Category Archives: Columns

Column: Stranger Becomes a Friend

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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Downside of ‘Hello’ is ‘Goodbye’

“A stranger,” Will Rogers said, “is just a friend I haven’t met yet.”

Three years ago, Jongsoo was a stranger to me.

And then we met, crossing paths at the Ventura Aquatic Center community park. I was on my daily run going one direction around the soccer fields and he walked, aided by a cane, in the opposite. “Hi,” I said as we passed.

My joyful friend, Jongsoo, and me before saying goodbye.

My joyful friend, Jongsoo, and me before saying goodbye.

“HELL-OHHH!” Jongsoo replied in all capital letters with the “o” drawn out and punctuated with an exclamation mark.

Jongsoo not only greeted me with “HELL-OHHH!” whenever I saw him in the days and months that followed, often a few times a week, he would sing it with the same enthusiasm on each ensuing loop, sometimes a dozen times in one afternoon, as if every encounter was the first.

Soon we were exchanging a hug with the day’s first “HELL-OHHH” and high-fives thereafter. Jongsoo’s carbonated joy always added a lightness to my stride and heart.

Too, he made me laugh. For one thing, Jongsoo often walked with a transistor radio, sans earphones, blaring loud enough to scare away birds. Moreover, he sometimes did a few dance steps for my amusement.

The sight of Jongsoo and me trying to converse had to amuse all who saw us, an odd couple to be sure: he two decades older than me; me a foot taller; and neither of us understanding much of what the other was saying despite our pantomimes.

One day early on, Jongsoo was limping more than usual and through gestures I asked about his leg. He answered by displaying a scar that looked like a great white shark had taken a bite out of his hip and thigh. Through charades it became clear the shark had been a car.

Last week, Jongsoo gave me a note, in English, explaining he was leaving in five days and would not return for at least a year.

“Thanks for cheering me up whenever I see you at the park,” it also read. “Thank you for being my friend.”

The following afternoon I handed Jongsoo a return note of thanks with some questions about him. One, two, three days passed and I did not see him at the park. I feared I would not get to say goodbye to my friend.

Why had I not realized sooner that Jongsoo must be living with someone who could translate for us? Mad at myself, I recalled what sports writer Frank Graham once wrote about Bob Meusel, a gruff outfielder with the New York Yankees who in his fading playing days warmed up slightly: “He’s learning to say hello when it’s time to say goodbye.”

On the final day before Jongsoo would fly back to South Korea, as I was nearing the end of my run and about to leave the park, a VW Beetle honked and pulled into the parking lot. Jongsoo had insisted his daughter, Kim, drive him over one last time in hopes of catching me.

“HELL-OHHH!” Jongsoo sang.

“An nyoung!” I said back, after asking Kim for the Korean translation.

From Kim I learned that her father is 76 years old, has three children and his arranged marriage is closing in on its golden anniversary. He has been staying in Ventura with Kim, who came to American in 1994 to earn a doctoral degree in Special Education and remained here to teach, and her husband Cory, a software engineer.

I also learned that a taxi had struck Jongsoo five years ago in Seoul; his hip socket and part of his shattered femur needed to be replaced. How he now walks for one to two hours daily is remarkable and inspiring. Surgery and chemotherapy for colon cancer also did not slow him down for long.

After giving my friend a hug, I asked Kim how to say goodbye in Korean.

“An nyoung!” I said again, for the salutation she explained is the same going as arriving.

I learned to say hello when it was time to say goodbye – but now I’ll be ready to say hello when goodbye ends and Jungsoo and I meet again at the park.

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

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Column: Good News Nuggets

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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There’s Good News This Morning

Gabriel Heatter, a popular radio commentator for the Mutual Broadcasting network during the World War II era, liked to focus on uplifting stories and greeted his audience with the sign-on: “Good evening everyone, there’s good news tonight.”

In honor of Heatter, who passed away 43 years ago this week: Good morning everyone, there’s good news today.

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Nearly everyone in the Turkish town of Bagcilar, near Istanbul, secretly learned sign language in order to surprise their deaf neighbor with a magical day when his sound barriers were broken down.

My friend Connie, owner of Mrs. Figs' Bookworm, helped put on a wonderful "One City, One Book" talk featuring Garth Stein.

My friend Connie, owner of Mrs. Figs’ Bookworm, helped put on a wonderful “One City, One Book” talk featuring Garth Stein.

Thanks to a production crew and cameras hidden inside baby strollers, purses and even an apple on a fruit stand, the uplifting gift to a young man named Muaharrem was captured on video.

The fun begins when Muaharrem – and his sister Ozlem, who is in on the surprise – leaves home on what he thinks is a normal day and encounters a pedestrian on the sidewalk who signs, “Good morning.”

Next, a baker behind the shop’s counter greets Muaharrem with sign language: “We’ve got hot bagels.”

Back outside, a man purposely spills a bag of fruit just as Muaharrem approaches. After Muaharrem stops to help pick up, the man gives his thanks by signing, “I’d like to offer you an apple.”

By now Muaharrem appears stunned, as if he has entered some Bizzaro World, and asks his sister: “Do you know him? Is he hearing impaired?”

Answers Ozlem: “I don’t know.”

The choreographed fun continues when a woman on the sidewalk “accidentally” bumps into Muaharrem and apologizes in sign: “Sorry, my mistake.”

Inside a taxi, the driver signs, “Hi, welcome.” Muaharrem remains bemused until he is dropped off in the public square and greeted by all his neighbors. The ruse is revealed, he is overcome by emotion.

Granted, it was all done for an Internet advertisement for Samsung’s new video call center for the hearing impaired, but for the town members it was done from the heart.

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The Internet hasn’t killed books just yet.

Camarillo’s fourth annual “One City, One Book” literacy event, in chorus with Mrs. Figs’ Bookworm, last Sunday featured a talk by Garth Stein, author of “The Art of Racing in the Rain.”

Almost as wonderful as Stein’s engaging, enlightening and humorous hour-long talk is that the Camarillo Public Library’s conference room was filled to Standing Room Only.

Indeed, 300 book readers in one place is good news that required the bestselling author to spend a full second hour signing copies of “The Art of Racing in the Rain” as well as his new novel “A Sudden Light.”

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In the dark of night, in Eugene, Oregon, a family of four – with a fifth member on the way – was sleeping in its car in a public park that was about to close for curfew.

Robert Wood, his pregnant wife and two young sons were en route moving from Alaska to Eugene and trying to save money while looking for living quarters.

When police officer David Natt discovered the Wood family and heard its story, he made them leave the park . . . but first he gave them money – collected in advance from a local church – for two nights in a hotel until their new housing was available.

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One corner of Philadelphia is certainly living up to the “City of Brotherly Love” nickname thanks to one customer who walked into a small pizza parlor and left $1 to pre-purchase a slice to be redeemed by the next homeless person who enter and couldn’t afford a meal.

Mason Wartman, owner of Rosa’s Fresh Pizza, wrote the purchase down on a Post-it note and stuck it on the wall behind the register. Word spread and soon the kind deed – and Post-its – multiplied as more customers “paid-it-forward” by buying a guaranteed slice of pizza for anyone in need.

To date, 10,000 pizza slices have been bought for needy neighbors!

Mother Teresa said, “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” Remarkably, by feeding one person it is possible to inspire feeding a hundred people – or even 10,000. That’s good news.

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

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Column: A Stew of Thoughts

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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Thoughts on This, That, the Other

Nobody asked me, but here goes anyway. . .

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I don’t understand the appeal of the new Apple Watch that requires a person to also carry an iPhone in order to activate all the watch’s features, such as tracking physical activity and alerting a person via vibration when texts arrive.

1dicktracyApple didn’t ask me, but alert me when it finally makes a wristwatch that is a phone – you know like Dick Tracy had 80 years ago!

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Congratulations to Ventura County four-peat champion Westlake High School for placing 20th in the state Academic Decathlon.

Nobody asked me, but I would like to see academic all-stars get the same media coverage when they decide which college they will take their talented minds to as blue-chip prep athletes receive on national signing day.

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Hollywood and theater chains didn’t ask me, but how about if they cut the 20 minutes of coming attractions by half and show some of the Oscar-nominated Best Short Animated Films we never get to see?

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I hadn’t watched a national evening news broadcast on one of the three major networks for a while and when I did recently my takeaway on all the fluff was this: #WalterCronkiteIsSad.

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If somebody asked me if I wanted a bacon and raspberry jelly-topped hotdog on a Krispy Kreme doughnut bun I would think they were messing with me.

But “The Krispy Kreme Donut Dog” really is a mess of a concoction offered at Fawley Stadium in Wilmington, Del., home of the single-A Blue Rocks.

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Add Krispy arteries: Not to be outdone, for $7 fans attending Phoenix International Raceway can buy a 900-calorie “CARBuretor Crunch” which is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich encrusted in Cap’n Crunch and topped with bacon.

Only 131 days until the 2015 Ventura County Fair opens!

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Nobody asked me, but my personal list of Best Clam Chowder in Ventura County has a new No. 1 with Garman’s Pub in Santa Paula leapfrogging Beach House Fish at the Ventura Pier, Lure Fish House in downtown Ventura, and Andria’s Seafood at the harbor.

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I love how a friend of mine recently had a $7 breakfast at a small-town diner and left a $20 bill, noting of the waitress’s reaction: “Her 13-dollar smile made my day!”

A few days later another friend asked a Girl Scout how many boxes of cookies she had left and, told 84, bought all of them. I would have loved to see that $336 smile.

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Congrats and good luck to 805 community treasure Josh Spiker for taking over the Tri-Running store in Camarillo which he has coolly renamed Mile 26 Sports.

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Congratulations also to the 805’s Mustang Marketing, and thanks to all who contributed, for giving more than 300 sleeping bags to the homeless.

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Charlie Sifford, The Jackie Robinson of Golf who recently passed away at age 92, once told me when I asked if he regretted being born too soon to play on the then-segregated PGA Tour in his prime, answered: “I don’t regret being born too soon, I’m just thankful I was born at all.”

A great lesson in perspective for all of us.

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Speaking of thankfulness, a story earlier this week in my favorite newspaper included this quote from a grandmother, who has been living in a crowded trailer with her daughter and four grandchildren, after a county assistance program helped the family move into a four-bedroom house in Simi Valley:

“To us, this is a mansion. Running water, we are very rich.”

How rich does her gratitude make you feel?

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Art Linkletter was only half right with his old show “Kids Say The Darndest Things” – so do senior citizens.

During the Q&A portion of my recent talk about John Wooden at “The Californian” Ventura Convalescent Hospital, after questions about basketball and Coach’s religious beliefs, a woman raised her hand enthusiastically and asked: “Can I go to the bathroom now?!”

Quoting one of my favorite Woodenisms, I said: “Be quick, but don’t hurry.”

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

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Column: Stan Smith stands tall

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is also available here at Amazon

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Ojai to Wimbledon, Stan Smith shined

Nearly two decades before fictional Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella built his “Field of Dreams,” a Court of Dreams was laid down in the middle of an Ohio cornfield for the inaugural 1970 Buckeye Open – now the ATP Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati.

The green hardcourt was built and they came – Arthur Ashe, Charles Pasarell, Tom Gorman, an aging Pancho Gonzales, and that year’s eventual singles champion, Bob Lutz.

However, it was Lutz’s doubles partner out of the University of Southern California, Stan Smith, who made the quickest – and most lasting – impression upon me.1stansmith

I was a 10-year-old rookie ball boy working the very first match of the pro tournament. Like Smith, my forte was at net where I was quick and confident. But unlike the tall, lanky, blond Californian, I was not falling prey to my own miscues. The opening set was over quickly as Smith didn’t win a game.

In the second set, however, the three-time All-American from USC and 1968 NCAA singles champion found his form. Unleashing aces instead of double faults, put-away volleys and laser-guided passing shots instead of unforced errors, Smith won the second set as fleetly as he had lost the first. Ray Ruffels, a lefty out of Australia, suddenly became Ray Ruffled as Smith ran out the match, 0-6, 6-0, 6-0.

Walking off the court my new idol paused to sign “Good luck, Stan Smith” on the brim of my tennis hat. A week later I got more than an autograph. I scored one of Smith’s rackets – a custom Wilson Jack Kramer Pro Staff model, weighted “Heavy” with an oversized 4-7/8 grip.

On match point of the doubles final, Smith hit an overhead a fraction high of the sweet spot and the wooden racket head collapsed like a dry leaf. Still, the shot had enough power to win the point and give the title to Smith and Lutz.

Before shaking hands with their opponents at the net, Smith handed me his splintered racket. It was like having Babe Ruth give you a cracked bat before his home-run trot.

Behind a serve that came out of the treetops and a net game so monstrous that Romanian star Ilie Nastase nicknamed him “Godzilla,” the mustachioed Smith soon rose to No. 1 in the world. He won the 1971 U.S. Open. He won Wimbledon in 1972. He won the prestigious year-end WCT Finals twice.

Too, Smith was Mr. Clutch in Davis Cup play, going 15-5 in singles and 20-3 in doubles (13-1 with Lutz) while setting a record by personally clinching the Cup five times.

Stanley Roger Smith was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987 but his credentials date back to The Ojai Tennis Tournament “Where Champions Are Discovered” and where he won the 1964 Boys’ Interscholastic singles title and added three Collegiate singles crowns, two Collegiate doubles titles and one Open Doubles championship.

More than a half-century after his first appearance at The Ojai, Smith will be back at this year’s 115th edition of the prestigious event. On April 23 he will attend the traditional Thursday Night BBQ and on April 24 will be the guest of honor at a special reception from 5:30 to 7:30 at the Ojai Vineyard Tasting Room to raise funds for capital improvements to the tournament. Tickets can be purchased online at: www.ojaitourney.org.

“The main goal, of course, was to play on the main Libbey Park courts,” Smith, now 68, recently recalled. “That was really special.”

The Pasadena native who now resides in Hilton Head Island, S.C. where he runs his own junior tennis academy, continued: “And the orange juice stand was the other highlight. It’s funny how certain things stand out in your mind.”

Funny indeed. When he was losing that six-love set to Ray Ruffels, this is what stands out in my mind: Stan Smith argued a line call – that had gone in his favor and ultimately gave the point to his opponent.

I think of that whenever I look at that broken keepsake racket hanging on my wall to this day.

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

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Column: Sweet and Sour Tale

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is also available here at Amazon

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True Tale of the Sweet Meatloaf

News item: The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee recently recommended that no more than 10 percent of daily calories – roughly 12 teaspoons – should come from added sugar.

Americans currently consume more than twofold that sweetness, which sounds like a lot unless you compare it to the 1960s when 1sugarcrsipkids’ diets consisted of the four basic food groups: meat, potatoes, dairy, and sugar. The ratio most commonly followed was five percent, five percent, ten percent and eighty percent.

A typical breakfast in The Sixties consisted of Super Sugar Crisp, Frosted Flakes, Cocoa Puffs, Froot Loops or cardboard-like Wheaties, the latter requiring adding six heaping spoonfuls of sugar on top in order to reach food group nutritional goals.

Indeed, if there wasn’t syrupy undissolved nectar at the bottom of the cereal bowl afterwards, you had not added enough sugar. Similarly, Tang – the drink of astronauts! – and Nestles Quick were best mixed by tripling the directions for the number of spoonfuls recommended.

Since my two older brothers, younger sister, and I could never agree on one cereal, when we went to Grandpa Ansel’s house for the weekend we were greeted with a mega-pack of single-serving boxes featuring a dozen different kinds. We would “draft” the mini-boxes by taking turns. Trades – and fights – followed. Only Risk and Monopoly were more contentious.

Cold cereal also made a great lunch when we grew tired of bologna on white Wonder Bread, peanut butter and jelly on white Wonder Bread, or hotdogs on white Wonder Bread.

Too, many a night at the dinner table when Pop said we had two choices – “Take it or leave it!” – regarding liver and lima beans or some other culinary punishment, we proved him wrong with a third choice: Cereal!

This is not to suggest Mom was a bad cook. She was terrific. I have yet to taste the equal of her spaghetti sauce, although Pop recently revealed her secret ingredient, I kid you not: a little sugar.

In The Sixties the granulated white stuff was considered as magically healthy as penicillin. Mary Poppins even advised in song: “A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.”

Mom’s meatloaf – despite containing no sugar so far as I know – was legendary. This is not hyperbole. For some reason, perhaps the gross humor of three young sons rubbing off on her, when serving meatloaf Mom always mentioned she had mixed it with her bare feet, much like a winemaker stomping grapes.

This family joke – “gag” is perhaps the more appropriate word choice – soon had us boys delightedly asking, with feigned hope, if Mom had played tennis earlier in the day. To which she would playfully answer: “Yes, three sets, and I didn’t wash my feet afterwards so the meatloaf should be especially tasty tonight!”

One afternoon my best friend Dan was over and when dinnertime neared he phoned home to see what his mom was cooking. I asked my mom the same question. It was a tactic we routinely employed to decide where we wanted to eat. This time my house had the best menu.

1meatloafWhile washing our hands I mentioned that I hoped my mom hadn’t washed her feet before making the meatloaf and naturally Dan looked at me quizzically. When I explained how she mixed the meatloaf with her stinky toes, he of course did not believe me.

As we sat down at the dinner table, as if on cue, one of my big brothers asked Mom how smelly her feet were today. Mom, also as if rehearsed for this very moment, enthusiastically replied she had played an extra set of tennis because she knew Dan might be staying for dinner and she wanted the meatloaf to be extra delicious.

Dan, queasily but earnestly, asked: “Uh, Mrs. Woodburn” – in the 1960s kids didn’t know grown-ups’ first names, much less address a parent by one – “you don’t really use your bare feet, do you?”

Mom replied deadpan: “Why of course I do, Dan. Doesn’t your mom?”

I am certain it was not the first time Dan had Super Sugar Crisp for dinner.

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

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

 

Column: Payphone Slot Machine

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is also available here at Amazon

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Hung Up On Saving a Sweet Dime

Anyone with a Facebook page or their own blog will find this hard to believe, but in the 1960s there were no personal computers. Also no VCRs, much less DVDs or DVRs. No microwave ovens or cell phones.

Largely no parental supervision, either.1payphone

Indeed, The Sixties seems a prehistoric era. We “dialed” numbers on rotary phones, listened to “records” and newfangled “eight-track” tapes, and if your car broke down or ran out of gas you had to find a telephone booth (Google it) which cost a dime to make a local call.

Usually a dime. My oldest brother discovered that if you hung up a payphone the very millisecond someone answered on the other end, the automated switchboard perceived the call had not gone through and your dime would drop into the change slot.

Hence, Oldest Brother told Mom that when she answered the phone and no one was there, it meant he needed to be picked up from school, football practice or a friend’s house.

One problem. This required Mom to know where Oldest Brother was. In The Sixties, 99.2 percent of parents did not concern themselves with such trivial matters as knowing the whereabouts of their children between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.

My two older brothers and I could go next door to use power tools unsupervised, ride our bikes without helmets across town to the comic book store, or hop on a boxcar with hobos and so long as we were home by eight o’clock there would be no questions asked. Most likely, we would not have even been noticed missing.

Frequently as not, when Oldest Brother phoned home and quickly hung up Mom went to the wrong place to pick him up. She would waste a dollar of gasoline driving around town to find Oldest Brother, who was thrilled to have saved a dime.

More than once Mom went to the right place to get Oldest Brother only to learn had not called for a ride home yet – his “secret code” had been a wrong number hang-up. Amazingly, these miscommunications never seemed to ruffle Mom.

Even running out of gas, in a downpour, did not get Mom steamed up. It helped that the faux-wood-paneled station wagon sputtered dead at an intersection with gas stations on three of the four corners. An attendant across the street saw Mom wave in distress out the driver’s window and came running through the rain to the rescue with a gas can.

Amazingly, Mom happily escaped this “I Love Lucy”-like madcap situation without even getting wet. She made us three boys in the backseat swear to secrecy because Pop was forever admonishing her for acting as though “E” on the gas gauge stood for “Enough.”

As you might imagine, the moment Pop came home from work that evening we rushed to tell him all about our adventure; he just shook his head because he knew Mom had not learned her lesson.

Back to Oldest Brother’s hang-up ploy. The biggest problem came after he taught Middle Brother and me how to turn the payphone into a slot machine with a dime payout. Now Mom had no idea who had hung up on her, much less where we were.

1-pixieAll this hassle to save a dime might seem nuts, but back then ten cents bought a Snickers, or a six-pack of mini-Coke bottles made out of paraffin and filled with colored sugar water, or a roll of chalky Necco Wafers, or ten Pixie Stix paper straws filled with granulated sugar flavored grape, lemon-lime or cherry.

So when the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee recently recommended that no more than 10 percent of daily calories – roughly 12 teaspoons – should come from added sugar, I had to shake my head. In The Sixties, only 10 percent of a kid’s calories didn’t come from sugar.

Today, Americans gulp down an average of 22 teaspoons of added sugar daily, nearly twofold the new recommendation – or about the amount my brothers and I ate between calling home and when Mom finally picked us up.

To be continued next Saturday…

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

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Column: Homeless Compassion

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is also available here at Amazon

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Homeless Deserve Compassion

It was a recent evening, lovely even by California standards, and after enjoying dinner at an Italian restaurant my daughter and I were walking to a theater. Along the way, predictably, we encountered a homeless man encamped on the sidewalk.

Also, predictably, he was begging for spare change.1-homeless

Predictably, too, my daughter instead offered him a take-out box containing half of a savory dinner, complete with plastic utensils she had thought to ask our waiter to include in anticipation of this scene.

“What is it?” the unkempt and unshaven man asked.

“Pasta and chicken,” my daughter answered, adding: “It’s delicious!”

The man, wearing a knit cap despite the unseasonably warm evening, shook his head like a child who has been offered Brussels sprouts and waved his hands as though shooing away a pigeon. “Nah, I don’t think I’d eat that,” he said dismissively.

As we walked on, slightly stunned at the rejection, my daughter observed: “At least he was honest about it so we can give it to someone who will enjoy it.”

Curmudgeonly, I said: “If it was a Big Mac you know he would have been thrilled.”

Perhaps I was correct, but certainly my daughter was because on the very next block she succeeded in doing what Mother Teresa urged: “If you can’t feed a hundred people, feed just one.”

Truth is there are a hundred, and hundreds more, locally who need to be fed – and clothed and given a warm and dry place to sleep, especially on those nights far harsher than the one recalled above.

So I was dismayed by a Feb. 15 guest column in The Star under the headline: “How to end homelessness? No extra services.” The writer argued that the efforts of local faith leaders and their materialistic solutions to end homelessness will only worsen the problem, not help it.

Among the writer’s contentions is that “the majority of the chronically homeless have substance abuse and/or mental illness issues they simply refuse to deal with responsibly.”

But therein lies the Rubik’s cube: it is no simple matter for anyone struggling with mental illness or substance abuse – even those with the financial means to afford the best help – to deal with these challenges responsibly.

Indeed, to complain, as the commentary did, “If they would just get clean and sober,” is to diminish not only the problem but the individuals, as though mental illness and addiction are a choice.

Compassion, on the other hand, is a choice. Treating the down-and-out with respect, not scorn, is a choice. Offering a helping hand is a choice. Choices we must make.

To be sure, help and services will too often seem in vain. But if there were an easy fix, it would have happened already. I would rather have a citizenry that tries and fails to help the homeless than one that fails to try.

Just this week Pope Francis did something so small to help the poor that it is actually huge: a space off of St. Peter’s Square has been transformed to offer homeless men and women shower facilities daily and free haircuts and shaves every Monday. The biggest offering – a little dignity.

Closer to home, Scott Harris is also trying to help the least among us in a way that often goes overlooked. His local firm, Mustang Marketing, is holding a “Sleeping Bag Drive.” Used bags donated to its office at 3135 Old Conejo Road in Thousand Oaks by March 15 will be dry cleaned before being given out. Better yet, every $25 donation will pay for the purchase of a new sleeping bag. (Information: 805-498-8718)

“When it’s all said and done,” Harris says, “no one should go to bed cold. We can make a difference.”

Nor should anyone go to bed hungry. Walking back to our car after the show, my daughter and I again passed the homeless man who had wrinkled his nose at her pasta and chicken leftovers. He was eating a fast-food hamburger. Happily, someone else had made a small difference more to his liking.

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

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

 

Column: Pooh Bear and Heartbreak

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is also available here at Amazon

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Pooh Bear No Match For These Tears

When my daughter was very young and in daycare, I would frequently pick her up and take her out on a lunch “date.” We always had a wonderful time, but when I would drop her off again so I could go back to work, she always cried.

And cried and cried, so much so that her grandmotherly caregiver eventually suggested it might be best to stop these noontime excursions.

Celine and Dallas lighting up Paris with their smiles.

Celine and Dallas lighting up Paris with their smiles.

The next time I dropped Dallas off after a lunch outing, I tried something crazy and gave her one of her favorite stuffed animals to remind her of me, and our bedtime reading ritual, as she went down for her afternoon nap.

Winnie the Pooh worked like a charm. The tears stopped and our dates continued.

Fast forward just over a dozen years. After hugging Dallas goodbye on move-in day her freshman year in college, I handed her a small stuffed Winnie the Pooh. Through her tears came a smile.

I needn’t have worried, of course. Minutes after we left, Dallas’ very first new college friend walked into her dorm room. This human Winnie the Pooh’s name was Celine. She lived across the hallway and came bearing an extra Popsicle.

Instant friends, they became roommates the following three years, and lasting friends who after graduation visited each other around the globe from Los Angeles and San Francisco to London and Paris, the latter where Celine moved to pursue a career in fashion.

Early Monday morning my daughter called me, heartbreak like I’ve never heard in her voice: “Celine is dead, Daddy.”

Celine was in India for a friend’s wedding and while riding in a taxi was hit by a bus. Twenty-six is far too young to lose your life and 27 is far too young to lose a best friend.

Talking to Dallas on the phone numerous times daily since – in truth, mostly listening to her because really a parent is hopelessly impotent to help in any other way in such a tragic time – I have been reminded of those long ago nights reading to her about another friendship, from A.A. Milne’s classic “Winnie the Pooh,” and specifically the passage where Christopher Robin tells Pooh Bear:

“If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together, there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

Celine, in a way, gave this same gift to Dallas, who recalls: “Freshman year of college, when I broke up with my first real boyfriend, I remember fleeing to her room, sobbing, and she hugged me as I cried.

“Another time, when I was feeling down on myself because ‘no boys were ever going to like me, ever!’ she played me the song ‘Somebody’s Baby’ by Phantom Planet, saying it made her think of me because I was ‘so awesome that guys probably just assume you’re already taken.’ I still smile and think of her when I hear that song. Celine saw the very best in me, even when I didn’t see it in myself.”

The last time my daughter saw Celine was before Dallas’ birthday this past May. They caught up for brunch before Celine caught her flight back to Paris.

“I had a cold and I remember wondering whether I should cancel,” Dallas remembers. “I didn’t want to spread my germs to Celine, or to anyone else my path would cross on my commute into the city. But we were able to see each other so rarely that I thought, ‘To hell with it, I’m going!’ And I’m so grateful I did. We had a lovely visit, chatting in the sunshine over hot coffee and tea and scones, and before we hugged goodbye in the BART station I remembered to snap a photo.”

One could not wish to see two happier faces in a final selfie together.

Here is what Christopher Robin also tells Pooh Bear: “But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart . . . I’ll always be with you.”

He should have added, “Here, Pooh, have a Popsicle.”

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

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Column: Friendship Trumps All

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is also available here at Amazon

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Friendship Trumps Time and Separation

Tennessee Williams was spot-on when he observed, “Time doesn’t take away from friendship, nor does separation.”

Rarely has this been more clear personally than earlier this week when I met up with a boyhood friend I had not seen in a dozen years, if not more. Before that, it had been nearly as long again between reunions.

Jimmy and me: a poor picture of a rich friendship!

Jimmy and me: a poor picture of a rich friendship!

Prior to these long lapses, however, during our “Wonder Years,” Jimmy and I were thick as thieves, or scamps, or Tom and Huck. He was, in fact, my first friend upon moving to Ventura from Ohio at age 12.

Jimmy, four months my junior, wasn’t my friend so much as my “cousin” of which I have not a single biological one. Had he lived in Ventura, or I in Pasadena, we would have been “brothers.”

We first met because Jimmy’s aunt and uncle were my godparents. Each summer he stayed two weeks at their Solimar beach home and upon arriving here in 1972 I joined him. It became a yearly rendezvous through our teens.

Those beach days and nights were boyhood bliss. We stayed up late shooting pool and watching TV, slept in long, then spent the remaining sunlight in the waves and exploring tide pools, looking for seashells and ocean glass, playing basketball and talking about girls.

Too, I would annually stay a week with Jimmy and his mom – his father died when Jimmy was 4 and his only sibling, a sister, was 10 years older and already out of the house – in Pasadena. Summer at the beach is an idyllic playground that is hard to equal, but these vacations came close.

Jimmy was a California beach boy straight from Central Casting, with a toothpaste-ad smile, longish platinum hair, and a tan the color of an old penny. But his most striking feature, it always seemed to me, was his laugh.

Even at age 12, his laugh sounded like it came from an old man with emphysema – imagine Billy Crystal doing an out-of-breath character in a Brooklyn deli. Better yet, recall the wonderful hearty snicker of Muttley, the Hanna-Barbera cartoon dog. That was Jimmy’s laugh and he used it readily.

Separation of 70 miles – Jimmy still lives near Pasadena – is no excuse for the years of severance we allowed to pass.

Our last time together was when we saw John Wooden give a talk at the historic Pasadena Civic Center. Jimmy and I shared many similarities growing up and near top of the list was our idolization of the Wizard of Westwood. Indeed, we both went to Coach Wooden’s summer basketball camp and memorized every block in the Pyramid of Success.

Too bad we neglected Wooden’s preaching to “make friendship a fine art” – at least with each other. Annually our Christmas cards echoed sentiments to rekindle our friendship in the New Year, but we kept failing to keep the promise.

Taking the “Initiative” – a block in Wooden’s Pyramid – Jimmy’s 2014 holiday card included wishes of “Peace, Love & Joy” and a specific date in January to meet. When I walked into Brendan’s Irish Pub & Restaurant in Agoura Hills – a midway drive for both of us – the sight of my old friend was a time machine making me young again.

Our 15-year separation might as well have been five minutes. We picked up as if we had just been in the middle of a conversation before one of us left to go to the bathroom – the latter happening a number of times on this evening, causing Jimmy to say, “I guess we are in our fifties and not teenagers anymore.”

An anticipated hour visit lasted nearly four as we reminisced and caught up on wives and kids, work and play, and raised our glasses to the shared loved ones we have lost – his cousin and my second “sister”; his aunt and my godmother; his mom and my mom.

Bidding goodbye, Jimmy and I made plans for another hello very soon, and these words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow came to mind: “Ah, how good it feels! The hand of an old friend.”

And the hug and the Muttley laugh, too.

*  *  *

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

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

 

Column: An Unsalty Newsroom?

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is also available here at Amazon

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A Newsroom That Isn’t A Little Salty?

Journalism and free speech are under attack, but I am not talking about cartoonists and Charlie Hebdo.

Earlier this week, York (Pa.) Newspaper Company publisher Sara Glines sent a memo to her troops at the York Daily Record, Lebanon Daily News, Public Opinion News, and Evening Sun requesting they not only use spell-check on their print copy but swear-check on their verbal language. It read in part:

1swear“I’ve heard some troubling conversations recently, so I want to remind all employees that cursing is not appropriate in the work environment. … I know that newspapers have had a salty history and culture. And I know that we all will slip from time to time. Still, I believe we can express ourselves adequately without the use of profanity. Let’s clean up our language and make this a workplace that anyone can feel comfortable in.”

This would seem admirable except for one small thing – we are talking about newsrooms! Might as well try to rid a football locker room, foxhole or Chris Rock of salty language. Good luck, and besides, why?

Glines didn’t stop at nixing the high sodium content in the newsroom air. She followed up the punch to the potty mouth with a second to the stomach via another memo a day later:

“Happy 2015 everyone! If your new year resolution is to eat healthy, we’re here to help. Our Healthy Vending machines will be installed on Thursday! No more Mountain Dew, no more Snickers bars. But there will be plenty of tasty treats. … And an added bonus, the new machines will accept credit cards, so you can snack without borrowing cash from your colleagues.”

Is she salty-word serious? This smells of entrapment because the surest way to make journalists swear, next to taking away half the word count they were promised for a story, is taking away their junk food.

Normally the posted comments under an on-line story aren’t worth the electrons used to illuminate them on-screen, but in this case the responses are as nearly as fun as being in a newsroom near deadline. Here’s a sampling:

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“No cussing, OR snickers bars? This. Must. Not. Stand. #JeSuisYorkPA”

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“I don’t see this as a workplace that I would ‘feel comfortable in.’ ”

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“How the hell are people supposed to work under these conditions?”

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“We need to send these people some (salty word) Snickers bars and (four salty words) Mountain Dew RIGHT NOW.”

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“It’s the dawn of a golden age in that newsroom for reporters with kids selling candy bars.”

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“You’ve (salty word) got to be (salty word) me. Not about the swearing – about the notion that York Daily Record employees are paid well enough to have credit cards.”

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“No cursing, no junk food, AND no bumming change from coworkers? Has she ever worked in a newsroom before?”

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“Does this mean we have to surrender the fifth of Old Granddad in our bottom desk drawer? (Salty word) I mean – darn – journalism really is becoming just like any other business: boring, bland, and bound to go under. Murrow and The Boys are rolling in their graves.”

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“Hell. On. Earth. Or Pennsylvania.”

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“The place sounds like a living heck.”

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“I’ll give up my Snickers when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. Don’t take away my right to bear bars.”

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“(Three salty words)! Another publisher who probably gets her news tips at the hair salon on Thursdays and tells the M.E. (Managing Editor): ‘It’s all anybody is talking about.’ ”

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“Once they installed carpeting in the newsroom, it was downhill from there.”

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“Try as I might, I just can’t imagine myself saying aloud in any of the newsrooms where I toiled: ‘Gosh darn it, that silly ol’ mayor isn’t calling me back and I need to file this story right doggone now. Dag nab it!’ ”

*

“Paging George Carlin.”

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            In closing, let me page the ol’ newspaperman Mark Twain, who said: “Profanity is more necessary to me than is immunity from colds” and “When angry count four; when very angry, swear.”

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

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”