Category Archives: Uncategorized

Tasmanian Devil Was No Cartoon

by Woody

After three days on end at sea traveling from New Zealand to Australia, my headspace was a little loony.

More accurately, I had “Looney Tunes” on my mind.

Specifically, recalling Saturday morning cartoons from my childhood.

Most specifically, episodes with the Tasmanian devil “Taz.”

This was partly because the cruise ship passed through the Tasman Sea en route to Hobart, and furthermore because our itinerary while in port included an excursion 30 miles north to Tasmania and the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary that promised to have rescued kangaroos, wombats, and Tasmanian devils.

A koala just chillin’!

As for the latter, I found it hard to believe any relative of Taz would ever need rescuing – other than from Bugs Bunny, of course.

Injured “patients” in the animal hospital during our visit included a forest raven (injured in a dog attack), blue-tongued lizard (also bitten by a dog), collared sparrowhawk (hit by a car), and a tawny frogmouth that refused to tell the veterinary staff how it injured its wing.

Outside, in spacious ground habitats and soaring aviaries, we saw an array of other birds; a bare-nosed wombat, which looked like a giant guinea pig on steroids; and a large “mob” of forester kangaroos as tame and friendly as Labradoodles. The Labra’roos even ate kibble out of My Much Better Half’s palm and purred louder than contented house cats when I rubbed and scratched their down-soft chest fur.

A sign at the Tasmanian devil’s enclosure asked: “What does it look like? A dog, skunk, badger, wolverine, rat?” The lone T-devil in current residence refused to offer an answer by hiding in its den.

I did learn that Tasmanian devils are marsupials, but other than having a pouch share little in common with kangaroos. One unstated difference between them is that T-devils do not readily let humans pet their chests.

Also, while ’roos are herbivores, T-devils are scavengers – which is how many of them wind up at Bonorong, being hit by cars while dining on roadkill.

My Much Better Half had been especially keen on meeting a Tasmanian devil, so to drown her sorrows we ended the day at the Hobart Brewing Co. in a big ol’ red barn of a building on the historic railyard waterfront. No much to look at from outside, the craft brewery’s taproom and offerings inspired me to write in my travel journal: “Maybe my all-time favorite microbrewery! So charming – beers so good! Especially the Red Shed Red Ale!”

While we had sadly not seen a twirling, twisting, Taz-like Tasmanian devil, the generous flight of local beers made my head happily spin a little.

Two days later my head spun a new, now with irritation, when MMBH and I missed the boat – literally, due to bad luck – for a harbor tour of Melbourne. As sometimes wonderfully happens when traveling, Misfortune was soon revealed to be Serendipity in disguise.

Healsville Sanctuary, our substitute field trip, proved to be the Hobart Brewing Co. of wildlife reserves. We saw, up close, an armful of cuddly-looking koalas; a dingo, red as fox and handsome as any Best in Show champion at Westminster; a few emus, all tall as men; a duck-billed platypus…

…and a Tasmanian devil!

Resembling a bulldog, black with a flash of white on its muscular chest, albeit with a sharp snout, it scampered hither and dither as if excited to be off leash in a park. All the same, it fell short of my childlike expectations, for this “Taz” did not spin in a dervish blur like a figure skater, or grumble and drool and throw a funny tantrum.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody 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.

Staying Upright Down Under

by Woody

Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available (signed copies) here on my home page and also (unsigned) at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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On a morning so raw and rough the dolphins and whales sighted a day earlier off starboard of this cruise ship now decided to curl up in warm blankets and stay underwater safe from the bone-chilling wind, I went for a run.

To be honest, if I did not have a consecutive-day running streak dating back to July 7, 2003, I would have remained inside wrapped in a heavy wool blanket myself.

Instead, I was outside on the exercise deck of the “Noordam” traveling deep waters between Port Chalmers, New Zealand, and Perth, Australia. Winter still in America, it was late spring Down Under but the weather did not agree with the calendar.

While My Much Better Half showed she is also My Much Wiser Half by enjoying a massage with warmed lotions, I decided to brave the elements for thirteen miles as an antidote to the ship’s abundantly delicious food that can, just by looking at it, add five pounds.

The “Noordam” in port on a slightly nicer day…

The first few miles were not overly miserable but then, as if in time-lapse photography, the unfriendly weather become downright irascible — nasty and cold, windy and wet, with light raindrops that flew sideways and stung one’s face like acupuncture needles.

Meanwhile, the swells grew, Grew, GREW to between five and seven meters — fifteen to twenty feet!—according to the captain. The exercise deck remained open, surprisingly, as it began rising and dipping like a rollercoaster. These gargantuan undulations were accentuated at the bow and stern, making me feel either almost weightless or else experiencing extra G-forces on my legs.

I maintained my “sea legs” for the most part, but the highest crests and deepest troughs caused an occasional stagger as if I had had four Foster’s for breakfast.

While the frequent one-sixth-Earth’s-gravity-moonwalk-like-strides made the maritime run memorable, the best part was sharing the experience — and sharing hellos and a few high-fives; one woman reading in a deckchair shared a book recommendation, The Book of Goose — with a few other sunny-minded souls.

One fellow exerciser, despite standing slightly stooped, stood tallest in my estimation. In his eighties, I guessed, he was an inspiration for certain. Lap after lap (one time around the deck measured a full third of a mile, larger than a running track!) in weather fit only for a goose, he persisted for a full hour…

…using a walker!

His steps were minced greatly and his legs were bowed slightly, yet he somehow exuded the aura of an athlete. When I slowed down on one go-round to say “Hello, you’re awesome!” he took hold of my arm, lightly, introduced himself as Ichiro, loudly, and said he had once upon a time been a runner — “a sprinter, not a distance guy.”

Ichiro wore dark shabby sweatpants and a fisherman’s cable sweater of cream color, slide sandals with soggy socks, and a straw sunhat that I have no idea how he kept from blowing off. In my mind’s eye, I saw Hemingway’s Santiago in “The Old Man and the Sea.”

Charmed by Ichiro’s friendliness, I walked beside him for one length of the ship and This Old Man on the Sea wisely told me to appreciate being able to run even — no, especially — on days like this one because some day I will no longer be able to.

With that, and with a slight formal bow, he waved me away with the request to do an extra mile for him.

Thus my foul-weather run happily, and gratefully, became a fourteen-miler.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody 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.

A Sheep Dog, A Sheared Sheep

by Woody

Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available (signed copies) here on my home page and also (unsigned) at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Ross Millar, a New Zealand sheep farmer, for fifty years has lived the song “Whistle While You Work.”

“I am the Elton John of whistling,” he told me not long ago, with a wink, for he is as humbly down-to-earth as his dirty work boots.

Watching Sir Ross in concert is both sight and sound to behold as he guides his working dogs with a sundry of whistled notes that carry a country mile, even piercing through wind, and create a lovely melody.

Racing up a mountainside, Scottie, a star border collie, looked like a black-and-white-drone-with-a-tail skimming just above the grass and shrub. Instead of a handheld radio controller, Ross steered Scottie with short and long whistle blasts, and combinations, the tone and inflection varying in a precise musical language.

Ross Millar and a newly shorn sheep and a pile of wool.

“The dog’s job is to do what I tell him to do,” Ross the boss noted frankly. “And I will keep telling him all day long if I need to until he does it.”

Scottie only needed about seven minutes to silently herd a lone sheep from half a mile away up in the foothills back down down to Ross’s side.

“The sheep thinks ‘this is a wolf and I’m breakfast, lunch, or dinner,’ ” Ross explained as to why Scottie need not bark to do his job.

During the demonstration, Ross did his job like a pool shark calling shots. He would tell a dozen spectators precisely what he wanted Scottie to do: “Turn left – right – stop – come – go above – go around – go down – that’ll do.”

And then: Tweet! – Tooooooot! – TWEETtweeeetTOOT! – or some other shrill melody and Scottie would “muster” the sheep into the side pocket via a bank shot, so to speak. It was nothing shy of amazing.

Here is something else amazing: a working dog on a sheep farm routinely runs ten miles, sometimes as far as a half-marathon, in a single day.

With Scottie’s short work for the moment done, Ross bent to task in the shearing barn. He began by pinning a sheep as a wrestler does an opponent, a feat accomplished with ease for at age sixty-something and standing six-foot-something, topped by thinning grey hair, Ross appears fit enough for competitive rugby.

Next, quick as an Army barber giving a recruit a buzz cut, he sheared the cloud-fluffy-animal as bare-skinned as the day it was born without a single nick and drop of blood or even a patch of razor rash.

Ross said an “expert” can shear a sheep in one and a half minutes – about half the time he had just taken – and tally more than 300 in a working day. Prodded slightly, Ross said that while he was a bit rusty now, he had indeed once been an expert.

Prodded further, privately, Ross told me in his heyday he could shear a sheep in a few ticks under a minute-flat – the equivalent, I guessed, to New Zealander Peter Snell setting the mile world record of 3:54.4 in 1962.

“I love all animals,” Ross said, smiling, as he reassuringly caressed the freshly sheared sheep. “And some humans, too.”

Speaking of humans, I playfully asked if he trained his two children when they were young with whistle commands – to which Ross answered seriously and succinctly, “No.”

When I in turn asked his wife Mary if she did so with her husband, she wryly said with a twinkle, “Oh, yes, but it didn’t take!”

And did he ever try to train her by similar whistling fashion?

Mary, after a short laugh loud as a shepherd’s whistle: “He’s a little smarter than that.”

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody 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.

Top dog shows off Down Under

by Woody

Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available (signed copies) here on my home page and also (unsigned) at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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In 1975, in August, in the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, in the inaugural Canine Disc World Championships, my great boyhood friend Jimmy and I were on hand, down on the football field sidelines, watching with mouths agape as Ashley Whippet, already the Babe Ruth of the sport, raced 30 mph from one end zone to the other, a full 100 yards, to catch up to and catch a hurled Frisbee.

On a shorter toss that dog days of summer afternoon, Ashley Whippet soared nine feet high in the air to bite a disc at its zenith and clinch his first of three consecutive world titles.

It has remained, over the ensuing half-century, the most amazing exhibition of animal athleticism I have ever witnessed…

…until a recent summer morning Down Under in New Zealand, which is winter here Up Top, when I saw Scottie Border Collie do his magic.

The legendary Ashely Whippet in high-flying action!

My Much Better Half and I had traveled an hour by bus from the charming port town of Lyttelton, on the East Coast of the South Island, through the Caterbury countryside that is worthy of Monet’s brushstrokes, to the little town of Little River to tour a working sheep farm.

Manderley Farm’s homestead was built in 1876 and has remained in the same family’s hands for five generations. Consisting of 750 acres, it is considered rather small for a sheep farm nowadays with about 900 head.

What it lacks for in size, it more than makes up for in beauty. With a postcard valley tucked between foothills rising from sea level into the clouds, this slice of paradise looks as if the floor of Yosemite and an Irish farm had a single offspring.

“I cleared all that,” said Ross Millar, owner of Manderley since 1974, pointing to a flat area and then sweeping his hand to a section of the foothills, “and that.”

It is not only the farmland that is breathtaking. Mary tends a large and gorgeous flower garden in the manicured front lawn of their stunningly attractive farmhouse. Basically, their spread belongs in “Homes & Garden” magazine.

But the main attraction is the farm itself, where for five decades Ross has grown his crops, his crops being wool, meaning his crops are sheep (and 180 beef cattle, too), and the stars of raising sheep are the working dogs which Ross breeds and trains – and sells, a gifted pup fetching up to $10,000 (New Zealand Dollars).

Scottie, a black-and-white border collie is the star of Manderley, the top dog, literally, of the five that help Ross manage the farm.

As Ross gave a brief lecture to a dozen tourists, Scottie patiently sat at his owner’s feet watching a few sheep off in the distance in the foothills. Eventually, Ross said, almost in a whisper, “Go” – and it was as if he had shouted the directive with three exclamation marks for Scottie shot off like a fired furry canon ball.

Instead of racing 100 yards on a flat-and-mowed football field in chase of a Frisbee, Scottie was a four-legged comet flying a quarter-mile up Up UP a mountainside as steep as a staircase with ankle-spraining terrain and thick brush you could lose a shoe in.

Calling Scottie a “working” dog, it was readily apparent, is a bit of a misnomer. Herding sheep is not work for him, it is play! Displaying enthusiasm from nose to wagging tail, he made rounding up a lone sheep seem like recess, like he was having as much fun as Ashley Whippet catching a flying disc.

To be continued next week…

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody 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.

Comforting In-Flight Entertainment

by Woody

Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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The in-flight movie screen for Seat 19-B was out of order.

This would have been less bothersome had the passenger in 19-B not brought along a book that he realized, about two chapters in, he had already read.

This, in turn, would have been less bothersome had this recent flight not been from Southern California to New Zealand, a flight of more than 13 hours, a flight so long it took off Wednesday night and landed Friday morning with Thursday disappearing into thin air at 35,000 feet somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.

This would have been less bothersome if the passenger in 19-B was able to sleep on planes and thus had napped through the airborne boredom, and through stretches of rollercoaster-like hair-raising turbulence, until waking up Down Under.

All of this would have been less bothersome if the passenger in 19-B was not me.

And all of this changed for the better when the person in Seat 18-C, one row ahead of me and directly across the aisle to the right, opened a generously sized canvas book bag and, as if it were Mary Poppins’ magical bottomless carpet bag, from it started pulling out an arts and crafts store shelf worth of skeins of yarn – green, gold, red, and two shades of blue – and wooden knitting needles.

Suddenly I was in a time machine transported back half a century, while simultaneously in a flying machine heading forward 6,000 miles, thinking of my mom who was an accomplished knitter. One of the last gifts she gave me before passing away three decades ago was a gorgeous afghan the color of hot chocolate, made lighter by melted marshmallows, with a seashell pattern and tassel fringe.

This knitter, however, reminded me nothing of my mom. For starters, he looked more like a stereotypical motorcycle club member than someone in a knitting club. In his forties, I guessed, unshaven for two days I also guessed, toe to top he wore black boots, blue jeans, faded brown T-shirt with a slightly torn seam on the left shoulder with the short sleeves stretched taut over large biceps, plus tattoo sleeves – a dog’s face, a rabbit wearing a dress, and a butterfly among the images I could make out – on both arms, and a battered baseball cap.

“It distracts me from my fear of flying,” Jason, as I later learned his name to be, shared when I leaned forward to compliment his handiwork/artwork.

Watching him knit was a pleasant distraction for me as well, as calming and entertaining as watching fish in an aquarium.

Jason began by rolling the five skeins into a single ball that speedily grew from a marble into a baseball into a grapefruit into a good-sized cantaloupe that looked like a miniature globe of Earth. More than once, he had to pause his spinning hands in order to untangle a skein that had become as snagged as a back-lashed fishing line in a reel.

Once the knitting began, the two needles flicked and clicked like flashing swords in a Robin Hood fight, all whilst Jason’s fingers danced and his wedding band glinted, and row by row the scarf or sweater or afghan grew, its colors changing at random with some sections wide and others narrow, a yarn sunset unfurling on his lap.

“What are you making?” I asked after we landed.

“A sweater,” Jason answered. “For me.”

He paused and smiled and his round wire-rimmed glasses made him look like a poet or professor, or a knitter certainly, and added: “But my wife will probably steal it.”

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody 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.

“Cupid” Story Better Than “OK”

by Woody

Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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On the eve of Valentine’s Day, this love story from my column archives five years ago, slightly updated, seems appropriate to share again…

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If the weather app on your phone says 92-percent chance of rain, you had best take along your umbrella or wear a raincoat.

If Netflix ranks a movie title a 92-pecent match with your viewing history, it is only a coin toss you will actually like it.

And if an online dating site finds you a 92-percent match, I would suggest you go meet someone the old-fashioned way at a party, park, bookstore or grocery aisle.

To begin with, if “opposites attract” should you not want more like a 12-percent match? Perhaps dating algorithms take this into account, but I am still a naysayer.

Without ever having used one, my complaint with dating apps is not that they are not good matchmakers but rather that they are raining on one of my favorite things to do when introduced to a couple. Be they engaged or newlyweds or married for decades, I love to ask: “How did you meet?”

Almost without fail, their faces light up and I am treated to a story they love to tell. Quite often it is more entertaining than a movie rom-com. Alas, how does a meet-cute happen in cyberspace?

Let me tell you how. Actually, I shall let my daughter Dallas tell you. As a teaser trailer, imagine “You’ve Got Mail” with Meg Ryan’s book-loving “Shopgirl” character played by an equally adorable girl who loves books and sunflowers. Meanwhile, cantankerous Joe Fox is played by a good-looking young man as likeable as the real-life Tom Hanks.

Spoiler alert: The sunflower-loving girl, a Dodgers fan by the way, and the young man who has loved the Oakland A’s since boyhood, have now been married nine years and have two daughters ages 7 and 3.

And so, with February being the month of “Love and Romance” and Cupid and Valentine’s Day, I now turn the column over to Dallas:

“One night in late January 2014, ‘Sunflowergirl87’ was browsing OkCupid when she came across a photo of a handsome guy with a bird on his shoulder, ‘OaktownA’sFan,’ who the dating-site algorithm declared was a 92% match. She decided to reach out with a message.

“ ‘Hi! I was really drawn to your profile – you seem like such a genuine, adventurous, glass-half-full person, and I just wanted to reach out and say hello…’

“OaktownA’sFan read this sincere, heart-on-her-sleeve message and immediately knew this girl had not been online dating for long, because she sounded way too optimistic and friendly. ‘I better swoop her up fast,’ he thought.

“ ‘Hi there! Thank you for such a sweet and thoughtful message. I would love to meet up for coffee or tea sometime!’

“They messaged back and forth a little bit – about Dallas’s writing, Allyn’s sustainable business MBA studies, dogs, random acts of kindness – before OaktownA’sFan (‘my name is Allyn, pronounced Alan’) asked sunflowergirl87 (‘my name is Dallas, like the city’) out for ice cream at Lottie’s Ice Cream Parlor in Walnut Creek.

“Their first date, on February 1, was a rainy evening – not the best weather for ice cream, but neither of them minded. Allyn ordered the adventurous flavor with cayenne pepper in it. Dallas ordered something chocolate. Allyn was so attentive asking Dallas questions that she talked and talked and talked and her ice cream all melted. They walked down the street to Starbucks to talk longer because neither felt ready to say goodbye yet.

“The next day, Allyn asked Dallas out on a second date.

“Soon after that, they both disabled their OkCupid accounts.”

Me again: I love a cute love story, don’t you?

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody 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.

Mom’s Act Remains North Star

by Woody

Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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My mother, bless her honey-sweet steel-strong soul, would be 93 years old had she not died fully half my lifetime ago at age 60. I have been thinking of her even more than usual, not because of her birthday or anniversary of her passing, but because I keep imagining her at an “ICE Out” demonstration.

Indeed, were she alive today, there is no doubt in my heart that Mom would be in the streets marching. Even if she were in a wheelchair, she would be standing up for her fellow man and fellow woman and fellow child, be they Americans with Mayflower roots or naturalized citizens or undocumented immigrants, be they Black or brown or white or green or blue or polka-dotted.

My mom felt injustice to one was injustice for all. It was not lip service from her always-Revlon-red-painted smile, either. She walked the talk. She would have hidden Anne Frank. That is a bold statement, but I believe it with my every fiber.

One story goes a long way in telling you why, from when I was growing up to this very day in spirit, Mom has always been my North Star. It happened a long, long time ago, in the previous century, in 1949, in the Midwest, when Auden – more than a decade before she became my mom – was in high school.

There was a must-go-to prom party and Auden was thrilled to be invited. But her excitement evaporated faster than wet footprints on the scorching cement deck of a swimming pool in August after she found out her good friend Trish had not received an invitation.

Auden’s disappointed sizzled into red-hot anger when she learned why Trish was excluded: because she was Jewish.

Understand, this was not just the party of the year, it was The Party of The Senior Class’s High School Lives. No matter. If Trish was not welcomed, then Auden would not go either. Instead, she invited Trish to her house for their own two-person celebration.

Sometimes, far too often I think, we think one voice or one small act cannot make a big difference. We are wrong. My mom’s mini party turned out to be The Biggest PartyOf Allas a growing cascade of classmates followed her example.

“Injustice,” Mom told me often, “is everyone’s battle.”

I am proud to be my mom’s son and I am proud also to have raised a son who would step in to help a young woman if she were shoved to the ground, that he would ask “Are you okay?” and shield her from further harm. In other words, to be like Alex Pretti who, in the process of his kindness, was recently shot dead by federal agents.

Yes, that could have been my son. And if stepping in to aid a person at a protest demonstration can get you shot in the head while you are being held on the ground, then my daughter is not safe either for she, too, has an alloy of compassion and courage just like her Grandma Auden. Nor are my daughter-in-law and son-in-law safe, for they also are marchers against injustice.

If the First Amendment is no more valued than an old grocery list and journalist Don Lemon is not safe from arrest, than neither am I.

If I am not safe, neither are you.

If you are not safe, neither are your loved ones and friends and neighbors and coworkers and on and on.

What would your own mom want you to do during these trying times?

I know mine’s answer.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody 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.

Pier Bench Is My New Favorite

by Woody

Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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Continuing the benches theme from the past few weeks, here is a column from my archives from four years ago…

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Do you have a favorite bench?

If so, as I reckon you do, where is it? A short walk from work where you escape for coffee breaks? In a park, perhaps, under a lovely shade tree in the company of songbirds? Or maybe in a cemetery where a bench becomes an outdoor pew?

I had a favorite bench in college, on the edge of campus at the University of California Santa Barbara, high on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Its wooden seat slats sagged a little from age and were a lot weathered by the salty sea air, but the view was anything but threadbare. Indeed, it was a beautiful spot to contemplate a poor test; brood a dating breakup; or simply rest and savor the panoramic scene after a run on the beach below.

Coincidentally, I found a bookend favorite bench on another college campus many years later. Specifically, the University of Southern California’s Founders Park which boasts one specific tree from all 50 states. In this idyllic setting, sitting on a shaded wrought-iron bench on a near weekly basis for nine years – my daughter’s and son’s four-year undergraduate enrollments overlapped one year, plus the latter’s two years of MBA study – I would wait with happy anticipation for classes to get out so we could have lunch together.

Now I have a new favorite bench, one of 49 skirting the historic Ventura Pier. This one is perhaps a third of the way out, on the right-hand side, and affords a spectacular north-facing view towards Surfers Point. Importantly, it has a brass plaque on the top wooden back slat dedicated to: Larry “Coach” Baratte.

Along with two of his “How To Live Rules” – Each Day Is A Blessing and Give Of Yourself And You Will Receive Ten Times In Return – the plaque features a compass rose. The latter is truly fitting because Larry was a human North Star for countless people before brain cancer, after a long war, claimed his precious life at age 60 on May 14, 2020.

The memorial bench was a gift this past Christmas from Larry’s widow, Beth, to their three adult sons, Chase, Collin, and Cole. Making it all the more special is that Larry and Beth talked about it before he passed.

Sitting on “Larry’s Bench” quiets my soul. As the timbers below shudder pleasantly in rhythm with the waves, I like to watch the world spin by. I watch beach runners on shore and dog walkers on the promenade and fishermen further down the pier.

And, of course, I watch the surfers. I watch them straddling their boards, waiting, waiting, rising and dipping as if sitting on an aquatic merry-go-round, then doing their water-walking magic.

Too, I imagine Larry in the distance, in the cove, in the curl of a wave riding a surfboard. Better yet, I see him directly below, swimming around the pier for a workout. Best of all, I feel him sitting next to me, sharing his wisdom and his laugh and his friendship.

Inspired by the myriad of pencils visitors continually place in homage on Henry David Thoreau’s gravestone in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Mass., on my most recent visit to “Larry’s Bench” I left behind a coach’s whistle hanging by its lanyard. Maybe this small gesture, or perhaps swim goggles, will catch on. It is pretty to wish so.

Pretty, certainly, is the view. Indeed, “Larry’s Bench” is a most lovely place to take a break from the world’s hustle and bustle and reflect on why “Each Day Is A Blessing.”

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody 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.

Epilogue: New Free Book Bench

by Woody

Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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Let me begin by borrowing the signature phrase of the late, great radio broadcaster Paul Harvey, “And now the rest of the story…”

Two weeks past in this space I shared the tale of a unique bench I happened upon while out for a run on a woodchip path in Redondo Beach. Situated in the shade of trees, with the salty perfume of the nearby ocean in the air, what made this bench special was that three mornings in a row I found a single book, different each day, resting on the wooden slat seat and bearing a Post-It Note reading: “Free! Good Book. Enjoy Me!”

The first two offerings – “Tuesdays With Morrie” and “Angela’s Ashes,” good books indeed – I had already read. The third book, on the final day of my visit, “The Old Man by the Sea” by Domenico Starnone – not to be confused with Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” – was new to me so I took it.

I also took away something else: inspiration to leave a free book on a bench for someone to take and enjoy.

And I knew the perfect bench.

It is about a mile, as the crow flies, from my front door and indeed has crows – and hawks and hummingbirds, osprey and owls, gulls and geese, on and on, even an occasional golden eagle – flying overhead, for the bench is in Ventura’s Harmon Canyon Preserve.

More specifically, this bench is a five-minute stroll from the preserve’s Foothill Road entrance, a relatively flat walk on a dirt pathway wide enough for hikers and trail runners and mountain cyclists. Tucked around a bend, and northwestward facing, it is an idyllic spot to sit and watch the sun set behind the foothills. Directly behind the bench is a sycamore tree, too young now to provide shade, but one day, Nature willing, it will grow into a Joyce Kilmer poem and afford a canopy of coolness to those who find respite here.

All of which is to say this is a most lovely bench, as it must be, for it is a memorial for a most lovely person, Suz Montgomery, who five years ago at age 73 succumbed to cancer after a lengthy courageous battle.

Not long ago, after a long fundraising effort, Suz’s Bench became a reality and a dedication ceremony was held with nearly a hundred family members and friends – Suz had a magical gift of making the latter feel like the former – gathering during a sunset that was so gorgeous it made you think Suz was somehow responsible, once more making those who loved her smile.

Suz’s Bench has become one of my favorite sanctums, a place to escape the busyness of life, a place to savor fresh air and postcard scenery and listen to avian symphonies and watch birds float on updrafts like feather kites and, of course, a tranquil place to read.

Inspired by the free book bench on the woodchip running path in Redondo Beach, I have started leaving books now and again on Suz’s Bench, one at a time, each with a Post-It Note: “Free! Take Me! Enjoy!” Because my dear friend died before my debut novel “The Butterfly Tree” was published, it was my wistful first offering.

I hope the recipients have enjoyed these token tomes and that other hikers follow in kind in giving so this becomes the littlest of Little Free Libraries – Suz’s Free Book Bench – because I think she would have liked that.

“And now you know,” as Paul Harvey would conclude, “the rest of the story.”

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody 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.

A Magical Blizzard Of Leaves

by Woody

Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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From Woody’s column archives, early January of 2021…

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The other day, shortly before autumn turned the page to winter in Northern California, I caught my 2-year-old granddaughter Maya standing on the couch. Naturally, I joined her – not standing on the cushions, for I was wearing shoes, but kneeling and facing backwards so as to look out the front picture window with her.

Maya likes to stand there, in stocking feet, watching for people to come home; watching for the mail carrier and delivery drivers; watching for the garbage truck. Watching, watching, watching the world parade by.

I highly recommend it. You should try it sometime for the little girl is onto something. Her big window surpasses a jumbo flat-screen TV, which she is not allowed to watch. Wise parents she has.

So there my dear Magnificent Maya and I were, standing and kneeling side by side and watching together when the most magical thing happened – it started to snow. The snowflakes were larger than Maya’s small hand spread wide, almost the size of a slice of bread, and they were golden and red and orange and 50 more hues of honey and flame and sunset. It was a blizzard painted by Monet.

I grew up in the Midwest with autumns of a brilliance we do not enjoy in Southern California, and I have seen the “Fall Colors” on the East Coast, but never before had I witnessed a tree shed its leaves as quickly as a person shrugging off a winter coat.

One instant the majestic maple across the street was chock-full, the next moment it was naked as a jaybird sans even a jay perched on a bare limb. I exaggerate only barely, for it was like watching a time-lapse video. In a span of five minutes, 50 percent of the leaves fell without pause. Five minutes more and 90 percent of the foliage covered the ground.

A strong gusty wind was not even the cause. The full assemblage of leaves had been rustling softly on the branches like wind chimes in a gentle breeze when, all of the sudden, the chief leaf apparently shouted “It’s time!” and they all began letting go.

It was a bit like watching a fireworks finale and Maya and I rightly exhaled a few “ooohs” and ahhhs.” A passerby looking in the window would have surely seen bookend mouths agape with our eyes opened even wider in wonder.

If a tree can be compared to a poem, this lovely one was poetry in motion. And yet the poem that came to my mind was not Joyce Kilmer’s renowned “Trees” that famously begins: “I think that I shall never see / A poem lovely as a tree.”

Instead, I smiled remembering “Fantastic Fall” written in pencil, in neat printing, by Maya’s mommy when she was in fourth grade. It won the youth division of the Ventura Poetry Festival in 1998, still hangs in my writing study, and reads:

Fall is a great season, here is my reason:

The leaves on trees turn golden brown,

Then the leaves fall DOWN, Down, down…

You rake them into a giant hump,

Next comes the good part – jump, Jump, JUMP!

Leaves sail through the crisp autumn air,

And fall down, Down, DOWN everywhere!

As the leaves piled up, Up, UP, I dearly wanted to grab Maya’s small hand, and grab a rake, and gather a giant hump for her to jump, Jump, JUMP! into. Alas, we were already 10 magical minutes late for her dinner.

Come next Fantastic Fall, I think we will let the food grow cold, Cold, COLD!

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody 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.