Great effort spreading “Goodness”

May 18, 2019 by Woody

Great effort spreading “Goodness”

At first blush, it would seem impossible to answer with authority who was the biggest winner at the recently concluded 119th annual Ojai Tennis Tournament. After all, new champions in 25 different divisions joined a legendary roll call that includes Jack Kramer and Arthur Ashe, Billie Jean King and Tracy Austin, and five-time doubles champs Mike and Bob Bryan.

Upon further consideration, however, the biggest winners were a few draw sheets worth of kids who didn’t even play in the prestigious tournament. Specifically, disadvantaged youth from local programs taught by Walter Moody, as well as the Santa Paula High girls tennis team and Pacifica High’s boys team.

Judging from their smiles you would think each young player had just won match point upon receiving top-flight rackets, apparel and new shoes, and tennis balls.

The biggest champion of all, therefore, was Rhiannon Potkey. Her official nonprofit organization Goods4Greatness made the grateful smiles happen by collecting equipment donations from college teams and junior players at The Ojai.

If you are a local sports fan, Rhiannon’s name may ring familiar. She was a gifted sportswriter at The Star beginning as a night intern straight from high school graduation in 1998; as a stringer while attending UC Santa Barbara; and eventually joined the staff fulltime. In 2016, Rhi departed for stints at The Salt Lake Tribune and Knoxville News-Sentinel.

A year ago, Rhi took a brave leap from newspapers to freelance in order to have time to start Goods4Greatness.

“I reached a point,” the 39-year-old Knoxville resident notes, “where I needed to make a decision because my passion is helping others. I wanted to start this (G4G) for years and years, but needed to get to a point in my life and career when I could make the time to do it.”

Growing up, sports were Rhi’s life. She played on whichever club was in season, tennis year-round, and as a point guard at Ventura High made the All-County Team.

“I loved assisting others,” Rhi shares, an attitude that extended off the hardwood and planted the seeds for Goods4Greatness. “Seeing teammates who rarely could afford equipment, I always wanted to give them my ‘old’ stuff that was still in good condition.

“Then as I began reporting, I covered high schools from drastically different socioeconomic areas and wondered why I couldn’t just take some of the richer program’s equipment and bring it down to the less fortunate programs. I knew there was a void that needed to be filled.”

Rhi has made it her mission to help fill the void with all manner of sports equipment.

Some of the gear donated at The Ojai Tournament this year.

“I want every kid to get the experience I received without economics preventing them from playing,” she allows. “Every time I see a kid’s face light up is meaningful.”

An especially meaningful example: “I had a single mom start to cry because she wasn’t going to be able to afford to have her son play baseball, but the bat, helmet, pants and cleats I gave them enabled her to afford the registration fee.”

John McEnroe never threw as many tennis rackets in anger as players at The Ojai happily tossed to Rhi and the kids Goods4Greatness serves. Other benefactors made financial contributions, including a check from the Bryan Brothers so generous it gave Rhi “tears of joy.”

(Financial donations can be made at www.Goods4Greatness.org or checks payable to “Goods4Greatness” mailed to 312 Chestnut Oak Drive, Knoxville TN 37909.)

“There’s no better role models on and off the court in professional sports than the Bryans,” Rhiannon says of Mike and Bob. Rhi likewise is an exemplar of great goodness.

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

What is a Mom? Book Illustrates Poetically

May 12, 2019 by Woody

What is a Mom? Book Illustrates Poetically

With Mother’s Day arriving tomorrow, my 26th without my own mom, the poetic words of Maya Angelou again come to mind: “To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.”

Expand Angelou’s 23-word quote into 62 oversized pages of poems, and rainbow artwork, and you have the newly published book “What is a Woman?” which could instead be titled “What is a Mother?” Indeed, this book was birthed by a high school club/nonprofit organization “Together to Empower” and is there a greater role any mom plays than to empower her children?

Club founder Michelle Qin, a Stanford-bound a senior at Dos Pueblos High who last year was named “1 of America’s Top 10 Youth Volunteers”, recently sent me a copy signed by 40 of its contributing writers and artists. Unsolicited books in my mailbox normally go directly into a box earmarked for The Ventura Friends of the Library, but this one caught my eye – and then captured heart.

“What a book!” is my reaction after perusing “What is a Woman?” From the front cover featuring the vibrant painting titled “Crescendo” by Cheryl Braganza to the back cover with her joyous-and-powerful painting “Women of the World Unite”, the pages between are meant to be viewed and read and savored.

To be sure, the combination of emotional poetry and short essays with amazing artwork makes “What is a Woman?” special. It is like having an art museum’s exclusive exhibit right at your fingertips.

The artwork is captivating: color paintings to black-and-white photos, realism to abstract. Furthermore, the art – and writing, as well – is arranged with deep thought, thus affording a powerful effect. For example, Lea Basile-Lazarus’s “The Silent Voice” showing a white silhouette of a woman with her fist raised in a crowd appears beside Jennifer Casselberry’s vivid portrait titled “Protest” of a solo woman with her arm also lifted high.

Another taste: Photographs of sculptures titled “Lotus” and “Tree” by Francine Kirsch, featuring two woman in yoga poses, appear next to the portrait “Dancer: Strong is the New Pretty” by Kate T. Parker.

Poetry highlights this strength-and-beauty theme on other pages, such as a work from Noël Russel that begins, “I am here because my mother dreamed that I could be” and, after describing an immigrant parent’s difficult life, concludes: “I am here because of a dreamer.”

On the eve of Mother’s Day, the painting “Daughter of August” by Laura Gonzalez on the closing page seems especially poignant. It features, faceless from behind so as to be a universal pairing, a young girl walking hand-in-hand with her mother through a long-grassed field. My interpretation: the girl is being empowered with each step to eventually pursue her dreams beyond the white fence in the distance.

The daughter could as well be a son.

“We are a movement comprised of girls and boys,” Michelle emphasizes, noting there are now club chapters on the east coast and in Vancouver. “Although our main goal is to empower girls, it is equally important to us to emphasize that we all have the power to make a change. After all, our world will only get stronger with girls and boys in the lead, together. That’s why we are called Together to Empower.”

Through the words and paintbrushes, sculptures and camera lenses, eyes and voices of empowered girls in elementary school through women of international fame, this book (available at www.togethertoempower.org) teaches us about true beauty, true strength, true feminism.

“What is a Woman?” answers its own question beautifully as a rainbow.

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

Part 2: Twain and Muir’s Meeting

May 4, 2019 by Woody

Part 2: Twain and Muir’s Meeting

Except for a story believed to be apocryphal, Mark Twain and John Muir, separated by only three years in age, never met. The two famous writers did, however, cross paths astrologically on April 21 – Muir born on the date in 1838 and Twain dying on it in 1910.

Following is Part 2 of how I imagine their conversation, using their own written words, might have gone had they shared a campfire in Yosemite.

Muir: “A slight sprinkle of rain – large drops far apart, falling with hearty pat and plash on leaves and stones and into the mouths of the flowers.”

Twain: “A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.”

Muir, laughing: “Wash your spirit clean. Keep close to Nature’s heart – and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life.”

Twain: “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”

Muir: “As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature’s sources never fail.”

Twain: “Lord save us all from old age and broken health and a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms. I was young and foolish then; now I am old and foolisher.”

Muir: “Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away.”

Twain: “If all the fools in this world should die, lordly God how lonely I should be.”

Muir: “Most people are on the world, not in it. In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.”

Twain: “There is no use in your walking five miles to fish when you can depend on being just as unsuccessful near home.”

Muir: “I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

Twain: “Now, the true charm of pedestrianism does not lie in the walking, or in the scenery, but in the talking. The walking is good to time the movement of the tongue by, and to keep the blood and the brain stirred up and active; the scenery and the woodsy smells are good to bear in upon a man an unconscious and unobtrusive charm and solace to eye and soul and sense; but the supreme pleasure comes from the talk. It is no matter whether one talks wisdom or nonsense, the case is the same, the bulk of the enjoyment lies in the wagging of the gladsome jaw and the flapping of the sympathetic ear.”

Muir: “Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter.”

Twain: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”

Muir: “Going to the mountains is going home.”

Twain: “There is nothing more satisfying than that sense of being completely ‘at home’ in your own skin.”

Muir: “The mountains are calling and I must go.”

Twain: “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.”

Muir: “The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.”

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

If Ever Twain And Muir Had Met

April 27, 2019April 28, 2019 by Woody

If Ever Twain And Muir Had Met

Sunday past, a special literary date passed by, as it does annually, once again as unnoticed by most people as a wildflower in the woods. John Muir was born in 1838 on April 21 and 72 years to the day later, in 1910, Mark Twain died.

Except for a story believed to be apocryphal of the two famous writers attending a dinner party hosted by Robert Underwood Johnson, a New York editor, there is no account of Twain and Muir having met. Below, using their own written words, is how I imagine the conversation might have gone had they shared a campfire in Yosemite.

Muir: “Another glorious day, the air as delicious to the lungs as nectar to the tongue.”

Twain: “Give every day the chance to become the most beautiful day of your life.”

Muir: “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”

Twain: “The laws of Nature take precedence of all human laws. The purpose of all human laws is one – to defeat the laws of Nature.”

Muir: “God never made an ugly landscape. All that the sun shines on is beautiful, so long as it is wild.”

Twain: “Architects cannot teach nature anything.”

Muir: “Compared with the intense purity and cordiality and beauty of Nature, the most delicate refinements and cultures of civilization are gross barbarisms.”

Twain: “Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.”

Muir: “No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty. Whether as seen carving the lines of the mountains with glaciers, or gathering matter into stars, or planning the movements of water, or gardening – still all is Beauty!”

Twain: “One frequently only finds out how really beautiful a really beautiful woman is after considerable acquaintance with her; and the rule applies to Niagara Falls, to majestic mountains.”

Muir: “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.”

Twain: “There is probably no pleasure equal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp; but it is a pleasure which is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in it.”

Muir: “One day’s exposure to mountains is better than a cartload of books. See how willingly Nature poses herself upon photographers’ plates. No earthly chemicals are so sensitive as those of the human soul.”

Twain: “Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”

Muir: “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.”

Twain, bombastically: “When I am king they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books, for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved.”

Muir: “Handle a book as a bee does a flower, extract its sweetness but do not damage it.”

Twain: “The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”

Muir: “The power of imagination makes us infinite.”

Twain: “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”

Muir: “The snow is melting into music.”

Twain: “Ah, that shows you the power of music.”

Muir: “I had nothing to do but look and listen and join the trees in their hymns and prayers. In our best times everything turns into religion, all the world seems a church and the mountains altars.”

Twain: “I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man’s reasoning powers are not above the monkey’s.”

The two wordsmiths’ conversation concludes next week in this space.

* * *

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

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

Friend in Deed is Friend Indeed

April 20, 2019 by Woody

For a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” use the PayPal link on my home page or mail a check for $25 to:

Woody Woodburn

400 Roosevelt Court

Ventura, CA 93003

Friend in Deed is Friend Indeed

In an ironic turn of events, our microwave oven had its goose cooked the other day.

Finding a replacement of similar dimensions for the built-in spot proved to be a wild-goose chase. Four local stores, and an on-line search, all came up short – or, more accurately, came up too wide or too tall.

Unlike Goldilocks’ napping beds, none of the microwaves was “just right.” The best solution was to get a smaller model and add a shelf to position it suitably.

Alas, my last foray into woodworking was making a skateboard in eighth-grade shop class. I got at best a C-plus on the assignment – and a D-minus while on the skateboard.

Indeed, I’m a wordsmith, not a woodsmith (which isn’t a word, but should be). I can use a hammer and screwdriver and duct tape, but that’s about the extent of my This Old House-like skills. For me to invest in additional tools would make as much sense as buying surgical instruments. I’m handy only with my typing fingers.

Therefore, even for a simple shelf, I reached out for help. My first thought was to ask my friend, Mike Pederson, because he has the skills of Noah and MacGyver combined. I believe he fully remodeled his kitchen during halftime of an NFL game. More recently, he started rebuilding his mother’s garage that burned down in the Thomas Fire and will probably complete it before I finish writing this column.

Mike with wheelchair athlete and friend Alvin.

The reason I didn’t ask Mike, however, is because I embarrassingly still owe him a couple pints at a local micro brewery in payment for the last fix-it job he did for me.

Instead, I asked my Facebook friends if anyone could help me out with a piece of plywood measuring 23-1/4 inches by 15 inches. I promised that All-Thumbs Me could sand and paint it.

Two days later, my posted request far from mind, I was out for my daily run at Kimball Community Park. Rounding a corner on my familiar loop, I spotted a familiar Paul Bunyan-esque figure ahead, then a familiar face, finally a familiar smile.

I stopped to say “hi” and Mike greeted me by revealing from behind his back a shelf. Not a slab of plywood cut to needed size, mind you, but rather a finely sanded shelf complete with decorative front rail. It is so handsome that no painting by me was required. My old woodshop teacher would have graded it “A-plus.”

John Wooden would have loved Mike because he “makes friendship a fine art.” Mike also creates a lot of such “art.” As example, Mike has twice escorted our mutual friend Alvin Matthews, a wheelchair athlete, in the Los Angeles Marathon.

“As busy as he is with his own life and family’s, he always seems to find time for me,” Alvin says, noting further that Mike frequently drives him to training outings and assists him in and out of his missile-like racing chair; researched a beach-access wheelchair; and has been by his side in the hospital. “He’s top-notch as a friend!”

Given Mike’s giving nature, it seems fully appropriate he was born on Christmas Day. To be sure, he brings to mind the poem “On Friendship” penned by Coach Wooden:

“At times when I am feeling low, / I hear from a friend and then

“My worries start to go away / And I am on the mend

“No matter what the doctors say – / And their studies never end

“The best cure of all, when spirits fall, / Is a kind word from a friend”

Or, in Mike’s case, a kind deed.

* * *

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

Wooden & Me Kickstarter Front Photo 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

“Friends of Library”, Friends To All

April 13, 2019 by Woody

For a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” use the PayPal link on my home page or mail a check for $25 to:

Woody Woodburn

400 Roosevelt Court

Ventura, CA 93003

* * *

“Friends of Library” Are Friends To All

I am fairly certain I got my first library card before I could even print my name, which goes a long way in telling you I had a masterpiece mom.

While I can’t remember the first book I ever checked out, the first unforgettable one was “Where The Wild Things Are.” In my mind’s eye as I peel back the calendar pages, I re-re-re-checked it out week after week until the librarian finally told me I had to return Max and his beasts for other kids to enjoy.

So it was at a modest library on Tremont Road in Upper Arlington, Ohio, that my love affair with libraries began. It continues to this day.

The Library of Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, is the most breathtaking library I have yet seen – especially The Long Room and Book of Kells believed to date back to 800 AD – but The New York Public Library is only a half-stride behind.

Too, I love our local libraries and have a special fondness for The San Buenaventura Friends of the Library. In addition to supporting our city libraries and summer reading programs, this all-volunteer organization holds book sales that are ridiculous bargains.

To give you an idea, I recently bought nine books from these generous “Friends” – six near-new children’s books although, alas, not “Where The Wild Things Are”; two popular novels; and a 676-page hardcover “The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain” in wonderful condition – all for the grand sum of …

… five dollars! I felt guilty of larceny.

Since books and reading are food for the mind, let me share a family story that springs to mind when I think of the “Friends” book sales.

James Dallas Woodburn, my great grandfather, loved a good steak. Actually, good was not good enough; he insisted on a superb cut of beef. In his quest, after retiring from personally butchering livestock on his Ohio farm, J.D. would go into town to buy fresh beef from the meat market – which was next to the fruit and vegetable market, and bakery, there being no “supermarkets” in the 1930s.

Unlike other customers, my great-grandpa did not tell the butcher what he wanted. Rather, J.D. stepped behind the counter, tied on a white apron, and cut his own selections.

One Sunday during the Great Depression, in 1934 when my dad was eight, he accompanied his Grandpa J.D. to the meat market. J.D. proceeded to carve nearly seven pounds of deep-red, well-marbled – two key elements he always looked for – beefsteak at fifteen cents a pound.

That evening, J.D.’s wife, Amanda, pounded and breaded half-inch-thick slices of the fresh beefsteak before cooking them in a sizzling cast-iron skillet. The end result was a turkey platter piled so high that even after being passed around the supper table to six adults and two kids, the stack of country fried beefsteak seemed barely diminished.

Eying the surplus mound, my dad’s dad – Ansel – sarcastically needled his father: “Dad, do you think you bought enough meat?”

Replied J.D. with a wink: “Ansel, I wanted everybody to have plenty. So I got a dollar’s worth so we can all fill up!”

From the past to the present, beefsteak to books. Today, to cap off National Library Week, the Buenaventura Friends of the Library is holding a special “Bag o’Books Sale” at the Vons grocery at Telegraph and Victoria roads from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. For just $3 you can stuff a bag with all genres.

In other words, make sure everyone in your family has plenty to read and fill up with three dollars’ worth!

* * *

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

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

Memories Surpass Memorabilia, Part 4

April 7, 2019 by Woody

Is your Club or Group looking for an inspiring guest speaker or do you want to host a book signing? . . . Contact Woody today!

* * *

For a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” use the PayPal link on my home page or mail a check for $25 to:

Woody Woodburn

400 Roosevelt Court

Ventura, CA 93003

Memories Surpass Memorabilia, Part 4

Julia Ruth Stevens, Babe Ruth’s last surviving child, passed away in March at age 102. A decade past, I interviewed Stevens – more accurately, had the great joy of listening to wonderful stories about her “Daddy.” With the Major League season underway, it seems the perfect time to share some of her tales. This is the final in a series of four columns.

. . .

Babe Ruth fell deathly ill with throat cancer in 1948.

“Most of those days are fuzzy in my mind,” Julia Ruth Stevens recalled, yet more than a half-century later two mental photographs remained in perfect Ansel Adams-like focus.

The first occurred on June 13, 1948. Celebrating the 25th anniversary of Yankee Stadium – “The House That Ruth Built” – The Babe, wearing a topcoat to keep his frail body warm and using a baseball bat as a cane, walked slowly out to home plate as a tumultuous ovation rained down from the triple-decked stands. Once again, and for the final time, Ruth rose to the occasion and managed to croak out a few words into the microphone.

“I was there and I remember that speech,” Julia told me. “It was a very sad occasion – not just for me and his family, but for everyone who was his fan.”

A dying Babe Ruth, using a bat for a cane, at a day in his honor.

An even sadder moment, she said, came after a doctor’s appointment at Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases: “I’ll never forget when he left the hospital. I looked out the window and watched him need help into the car. Poor Daddy, he had been such a rugged man and to see him so frail. I had a tear running down my cheek.”

Babe Ruth, at age 53, died shortly thereafter on August 16, 1948. Four years later, Julia’s only child, Tom, was born.

“I regret (Tom) never met Daddy, but he’s heard a lot of stories,” Julia said. “He’s heard them all.”

The stories of how much Babe Ruth adored children are not exaggerated, according to Julia, who noted: “He loved kids and wanted to bring them sunshine and happiness. I’m certain it was because growing up he was so alone himself.

“I loved to see kids smile when he gave them an autograph. He’d always sign – never turned down a kid for an autograph, or even an adult. He signed almost everything you can imagine: balls and gloves and bats and caps and shirts, ticket stubs and scraps of paper. You name it, if someone asked, Daddy signed it.”

And yet Julia had no such signed memorabilia.

“I don’t have a single bat or ball with Daddy’s autograph,” she said, adding after a moment’s reflection: “Why would I get an autograph from Daddy? I’d never have thought to ask, ‘Daddy, can I have your autograph?’ To me he was just Daddy.”

Actually, she did ask numerous times for her friends – once they learned who her father was.

“I tried as hard as possible when I met someone new to keep it a secret,” Julia shared. “I’d never tell them because I wanted them to like me for who I was, not because I was Babe Ruth’s daughter. Of course, when they’d finally come to my house they’d be speechless.

“I wish I had an (autographed) ball or bat,” Julia went on, yet without a trace of regret in her voice. “But I don’t and that’s fine because I have my memories of Daddy and that’s even better. As great as Daddy was as a ballplayer, he really was just as great as a father. I loved being Babe Ruth’s daughter! It was just so much fun!”

* * *

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

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

Dancing with Daddy Ruth, Part 3

March 30, 2019 by Woody

Is your Club or Group looking for an inspiring guest speaker or do you want to host a book signing? . . . Contact Woody today!

* * *

For a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” use the PayPal link on my home page or mail a check for $25 to:

Woody Woodburn

400 Roosevelt Court

Ventura, CA 93003

Part 3: Golf, Bowling, Dancing with Daddy Ruth

Julia Ruth Stevens, Babe Ruth’s last surviving child, passed away on March 9 at age 102. A decade past, I interviewed Stevens – more accurately, had the great joy of listening to wonderful stories about her “Daddy.” With the Major League season underway, it seems the perfect time to share some of her tales. This is the third in a series of four.

. . .

“I’d go everywhere with Daddy,” Julia Ruth Stevens recounted, noting that the movies were an exception because Ruth was afraid it might hurt his eyesight.

“But we did go to pro football and college games. People would let him watch the game, but at halftime they’d come over and ask for autographs. He’d take me to hockey games. We had great times! I even had fun walking 18 holes on the golf course with him. And we used to go bowling. He taught me and I got pretty good; he was very good – broke 200 quite often.”

Babe Ruth being a “Sultan of Strikes and Spares” isn’t surprising, but this is: “Daddy was a wonderful dancer. He had perfect rhythm. He couldn’t sing, but, oh, how he could dance.

“I remember once, we started dancing and I was leading,” Julia continued, giggling at the memory. “He said, ‘That’s not how you do it – I’ll lead!’ ”

Julia “sparring” with her famous daddy.

Another memory: “Daddy gave me a wristwatch, my very first watch. We were playing on the couch and he was tickling me and I guess I threw my arm back and broke the crystal on the watch.”

Young Julia’s tears welled up but never had a chance to fall: “Daddy said, ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll get you anther one.’ Daddy always showered me with love.”

It was a routine occurrence to have famous ballplayers and musicians at the Ruth household – first on 88th Street and then one block up on 89th Street overlooking the Hudson River in a grand 14-room apartment shared by Babe and wife Claire, Julia and Dorothy, two uncles and a grandmother.

“He loved having people in for dinner, especially ballplayers. That was just normal for me,” Julia recalled.

Normal also was a midnight curfew: “Daddy was very strict. Even into my twenties, I had to be home by twelve o’clock. Daddy would say, ‘There’s nothing to do after midnight.’ ”

She laughed at the irony, quickly adding: “He very well knew that wasn’t true!”

Other things Ruth said did ring true to Julia: “One value Daddy taught me was to be truthful. He hated it when anyone lied. ‘You can’t trust anyone after they have lied to you,’ he said and I’ve always remembered that.

Julia with a painting of the Home Run King.

“He also told me never to look down on anyone – after all, look where he’d come from. He felt strongly about that.”

Recalling her frequent trips to Yankee Stadium, Julia said: “I loved seeing him tip his cap to the fans. I remember that when Daddy came up to bat the sound of the stadium changed – a loud murmur would rise because the fans all wanted to see Daddy connect with one of his tremendous swings that would make the ball soar!”

A pause: “I saw him hit quite a few home runs.”

Longer pause: “Of course, I saw Daddy strike out a lot too!”

There were a lot of both to see: 1,330 career strikeouts and 714 homers.

“I really appreciate what he accomplished a lot more now,” Julia said, “than I did when I was living with him because I thought of him as Daddy. My goodness we had a wonderful relationship.”

* * *

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

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

‘Daddy’ Ruth Tales, Part 2

March 23, 2019 by Woody

Is your Club or Group looking for an inspiring guest speaker or do you want to host a book signing? . . . Contact Woody today!

* * *

For a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” use the PayPal link on my home page or mail a check for $25 to:

Woody Woodburn

400 Roosevelt Court

Ventura, CA 93003

* * *

Babe Ruth was Big Hit with Daughter

Julia Ruth Stevens, Babe Ruth’s last surviving child, passed away on March 9 at age 102. A decade past, I interviewed Stevens – more accurately, had the great joy of listening to stories about her “Daddy.” With the Major Leagues season now underway, it seems the perfect time to share some of her tales. This is the second in a series.

“Daddy always rose to the occasion, whether it was hitting the ball out of the park when he said he’d do it or making it to my graduation,” Julia Ruth Stevens told me, with marvel. “When he made a promise, he always came through. You could count on it.”

Never more so than in 1929. That was the year – on Opening Day! – Babe Ruth married his second wife, Claire Hodgson, at Saint Gregory’s Church in New York City. That day’s game was actually rained out, but the next afternoon as a wedding gift, Ruth belted a home run and while rounding third base tipped his cap and blew a kiss to his new bride.

He came through and did something far more remarkable later that year. He not only adopted Julia, but from Day 1 he always made her feel like she was as much his birth daughter as was Dorothy (born during Ruth’s first marriage to Helen Woodford).

“No daughter ever had a more caring and loving natural father than my adoptive father was to me,” shared Julia, who never knew her own birth father. It wasn’t long before Ruth further rose to the occasion to make his adopted daughter feel like a true blood relation.

“When I was a teenager I had a very serious strep throat infection,” Julia shared. “They of course didn’t have penicillin at that time and I wasn’t getting better. The doctor said I needed a blood transfusion to get me on the road to recovery. Daddy immediately wanted to be tested to see if he was compatible – and he was.

“The next thing you know, Daddy was right beside me on a gurney giving me a direct blood transfusion. From that moment on, I always felt like we were blood relatives because I had some of Daddy’s blood in me. I felt like that really made me more his real daughter than ever.”

In truth, Ruth made Julia feel like his real daughter through his daily actions.

“One of my favorite things was when Daddy would go hunting or fishing,” she recalled. “He liked to leave the house by 5 so he would get up really early and stick his head in my bedroom and ask softly, ‘Want to have breakfast with me?’

“I’d always say, ‘Absolutely!’ It was a chance to spend some special time alone with him. It was such fun. I just loved talking to him. We’d go to the kitchen and Daddy would fix ‘The Babe Ruth Special’ – he’d brown a piece of buttered bread in a frying pan and then cut a hole in the middle of it. Then he’d put an egg in the hole and put fried bologna on top. It was his original creation and he loved it.”

While she never went hunting or fishing with her famous father, Julia accompanied him plenty of other places, from annual spring training trips in Florida to a winter all-star tour in Japan to bowling alleys and the boxing gym where he taught his little girl to box.

Recalling a photograph of her playfully landing a right hook to Ruth’s jaw, Julia said, with an exclamation mark after every other word: “We always! Had so! Much fun!”

* * *

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

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

‘Daddy’ Ruth: Sultan of Sweetness

March 15, 2019March 15, 2019 by Woody

Is your Club or Group looking for an inspiring guest speaker or do you want to host a book signing? . . . Contact Woody today!

* * *

For a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” use the PayPal link on my home page or mail a check for $25 to:

Woody Woodburn

400 Roosevelt Court

Ventura, CA 93003

* * *

‘Daddy’ Ruth was Sultan of Sweetness

Julia Ruth Stevens, Babe Ruth’s last surviving child, passed away last Saturday at age 102. A decade past, I interviewed Stevens – more accurately, had the great joy of listening to her tell wonderful stories about her father. With Major League Baseball’s Opening Day coming this Wednesday, it seems the perfect time to share some of her tales in this space the next few weeks.

To baseball fans the world round, George Herman “Babe” Ruth was known by a variety of nicknames, from “The Bambino” and “The Sultan of Swat” to “The Colossus of Clout” and “The Wali of Wallop” to “The Maharajah of Mash” and “The Rajah of Rap.”

To a young girl named Julia, however, The Home Run King was known simply as “Daddy.”

“Everywhere we went people worshiped him because he was the famous Babe Ruth,” Julia Ruth Stevens, then 91, told me. “I worshiped him because he was my daddy.”

To the day she died, nine decades after Babe Ruth married Claire Hodgson and adopted her 12-year-old daughter, Julia still affectionately referred to her famous father as “Daddy.”

“We had so much fun together. Daddy couldn’t have been a better father,” Julia said. “Being his daughter, I was the happiest girl in the world!”

Julia with the famous Babe Ruth–just “Daddy” to her.

A trip around the world as her high school graduation present in 1934 was one of Julia’s grandest memories of growing up as Babe Ruth’s daughter. “We went to Japan, India, England, France – I wouldn’t have traded that for anything,” she said.

Her graduation day also provided a memory with a no-trade clause.

“Education was something Daddy really stressed to me. He always regretted the fact that he hadn’t had a real education,” Julia said, explaining that at the Saint Mary’s Industrial Reform School For Boys where Ruth stayed at from age 7 to 19, he had been put to work in a shirt factory at age 12 – ironically the same age Julia was when Ruth adopted her. “So he always promised me he’d be there on my graduation day.”

This was easier said than done because when the big day arrived the New York Yankees were on a road trip in St. Louis.

“Ballplayers weren’t supposed to fly back then because it was thought to be too dangerous.” Julia recounted. “But that was the only way he could get to New York in time, so Daddy flew back anyway. When we got to the airport to pick him up we were told his flight was running two hours late. Graduation was at 1 o’clock and I had to go home and get dressed. The ceremony started without him and Mother arriving.”

Julia paused, warmed by the recollection, and added: “I never doubted he’d make it because Daddy always kept his promises to me.”

Sure enough, before the name “Julia Ruth” was called to receive her diploma a soft buzz began to fill the auditorium.

“I was sitting in the front row and without turning around I knew Daddy was here,” Julia recalled, a lilt in her voice. “When I turned and looked, there he was walking into the back of the room with a beautiful bouquet of flowers for me. I was so happy to see him. He had kept his promise, just as I knew he would. It was absolutely wonderful.”

A similar “absolutely wonderful” occasion was her wedding day when, honoring the bride’s request, Babe Ruth came dressed to the nines in a formal morning suit.

“Daddy walking me down the aisle was one of my proudest moments I’ve ever had,” said Julia, who was then 23.

* * *

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

Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

WOODY WOODBURN

Writer, "Streaker" & Speaker

Category Archives: Columns

Great effort spreading “Goodness”

What is a Mom? Book Illustrates Poetically

Part 2: Twain and Muir’s Meeting

If Ever Twain And Muir Had Met

Friend in Deed is Friend Indeed

“Friends of Library”, Friends To All

Memories Surpass Memorabilia, Part 4

Dancing with Daddy Ruth, Part 3

‘Daddy’ Ruth Tales, Part 2

‘Daddy’ Ruth: Sultan of Sweetness