feel about quitting, think about why you started.” – unattributed.

“ ‘Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.’ – Lao Tzu … so be patient, but also persistent, as you pursue your dreams and passions!”

Similarly, a meme in three images showing a caterpillar turning into a cocoon and then emerging as a soaring butterfly states: “Give. Yourself. Time.”

“Never give up on a dream just because of the length of time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” – H. Jackson Brown.

A meme without a photo created a vivid image nonetheless: “ ‘Because I think I’m making progress.’ – Pablo Casals, one of the greatest cellists who ever lived, when asked why he continued to practice at age 90.”

“ ‘Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.’ – John Wooden … or worries about tomorrow either.”

“There are only two days in a year that nothing can be done: one is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow.” – Dalai Lama .

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” – Jane Goodall.

“The difference between who you are and who what you want to be is what you do.” – unattributed.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” – Mary Oliver.

“Each and every day: share something you have learned, and learn something worth sharing.” – Greg Woodburn.

“ ‘And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” – John Steinbeck … good plus good, day after day, adds up to very good; to even better; and to great!”

“Tip your server. Return your shopping cart. Pick up a piece of trash. Hold the door for the person behind you. Let someone into your lane. Small acts have a ripple effect. That’s how we change the world.” – unattributed.

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” – Gloria Vanderbilt, although a similar quote is attributed to Plato.

Lastly, an unattributed meme filled with sunshine in both image and words: “Be the reason someone smiles today.”

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Steinbeck’s (Like) Typewriter

July 6, 2019July 6, 2019 by Woody

#TBT stands also for

Throwback Typing

Throwback Thursday, more often designated simply with the hashtag #TBT, is popular on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter when social media users post nostalgic photos once a week.

In that same spirit, this is a #TBT column. Instead of a photograph from yesteryear, the nostalgia involved is that I wrote the first draft of this column on a typewriter instead of my laptop computer. #TBT is for Throwback Typing.

This old-school exercise came about because I recently received a truly glorious gift for my birthday – a 1949 Hermes Baby portable typewriter in mint condition.

John Steinbeck’s Hermes Baby at San Jose State University.

Gray, black and silver with a single fire-engine red racing stripe, it is the same model John Steinbeck took on his famous road trip around America while writing “Travels with Charley.” His Baby, etched with “The Beast Within” on the back, is on display in the Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University. Ever since seeing it a handful of years ago, I have been smitten.

“Suisse”-made, the Hermes Baby made its debut in 1924 and was anything but beastly. In fact, it was the first true mini-typewriter with a four-row keyboard. Indeed, the Baby is a marvel in sleek compactness, almost exactly the rectangular size of my Apple Notebook, albeit nearly three inches in height instead of less than an inch thick.

My Hermes Baby on display … at home in Ventura.

Compared to the 1912 Underwood No. 5 that I inherited from my grandfather, which is about as heavy as an anvil, the Baby is featherlight. Too, its keystrokes require only a light touch rather than finger pounding.

All the same, the keyboard forces me to slow down. This is not because the type bars stick together if they simultaneously cross paths, but rather because my specific Baby has an odd Italian layout with the customary QWERTY keyboard arranged instead QZERTY. Hence, one must turn off the autopilot when typing W’s and Z’s that have traded places.

As a result, it is easy to misspell zords – rather, words – containing Z’s and W’s. In notes to friends, I simply let these transposed misstrikes go as is because I think they add charm. With this column draft, however, I edited misstrikes and mistakes the old-fashioned way, in pencil using copyediting symbols. Doing so was enjoyably nostalgic.

The funky W and Z keys added to my nostalgia. You see, at my first newspaper job nearly four decades past, the ancient battleship-sized Remington typewriter I was assigned had a broken “K” key. Actually, half-broken – it would type a capital but not lowercase. Thus, one had to painstakingly hit “Shift” and “K” to write “broKen” or “quarterbacK” and then correct it afterward with a copyediting slash.

Being forced to slow the fingers down perhaps has its advantages by also making one think in less of a rush. Indeed, this first draft seemed more polished than when I compose on a speedy laptop where rewriting is clean and easy. It’s the difference between walking a high wire without a safety net below versus with one.

Despite the added step of retyping my words into a laptop document file, perhaps I will write more columns on my Baby – or my 1953 Underwood portable or 1962 Hermes 3000 Curvy, a beautiful sea-foam green semi-portable that rounds out my small collection to date.

An old song goes, “Don’t throw the past away / You might need it some rainy day . . . When everything old is new again.”

That’s how I, and a growing number of QWERTY – and QZERTY – aficionados, feel about Throwback Typewriters. My Hermes Baby is a seven-decades-old fossil, but it also seems good as new again.

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Two New Kites, One Old Memory

June 29, 2019June 29, 2019 by Woody

Flying Kites Make

The Mind Soar

On a recent afternoon with spring in the breeze, something else wonderful was in the air: a kite.

Shortly, a second kite rose.

Like bookends separated by a long row of volumes, these two park scenes played out with an hour sandwiched between. Each vignette made me smile. Together, they made my heart soar as if aided by the wind and a knotted rag tail.

Before proceeding, a third kite bears mention – this one flown a quarter-century ago by my daughter, then four. It was her first kite and she had impatiently waited many days for the wind to be strong enough for a maiden flight.

If memory serves, and I am certain it does for this remains a cherished image, My Little Girl skipped to the park while happily singing the “Mary Poppins” lyrics, “Let’s go fly a kite and send it soaring. Up through the atmosphere. Up where the air is clear…”

After getting her 99-cent rainbow kite airborne, I handed the string to My Little Girl and her reaction, along with a beaming smile, was this: “Daddy, it feels like catching a big fish in the sky.”

This was a wonderful observation considering My Little Girl had never felt the tug of a fish.

Which brings me to the first kite I sighted this spring. Another little girl, perhaps six instead of four, was flying a kite decorated with a unicorn instead of a rainbow. Watching from afar, I readily imagined she also was likely thinking of fishing in the sky …

… because instead of holding a spool of cotton string, this little girl controlled her kite with a fishing rod and nylon line in a reel. What an ingenious father she had, I thought.

Too, I thought back to climbing a tree to retrieve My Little Girl’s rainbow kite after the string snapped and it fluttered into the clutches of branches. We promptly went to a kite store and got nylon “rope” as she called the heavier string.

Time passes, but not all things change. The little girl with the unicorn kite tethered by fishing line seemed as excited as if Christmas morning had arrived on a June afternoon. When the breeze held its breath too long, she handed the rod and reel to her father and skipped off to retrieve her grounded kite; held it high overhead; and then giggled when her father got it back up where the air is clear.

I could have watched this all afternoon, but too soon the happy pair departed hand-in-hand.

Not five minutes later, a second kite flyer arrived and the contrast could hardly have been more striking. Now I watched a gentleman, in his sixties I guessed, and alone; sailing a stunt kite without a fishing reel but with multiple strings that allowed him to make it zig-zag and spin and even dive to within inches of the ground before soaring again.

Again, the fishing metaphor was impossible to ignore for the gentleman was wearing a flannel shirt, stained pants and a brim hat that begged to be decorated with tied flies. Sitting in a folding beach chair, he seemed to belong lakeside or on a pier.

As the gentleman flew his kite, seated patiently as if waiting for a big fish to strike his line, my mind returned to the little girl I had just seen; then to My Little Girl; and finally I had one more lovely thought.

I imagined the gentleman’s mind was also wandering, drifting backward on the warm breeze to memories of flying a kite with his own little girl.

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Masterpiece Friends Elevate Us

June 22, 2019June 24, 2019 by Woody

Masterpiece Friends Elevate

Us To The Clouds

“A friend,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, and wisely, “may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.”

One such masterpiece in my life celebrates a milestone birthday today, having completed 60 voyages around the sun. Thinking of My Masterpiece Friend brings also to mind my first best friend throughout childhood.

Dan and my relationship got off to an odd start a year before starting kindergarten together when our moms, who were in the same bowling league, set up an introductory play date.

When Mrs. Means – parents did not have first names in the 1960s – called out for Dan to come into the family room to meet me, he did not appear. She tried again, slightly louder. Again, Dan did not show up or answer. Not one to yell, Mrs. Means directed me down the hallway to the last door on the right.

I found Dan’s room, but not Dan. From beneath the bed, however, came a soft rustling noise. I crept over, dropped to my hands and knees, and lifted the hanging bedspread. Hiding like a fox in a den, Dan was playing with G.I. Joes.

Dan gave me a Cold War reception, like I was G.I. Vladimir, and refused to come out. Meanwhile, I dared not crawl into G.I. Dan’s foxhole. Instead, my mental Kodachrome footage shows the strangest thing: I started doing pushups, counting aloud, “One, two, three … ten!”

Why in the world would I act like a mini-Jack LaLanne? I have no idea other than I was trying to impress Dan in the same manner I sometimes reacted when my two older brothers told me I was too puny to join their activities.

Dan eventually Army-crawled out from his under-the-bed bunker and we played G.I. Joes. Next, we fed his two pet gerbils – “Bruce” and “Wayne” in honor of Batman’s true identity – and then headed to the basement to play with Hot Wheels.

Murray was a four-legged masterpiece friend.

Dan and I were fast friends indeed, literally so at a go-kart speedway once. More accurately, that day I was his fast-and-reckless friend. On the opening lap I bumped his wheels while trying to pass and sent us both spinning into the grass infield. We were instantly expelled from the track. Instead of being ticked off at me, Dan laughed like Muttley the cartoon dog having a loud asthma attack.

Fast forward four decades. I met My Masterpiece Friend in similar fashion to how I met Dan. Instead of two matchmaking moms, a shared acquaintance set up a play date of sorts to introduce us. This time, I did not do any impromptu calisthenics.

“Make friendship a fine art,” John Wooden advised and in this vein My Masterpiece Friend is a modern Rembrandt. One example may serve as well as 100. Recently, our nearly 13-year-old boxer grew gravely ill with cancer. The day arrived when the only humane recourse was to have a veterinarian come to our home to relieve Murray’s suffering through euthanasia.

The vet, who had the couch-side manner of an angel, needed help lifting Murray onto the stretcher afterward. I risked aggravating a recent injury, although that pain would be preferable to having my distraught wife do the morose task.

Not to worry because My Masterpiece Friend dropped everything and rushed over. What is even more, I knew he would.

“What wealth is it to have such friends that we cannot think of them without elevation!” wrote Emerson’s great friend, Henry David Thoreau. I can still envision Dan and me kicking the clouds with our toes while soaring on the playground swings, but My Masterpiece Friend elevates me higher still.

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Advice From Dads for Father’s Day

June 15, 2019 by Woody

Dadvice for Father’s Day

Father’s Day cards will be opened tomorrow, so it seems apropos to begin today with a Hallmark-worthy thought from Mark Twain who famously observed: “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”

More recently, classical pianist Charles Wadworth expanded on Twain’s quip, noting: “By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong.”

Or a daughter.

My friend Barry Kibrick, host of the Emmy-winning PBS book-talk show “Between the Lines,” once told me of raising his two sons: “I never worried about over-praising them and building up their self-esteem too much because there are plenty of people in the world who will try to tear them down.”

Author Jan Hutchins had a similarly wise dad, sharing: “When I was a kid, my father told me every day, ‘You’re the most wonderful boy in the world, and you can do anything you want to.’ ”

Clarence Budington Kelland, a 20th century novelist who once described himself as “the best second-rate writer in America,” made a first-rate compliment about his own father: “He didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.”

Best-selling essayist Robert Fulghum put it this way: “Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.”

American inventor Charles Kettering likewise advised, “Every father should remember one day his son will follow his example, not his advice.”

From attribution unknown comes this pearl: “One night a father overheard his son pray: ‘Dear God, Make me the kind of man my Daddy is.’ Later that night, the father prayed, ‘Dear God, Make me the kind of man my son wants me to be.’ ”

The rock band Yellowcard offers this lovely lyric about the power of a dad as a role model: “Father I will always be / that same boy who stood by the sea / and watched you tower over me / now I’m older I wanna be the same as you.”

Hall of Fame baseball player Harmon Killebrew apparently had a Hall of Fame Dad, the son recalling: “My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, ‘You’re tearing up the grass.’ Dad would reply, ‘We’re not raising grass – we’re raising boys.’ ”

A great attitude for dads of daughters as well, naturally.

Speaking of girls, John Mayer strikes the right chord with these lyrics: “Fathers, be good to your daughters. You are the god and the weight of her world.”

Getting further to the heart of the matter, John Wooden, who believed “love” is the most important word in the English language, said: “The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”

From another basketball coach, the late Jim Valvano: “My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person – he believed in me.”

My friend and mentor Wayne Bryan, father of doubles legends Mike and Bob who are even better people than they are tennis players, advises parents: “Shout your praise to the rooftops and if you must criticize, drop it like a dandelion. On second thought, don’t criticize at all.”

In closing is a home-run thought from Hall of Fame singles hitter Wade Boggs: “Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad.”

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Words of Wisdom For Graduates

June 8, 2019 by Woody

Dear Class of 2019, In The Words Of . . .

Hello, Class of 2019. I am honored and humbled to address you on this milestone occasion today. As you turn the page to the next chapter in your lives, I offer the following advice.

“Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that’s no reason not to give it.”(1) “My advice to you is not to inquire why or dither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it’s on your plate.”(2)

“There is absolutely no reason for being rushed along with the rush.”(3) “It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop.”(4)

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”(5) “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” (6) “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”(7)

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”(8) “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ ”(9)

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”(10)

“Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don’t, and believe that everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said that it’d be easy, they just promised it would be worth it.”(11)

“Nothing will work unless you do.”(12) “Gardens are not made by singing, ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.”(13) “The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit under their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.”(14)

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”(15) “One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.”(16) “If you don’t make an effort to help others less fortunate than you, then you’re just wasting your time on Earth.”(17)

“Never give up on a dream just because of the length of time it will take to accomplish. The time will pass anyway.”(18) “Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Try to be better than yourself.”(19)

“Don’t let making a living prevent you from making a life.”(20) “We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”(21) “When you get, give; when you learn, teach.”(22) “Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.”(23) “I argue thee that love is life. And life hath immortality.”(24)

“The fireworks begin today. Each diploma is a lighted match. Each one of you is a fuse.”(25)

“ ‘Thank you’ is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding.”(26)

Thank you, and congratulations.

(1-Agatha Christie. 2-Thornton Wilder. 3-Robert Frost. 4-Confucius. 5-Arthur Ashe. 6-Mark Twain. 7-Henry David Thoreau. 8-E.E. Cummings. 9-Eleanor Roosevelt. 10-Mark Twain. 11-Bob Marley. 12-John Wooden. 13-Rudyard Kipling. 14-Rabindranath Tagore. 15-Ralph Waldo Emerson. 16-John F. Kennedy. 17-Wayne Bryan. 18-H. Jackson Brown. 19-John Steinbeck. 20-John Wooden. 21-Winston Churchill. 22-Maya Angelou. 23-Dalai Lama. 24-Emily Dickinson. 25-Edward Koch. 26-Alice Walker.

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“Today Is The Only Day”

June 1, 2019 by Woody

Live Today, Not in the Past or Future

“Make each day your masterpiece” merits all the yellows in my rainbow of favorite John Wooden maxims, but it is a Woodenism in a neighboring shade of green, “Today is the only day – yesterday is gone,” that is on my mind at the moment.

Two months of todays past, I wrote a column about longtime Thousand Oaks resident Bob Fitch and his love of typewriters. More specifically, about how having learned to type in a high school class benefited him in the military in the 1950s.

Two weeks of todays after “Typing Out A Memorable Story” ran in this space, I received an email bearing a rainbow-eclipsing storm cloud. It was from Bob’s son, Dave, who wrote:

“Some sad news to share with you – my dad recently was checked into Los Robles Hospital. They determined his respiratory issues were due to a failing heart valve that had been replaced 10 years ago.

“Dad passed away on Monday. We were with him and he passed away peacefully. We are comforted and assured by God’s word, knowing he is in a far better place now. We had a lot of fun with him and we will miss him. Thanks for being a part of his life!”

After signing off, Dave added a kind postscript: “Oh, BTW – he did get to see your article and enjoyed it!”

By coincidence, serendipity, or perhaps fate, a symbiotic email arrived the very same day. This one was from my daughter, forwarding a blog of one of her favorite writers, Alexandra Franzen.

“My younger sister Olivia, my dad, and I all went out for dinner in New York City,” Franzen began. “I live in Hawaii (mostly) these days. Miss O is based in Colorado. Dad’s in California. It’s unusual that we’re together in the same location. I wanted to make the most of this rare, precious moment.”

A few paragraphs later: “I listened to my dad’s stories. I nodded when my sister spoke. I smiled when it was appropriate to smile. I politely thanked the waiter for each item. But, to be honest, I wasn’t completely in the room. My mind was only halfway present.”

After sharing a laundry list of her distractions, Franzen shared an epiphany moment: “While collecting our coats at the exit, the restaurant hostess smiled at me and said, ‘It’s wonderful that you got to have dinner with your dad tonight.’

“ ‘Yeah, uh huh, for sure,’ I said, or something to that effect. Only half-listening. In a thick fog. Rummaging around in my bag for a stick of gum.

“ ‘My dad died last year,’ the hostess added, very quietly. Her voice was so soft, nearly drowned out by the din of the bustling restaurant. ‘I miss him every day.’

“I looked up, meeting her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry.’

“I stepped outside and immediately linked elbows with my dad, holding him very, very close as we walked arm in arm back to the hotel. Sometimes, I fall asleep in the middle of my own life. Until something, or someone, reminds me to wake up.”

Franzen concluded with this sagacious advice: “If there’s something you want to do, do it now. If there’s something you want to say, say it now. If you’re reading this on a phone in your bed, put down your device and hold your partner instead. The emails can wait. One day, all of this ends. But for now, here we are. And today is not over yet.”

In other words, in John Wooden’s timeless words, “There is only today – yesterday is gone.”

And tomorrow is not promised.

* * *

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

Orange In My Rainbow Is For Joey

May 25, 2019 by Woody

Orange In My Rainbow Is For Joey

The greatest overworked word in the English language is “greatest.” Well, unless it is “best.” Or, perhaps, “favorite.”

The problem with this trio is these opinions tend to shift as surely as ocean sands. One day, for example, I might consider Rembrandt the greatest painter ever; the next day, van Gogh is the best of all time; yet another day, Michelangelo or Picasso or even Basquiat and his graffiti-inspired art is my favorite.

Best, favorite, greatest too often miss the mark. Better to imagine a rainbow and give the human gods each a color. Or, in the case above, a hue on the palette.

Likewise with authors. Instead of bestowing the crown of Favorite or Greatest or Best, far better to imagine a single shelf in a bookcase with room enough only for a narrow rainbow of volumes. Steinbeck, Hemingway, Twain and Shakespeare comprise my personal Mount Rushmore, but there is top-self space for Woolf, Austen, Angelou and Rowling as well.

Oh, yes, between the honorary bookends I have also inserted a few friendly hues largely unique to my elite shelf: Ken McAlpine, Jeff McElroy, Roger Thompson and, naturally, Dallas Woodburn.

That’s the beauty of my rainbow philosophy: there are always enough colors to satisfy the eye of each beholder. Furthermore, giving Bach a golden hue does not diminish Beethoven’s bright red, which in turn does not raise him above Mozart’s forest green.

Joey Ramirez, left, and Coach Phil Mathews, right.

Ask me to name my favorite/greatest/best athlete from my quarter century as a sports columnist and I would be flummoxed. My personal rainbow, however, comes into ready focus – albeit with all shades of blue going to my idol and mentor, John Wooden.

Magic Johnson, who I wrote more columns about during my span than any other athlete, gets the hue of Lakers gold. Arnold Palmer, who like Johnson always treated me like I wrote for the New York Times rather than a local paper, gets a Masters-jacket green shade.

And bright orange – the Ventura College Pirates’ shade – in my rainbow goes to Joey Ramirez. This selection will come as a surprise only to those who never watched No. 13 in stalwartly action. Under Joey’s leadership as star point guard during the 1992-93 and 1993-94 seasons, the Pirates had a combined record of 73-5 and played in back-to-back state championship games.

Joey exemplified Coach Phil Mathew’s “We Play Hard” motto. Not only did the Santa Paula native get floor burns diving for loose balls, he gave the hardwood skin-and-bone burns. And yet it wasn’t Joey’s fierceness and winning ways that painted him into my rainbow – it was his grace and character in defeat.

Especially, I remember the second state championship game loss by two points on a night the basket had a lid on it whenever Joey shot the ball. Listed on the roster at 5-foot-10, Joey stood tall as a center afterward despite his heartbreak.

Here’s some more that puts Joey in my rainbow: he was a standout college student; became a high school math teacher; and now, as head coach of the VC men’s basketball team, stresses education to his players. It is not lip service: Joey and his lovely wife Olivia’s three sons – Andrew, Marcos and Eric – are straight-A students on top of being exceptional athletes.

One more reason: hard as a gemstone externally, inside Joey can be a softie. This was on display last Sunday evening when he was inducted into the Ventura College Athletics Hall of Fame.

Truth is, Joey wasn’t the only one in attendance who teared up during his splendid acceptance speech – my rainbow briefly turned blurry.

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

WOODY WOODBURN

Writer, "Streaker" & Speaker

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Orange In My Rainbow Is For Joey