For a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” mail a check for $25 to:

Woody Woodburn

400 Roosevelt Court

Ventura, CA 93003

* * *

Final Farewell to Leader of Our Band

Where to begin?

I would like to open with the laughter, but I suppose I had better go with the tears. I would not want my old sports editor to scold me for burying the lede.

John Cressy lost his courageous battle with metastatic cancer last Sunday. He was, of course, too young. He barely made it, by two months, to the Beatles song, “When I’m 64.”

John was the Paul McCartney of our band in the sports department of The Star back when it was The Star-Free Press. From 1987 to 1993 he was our leader, our editor, our “O Captain! My Captain!”

Or perhaps he was our John Lennon, for he similarly possessed a wry and acerbic wit. “Cressyman,” as I called him because he always called me “Woodman,” never met deadline pressure he could not pierce with humor.

I was John’s first hire after he became sports editor. If he ever regretted it, he was kind enough never to tell me so.

He actually had reason for second thoughts early on when a couple other editors complained to him that my writing was embellished with too many metaphors, similes and hyperbole.

Similar criticisms had been voiced at my three previous newspapers. But something different happened now. John had my back. He told the naysayer editors he liked my writing style and that so did the readers.

Most important, he took me aside and told me to keep doing it my way.

This is not to say John didn’t try to help me grow as a writer. For one thing, he made me realize less can be more – that an 850-word column could be improved if I whittled it down to 750 words.

Long after John left the Star, I continued to check with him whenever I used the word “whom” to make sure my grammar was correct. He kept trying to teach me how to figure it out on my own, but I honestly didn’t pay close attention because it was always a good excuse to touch bases with him.

John was not only an invaluable grammar reference, he was a human sports trivia almanac. Before the Internet, instead of Googling a question we would just ask John. He once won a few episodes on a sports trivia TV show. Local bars would even call the sports desk and ask for John to settle trivia bets between two patrons.

My experience of having my sports editor also be my friend was the rule, not the exception, with John. Former Star colleague Doug Thompson succinctly summed it up well for all of us: “I am grateful to have known him as a friend.”

When news got out that John was in the ICU at Community Memorial Hospital, his former writers rushed to see him. Those who could not make it to Ventura sent messages of their friendship and love.

Walking into the ICU, I at first did not recognize John, so frail had he become. Whispering required great effort on his part – and leaning in close to his lips on my part to hear.

Saying hello when my heart was telling me this was also a final farewell was suffocatingly somber. And yet John, with some trademark acerbic quips, made me laugh. When he called me “Woodman” it made me smile.

Most dear of all, the thing I will hold on to from that heartrending visit was how Cressyman asked about my daughter and son, and wife. Nor was he content with brief updates, he wanted details in full.

After leaving his bedside I couldn’t find the elevator at first, my vision too clouded by tears.

But tears are not what John – who had a great laugh, a cackle really, and did not conserve it – would want. He would prefer me to end this column on a lighter note. I’ll try.

It’s funny the things you think of at a time like this. Like, who/whom the heck am I now going to ask about who/whom?

* * *

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.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
• Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

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For a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” mail a check for $25 to:

Woody Woodburn

400 Roosevelt Court

Ventura, CA 93003

* * *

Wisdom From Pinch-Hitting Typewriters

            From time to time I turn this space over to my readers, but today I am having some writers pinch hit with their words of wisdom and inspiration.

*

“Love is friendship set on fire,” wrote 17th century author Jeremy Taylor.

My two cents: Set your own world ablaze!

*

From the great A. A. Milne, author of the classic Winnie-the-Pooh series: “Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”

My two cents: Enjoy your un-rushed journey towards your goals.

*

“We find our path by walking it,” advised poet Maya Angelou.

Me: Be an explorer!

*

Me again: The more you give, the more you receive – unless your motivation for giving is to receive.

*

From author Bill Bryson: “You always have your whole life ahead of you.”

Two cents from Hall of Fame pitcher/philosopher Satchel Paige: “Don’t look back – something might be gaining on you.”

*

“The world is a book,” philosopher Saint Augustine wrote around 400 AD, “and those who do not travel read only a page.”

My two cents: “Read” as many pages as you can, as often as you can, and as widely as possible.

*

From Stephen King, the maestro of scary: “The scariest moment is always just before you start.”
Me: Start!

*

Similarly, from Jack London: “You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.”
My two cents: Grab a club.

*

From my all-time favorite author, Dallas Woodburn McAuley: “True coolness isn’t about following someone else’s list of rules. It’s about being happy in your own skin and being joyful in your own life. That is what gives you the sparkle.”

Two cents from Dallas’ dad: Find your sparkle and share it with the world.

*

From author Alex Frazen: “You can make excuses or you can make yourself proud. You can make excuses or you can make progress. Every day, it’s your choice.”

Me: Choose wisely. Better yet, choose boldly.

*

From Giotto di Bondone, a painter – which is a cousin to being a writer: “The sincere friends of this world are as ship lights in the stormiest of nights.”

Or, as John Wooden consistently advised, “make friendship a fine art” today.

*

Speaking of fine art, Vincent van Gogh said: “The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.”

My two cents: Be an artist!

*

From Leonardo da Vinci: “It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them – they went out and happened to things.”

Me: Go happen to something that matters to you today.

*

Me again: Embrace Mondays instead of greeting them with antipathy or else you will wind up dreading one-seventh of your life.

*

“It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive,” Miguel de Cervantes famously noted.

With apologies to the late, great poet, following two recent journeys I took I have to disagree. I think arriving into a bear hug from my son in New York City, and then into a big hug from my daughter in San Francisco, were far better than my hopeful travels there.

*

Speaking of my son, a talented writer and painter, this nugget is from him: “Giving compliments does much more good than taking out the trash, and thus should be done more than once each week.”

Speaking of trash, legendary Buena High basketball coach – and one of my longtime role models – Joe Vaughan likes to say: “Take pride in everything you do. When you take the trashcans to the curb, be the best trashcan taker-outter in the neighborhood.”

*

Let me close with this wisdom from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”

Those who know me well, or read me often, can guess how I am going to translate Waldo’s wisdom: Make today your masterpiece!

* * *

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.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
• Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

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For a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” mail a check for $25 to:

Woody Woodburn

400 Roosevelt Court

Ventura, CA 93003

* * *

Thiscolumnalmostlookedlikethis

Our hot-water heater burst last week and so, nearly, did I.

It was not the 50-gallon boiler that had me steamed for it was still under warranty. This was both fortunate and rare, as my experience with warranties has largely been that they expire two weeks before something breaks.

It was something else that broke – and, par for the course, no longer covered by warranty – that caused my consternation. The space bar on my computer went kaput.

More accurately, the right five-sixths of the space bar stopped working. As a result, unless I struck the left corner perfectly mytypinglookedlikethis.

With the habit ingrained since a high school typing class of tapping the space bar dead center, suddenly mytypinghasmostlylookedlikethis.

The Band-Aid remedy has been to go back and painstakingly insert all the missing spaces while focusing my finger’s aim on the left edge of the space bar.

The real cure has proved even more time consuming. At last count, I have dropped my laptop off at the repair shop four times. And four times the fix has failed.

The initial diagnosis for an “easy fix” of solely the space bar proved wrong. Once inside, the technician discovered the entire keyboard panel needed to be replaced. A new one was ordered. I took my laptop home since a finicky space bar is better than none.

The new keyboard arrived. I dropped off my laptop. Alas, the wrong part had arrived. I retrieved my laptop while a replacement for the replacement was ordered.

A new problem. When I returned home for the third time, the screen remained black. It turns out that during the aborted procedure with the wrong part, a thingamabob was unbeknownst damaged.

And so, while my Frankenstein of a laptop await new parts and new life, this column is being composed on my cell phone. Typing a text or short email on a tiny screen is a modern convenience, but a 700-word essay seems a hassle.

And yet my irritation with the situation was short-lived.

First, I thought back to writing my first newspaper stories in college on a manual typewriter. Rewriting and editing were done with a pencil.

Next, I remembered the first laptop computer I used – a Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 sold by Radio Shack and the staple of newspapers in the early 1980s. It displayed a mere six short rows of text and the cursor moved like it had taken three Quaaludes.

By comparison, my Samsung Galaxy S7 phone is like a Tesla to a Model T.

Besides, the tools should not really matter. For example, I was once touring a golf course Greg Norman was designing. On a par-4, impromptu, he picked up a borrowed driver and hit a perfect shot onto the green.

Similarly, I’m sure a gifted violinist can make any fiddle sing, a gifted artist can create magic with any paintbrush, and so should a professional writer not need anything more than a pencil and paper.

But what really gave my mindset the reboot it needed was recalling a story a friend once shared with me. It was about a writer facing real challenges.

For starters, the writer was told time and again he couldn’t be a writer – because he was only 12 years old.

No matter the naysayers, he dedicated himself to working on a novel every day. He sometimes wrote passages in a notebook during class; often during lunchtime; always after finishing his homework at night.

Moreover, his family couldn’t afford a computer at home. Again, no matter. He wrote longhand and then typed his story in the computer lab after school.

In other words, this boy refused to be deterred by unsupportive teachers, by not having a computer, by too much homework. He made time, found his own inspiration, borrowed a computer.

I never heard if that boy ever finished his novel – and yet I know he did. I imagine he is working on his third or fifth novel by now.

Writing one column on a cell phone is duck soup. The space bar even works perfectly.

* * *

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.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
• Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

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For a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” mail a check for $25 to:

Woody Woodburn

400 Roosevelt Court

Ventura, CA 93003

* * *

Bird and Book Lovers Chime In

Picture a flock of seagulls flying in en masse for a sandwich left behind on the beach, or Harry Potter fans lined up for a midnight release, and you get an idea of how crowded my email in-box has been the past two weeks.

My readers, it is clear, love birds and books.

*

From Kathy Youngman: “I love birds, too. I have a birdfeeder outside my kitchen window. I watch yellow finches, orange birds and many others all day.

“We have a boat in Channel Islands marina and across the bay there is a huge eucalyptus tree. In this tree is a nest of blue herons – we watch it all the time. Sometimes we see a flock of pelicans diving into the water to get fish.

“Unfortunately, we had to stop feeding the birds because of rats. We called the exterminator and until the rats are gone, the birds will have to wait for their dinner.”

*

Joy Hart thinks banning books is a ratty thing to do, writing:

“I was shocked, angry, and very disturbed about the proposed book ban on Sherman Alexie’s ‘The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian’ in the Conejo Valley Unified School District.

“This book was instrumental in getting one of my grandsons to actually become interested in reading when he was about 12-13 years old.”

*

From Elmer Barber: “I have two feeders and three birdbaths in my yard. The other day, I went out and filled the feeders and added fresh water to the baths.

“When this is going on, there’s not a bird in sight. After the fills, I like to sit and watch the birds come in from all directions. Sitting there watching, I figured it out – there’s one bird watching the whole process and when I’m done he puts out the word: ‘ALL CLEAR, THE SNACK BAR AND POOL ARE OPEN!’”

*

From Martha, who asked her last name not be used: “You failed to mention that we are concerned over pornographic material being mandated on English 11 AP students. These are minors!”

*

Karen Brooks was among numerous readers who disagreed with the above assertion: “I found the profanity, vulgarity and violence to be pretty tame compared to what my generation read in school, back when dinosaurs ruled the earth.

“I don’t recall the school board or parent groups threatening to ban ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ with its murder, mayhem, suicide and underage sex.”

*

From Sherrilynn Palladino: “Amazon says the book is for ‘Grade 7-12 and ages 12 -17.’ The grade level in Conejo is 9th grade and approximately 14 years of age.

“Parents of these ‘kids’ have had 14 years to instill their values and morals into their offspring. Kids need to be exposed in high school to those of diverse viewpoints beforethey go into the big, bad world (work/military/college), not kept in a bubble.”

*

Hoping to help burst such a bubble, Glenn, who has a free “Street Library” in front of his Ventura home, wrote: “How about we get a number of copies of the book and let people know they will be free?”

Readers? If you send me a copy (check woodywoodburn.com for my mailing address) of “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian,” I will see that Glenn gets it.

*

Thanks to six birdfeeders in his backyard, Dick Holt’s residence has as many incoming flights as LAX. Birds flying into his 5-by-8-foot window is, he writes, “a regular occurrence.”

“Fortunately, most of the time the birds fall to the ground and lay there for little while, usually with their feet pointing up towards the sky, and then after five or 10 minutes shake their heads, walk around for a little bit, and then fly off slowly until they totally regain their equilibrium.”

*

From Audrey Hofteig: “We have had many episodes of downed birds and birds in the house!”

“I wonder though – why don’t you move your trash can so the mama bird doesn’t have to panic?”

She’s not the first reader to suggest I’m a birdbrain.

* * *

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.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
• Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

Save

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For a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” mail a check for $25 to:

Woody Woodburn

400 Roosevelt Court

Ventura, CA 93003

* * *

Feathers Ruffled by a Pair of Birds

One evening, when they were teens, my daughter and son went to the Ventura Townhouse to visit an elderly woman they had befriended through Caregivers’ Building Bridges Program for local high school students.

Sharing the elevator with them while going up to Jewell’s room was another resident.

“I like your broach,” my daughter said, complimenting the bejeweled bird the woman was wearing.

In a voice filled with as much enthusiasm, and volume, as a kindergartener announcing, “I like ice cream!” the woman replied: “I like birds!”

As do I.

Indeed, I like to listen to their morning songs when I first awaken. I like to spy them outside my window as I write during the day. And I like to watch them soar in flight, especially at the beach floating on an updraft like a kite, no wing flapping required.

Sadly, I saw the opposite occur last week. A bird fell from the sky and crash landed in my backyard.

Actually, I did not see it happen – I heard it.

“Boink!”

Never before had I heard this specific sound, yet I instantly knew what had happened. Our home has a large picture window on the second story. Unadorned, it faces eastward and a bird flying westward had flown blindly into it like a Windex commercial brought to life.

Hurrying outside, I found a bird lying on the grass directly below the window. I knelt and looked for signs of life, but saw none.

Funny, but my next thought was remembering a cartoon from The New Yorker magazine, although it was not humorous at this moment. A bird in heaven asks a winged angel: “You run into a window, too?”

As I said, I like birds – but I am no birder. My uneducated identification was of a common sparrow. Common or not, its fate saddened me greatly as I went to get a small gardening trowel to bury it.

When I returned, however, my heart soared for the bird had apparently done likewise. It was gone, the only explanation being it had suffered a bruised beak and been knocked briefly unconscious.

Meanwhile, another bird story has been turning its pages at my house. For the past month or so, every time I have taken out the trash to the garbage cans at the side of our house, a bird has appeared out of thin air like a dove from of a magician’s hat.

In truth, the bird appears out of the thick ivy growing on a brick wall opposite the garbage cans.

Again, I am only guessing that this is also a common house sparrow – scientific name Passer domesticus. However, even an expert would have difficulty making an accurate identification of this blur flying past his ear.

The first few times this Hitchcock-ian attack happened, the Blurry domesticus made me jump out of my clothes. Eventually, I remembered to expect the feathery flyby and tried sneaking past the bird’s hidden nest. To no avail. It still flushed from cover, its natural instinct being to draw approaching prey away from its nest.

The very day after the other sparrow flew into the picture window, something more tragic happened. When I took out the trash, this bird bolted and somehow the nest was dislodged and fell out of the ivy onto the cement walkway.

Worse, there were eggs in the nest. Four, upon closer inspection. Happily, upon even closer scrutiny, none appeared broken.

And yet the unscrambled eggs were of small consolation because I remember as a kid learning that if a person touches a bird’s nest the mother bird will never return.

If this is indeed true, I now hoped that perhaps the desertion is due to human scent left behind. I put on gardening gloves and carefully tucked the nest back into the ivy.

Then I hoped against hope for the best because I not only like birds, I have come to especially like this bird.

The best happened. The next time I took out the kitchen trash my feathers were happily ruffled.

* * *

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.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
• Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

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For a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” mail a check for $25 to:

Woody Woodburn

400 Roosevelt Court

Ventura, CA 93003

* * *

In-Box Overflows With Feel-Good Emails

 As steward of this 700-word space each Saturday morning, from time to time I like to step aside and open the forum up to my readers.

Let me begin today with a feel-good story from Kathy Murphy, who wrote: “I witnessed a remarkable incident last week that I want to share with you.

“While waiting for the red arrow to change on Telegraph Road so that I could turn left and enter the Post Office parking lot, I saw an elderly woman moving very slowly with her walker across Wake Forest. She didn’t even reach the median strip before the ‘Walk’ sign was cancelled.

“A driver ready to proceed toward Victoria Avenue stopped his truck and emerged to warn oncoming cars that she should arrive at the other side before they moved forward. A young man (perhaps in his 30’s), he patiently held up his arms like a policeman in the middle of the street as she passed by him.

“I was glad that no drivers honked horns in spite of the long line of cars that waited to go ahead. It was a wonderful sight to behold, granting me the opportunity to renew my belief in the goodness of humanity.”

*

Shirley Carson responded to my William Wordsworth-like “The Child is father to the Man” role reversal experience with my son while visiting him in New York City:

“As an 80-year-old, I tend to not accept the role reversal from my children – I am so determined to prove that I can still do everything I always did, and thus turn down their efforts to be ‘The child is mother to the woman or Son is father to the woman.’

“My children are great adults and after reading your column I have decided to back off and let them be the people they were raised to be! Thank you so much for giving me food for thought!”

*

Venturan Dick Holt offered his own change of perspective in response to my column on the art of “kintsugi” and finding golden beauty in daily life:

“Our backyard is full of God’s handiwork and every day I lay in bed looking out through my window that overlooks our backyard which is 5-feet by 8-feet and only 5 feet away from my bed, and marvel at all the things that I have missed all these many years of my life.

“Now, I am laid up spending all day in bed every day and it has given me a chance to enjoy all of those beautiful sights that heretofore I overlooked. Your essay triggered me to look again with a new eye.

“I have hundreds of birds of all species and kinds of through golden eagles and then all kinds of little four-legged animals starting with mice, lizards, chipmunks, and going up through the bigger four-legged kinds of animals, namely squirrels, possums, skunks, coyotes and many others.

“And the pine trees and rubber trees and philodendron plants, along with bottle bush and hibiscus and several other plants that I have completely overlooked much of my life – being a physicist and mathematician and missing the beauty of many things because of my ignorance of the biological side of life.

“Thanks, Woody, for helping to reopen my looking glass.”

*

In an email with the subject line “Want to share an act of kindness and compassion with you” came this from Katie Behné:

“At Trader Joe’s at Pacific View Mall yesterday afternoon, the checker (‘H. Peter’ was on the receipt) asked how my day was.

“I said, ‘OK, I guess.’

“He said that didn’t sound good. I told him that my husband had open-heart surgery yesterday and was struggling.

“He said he was sorry.

“As I’m getting money out of my wallet, he walks away. He comes back with a bouquet and said that it was from Trader Joe’s. He leaned toward me and said that things would be better tomorrow. I got teary. Feel-good story of the day, huh?”

It is certainly one bright color in the rainbow.

* * *

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