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Monstrous Beauty at Loch Ness

by Woody

Woody’s debut novel “The Butterfly Tree: An Extraordinary Saga of Seven Generations” will be published on March 19 and available at all online stores or ordered at local bookshops.

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Like John Muir’s Scottish boyhood home-turned-museum in Dunbar, “The Writer’s Museum” on the historic Royal Mile in Edinburg was once a three-story residence. Dating to 1622, as Lady Stair’s House, the latter is now dedicated to the lives of three favorite-son wordsmiths: Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, and Robert Louis Stevenson.

Time and again on our recent trip, My Better Half and I crossed paths with this famous literary trio—in parks with their statues, pubs with their portraits, even their footsteps in Edinburgh Castle where the 16th-century “Honours of Scotland” crown jewels are on display. Hidden from enemy forces, and lost, the priceless scepter, sword, and crown were found a hundred years later by Sir Walter Scott.

The Highlands, en route to Loch Ness, are gorgeous.

Mr. Stevenson’s words, meanwhile, can be found engraved on plaques and painted on public walls with commonplaceness throughout Scotland, including this popular quote: “To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.”

And yet, with apologies to the author of “Treasure Island,” I found the opposite to be true on our day of treasured travel through the Highlands to Loch Ness. To be honest, I had not expected much; certainly I did not anticipate seeing the famous monster; but I was awed by the ruggedly bucolic scenery and immenseness of the bottomless waters.

Loch Ness is nearly a marathon’s distance long, 23 miles to be precise, and so deep that only two humans, in a diving bell, have reached its bottom. That is 10 fewer people than have walked on the moon and here is an even more jaw-dropping figure: Loch Ness is said to contain more water than all the lakes and rivers in England and Wales combined.

Perhaps most startling of all is the color of the water—black, coal black, black as midnight even in daylight due to peat tannins runoff from surrounding foothills. Underwater you cannot see six inches in front of your nose, our guide Brian noted.

Speaking of water, no sooner had our Loch Ness boat tour begun when Brian informed us that “whisky”—with no “e” in Scotland, he emphasized—means “water of life.” He continued, with a wink and a raised flask: “The more whisky you drink, the better chance you have of seeing Nessie!”

Nessie, of course, is the celebrated Loch Ness Monster. Truth be told, even sober as a saint, for it was barley noon and neither MBH nor I had followed the wee impish Scotsman’s breakfast example from the previous day by adding a splash of “water of life” to our coffee, we did see Nessie…

…on T-shirts, ball caps, refrigerator magnets, tea towels and a thousand more items in the souvenir shop.

Instead of a Brontosaurus-necked tchotchke, my favorite Loch Ness keepsake is a short story Brian, wearing long socks and a kilt, shared in a tartan brogue as thick as his build which was as stout as a refrigerator on which to put a Nessie magnet: “I had an investment banker on my tour, a bigwig successful guy, who scoffed at what a boring job I had giving the same tour day after day.

“So I asked him,” Brian continued. “ ‘Do you go to the same office every day?’

“ ‘Yes, with a corner view, for 35 years,’ he answered, proudly.

“And I said, ‘Well, this is my office…’ ”

Brian spread his arms wide, wide as the wingspan of the bald eagle we saw moments earlier floating on an updraft, then swept a hand across the stunning Highlands landscape.

“ ‘…and it gets redecorated every day.’ ”

Next week: The angel’s share and Titanic tears.

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Woody’s debut novel “The Butterfly Tree: An Extraordinary Saga of Seven Generations” will be published on March 19 and available on Amazon and other online stores or can be ordered at all bookshops.

Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Travels Begin With a Wee Side Trip

by Woody

“You gonna have a wee splash of whisky in that?”

There was no “e” in “whisky,” but perhaps four in weeee, for the question was posed in Scotland and thus a perfectly normal one even early in the morning.

Indeed, the sun was barely awake, My Better Half not much more so. She had walked to a café near our hotel in Edinburgh, in Old Towne to be specific, for her coffee fix while I was getting my caffeine-like jolt with a run. The query had come from a gentleman, weeee as a garden gnome and seemingly as old as a folktale, so Scottish his skin had a tweed texture and tartan liver spots. He was sitting on a stool at the counter and readily produced a silver hip flask with which he gestured warmly towards MBH. To the libations offer he added a wink that was purely playful, not full of flirtation, and MBH played along, quipping quickly: “Oh, not today, I don’t think…

“…but maybe tomorrow!”

The Scotsman, however, was personally having none not of this waiting until tomorrow business. As MBH shared in her laughing retelling to me: “The whisky on his breath almost made me tipsy.”

A trip, if you loosen the reins, will escort you to wonderful places you had not planned to go. And so it was that our four days in Scotland, followed by ten in Ireland, began with a side trip that was not on our mapped out Scottish itinerary that included Edinburgh Castle, the Highlands and Loch Ness, and historic St. Andrews Golf Course.

“Where’re you from?” the Scotsman with the flask asked in follow up.

“California,” replied MBH.

The Flaskman told her the most famous Californian he knew was John Muir and asked if she was going to go visit his birthplace and boyhood home in Dunbar, a quaint coastal town only half an hour away by train.

We had not planned to do so, an egregious oversight on my part for I always make a point of visiting famous authors’ homes when we travel. Indeed, we have been to Muir’s manor in Northern California, but I had not realized his birthplace was so close at hand. And so it was that on only our second day abroad, our trip took its first serendipitous detour.

Two fifteen-minute walks sandwiched around a relaxing train ride through beautiful countryside brought us to the center of town. Heading towards the North Sea on High Street we passed a towering bronze statue of Muir as a boy, one upraised arm pointing at three gulls in flight just beyond reach, and half a block later arrived at address 128.

The John Muir Birthplace Museum is much larger than I had anticipated, a boxy, three-story white building with eight front windows and a red-tile roof, a grand home in the early 1800s.

Within, we were greeted by a docent with eyes bluer than the clear sky on this day, a sunny smile as well, and an accent thicker than local Cullen skink chowder. The latter made it easy to imagine one was conversing with Muir himself. Upon learning from where we hailed, Mr. Muir-sound-alike noted, “This is the first bookend of his life story,” and proceeded to cheerfully regale us with some early tales.

 That evening, raising a whisky – sans “e” and sans coffee – I toasted our travels ahead with a Muir quote I had seen on display: “The sun shines and the stars, and new beauty meets us at every step in all our wanderings.”

Our wanderings continue next week…

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Woody’s debut novel “The Butterfly Tree: An Extraordinary Saga of Seven Generations” will be published in late March.

Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Hands of Time Stop, Tears Start

by Woody

The photograph is of two hands, right hands both, one holding the other. More specifically, the hand on top is wrapped around the index and middle fingers of the bottom hand, with the top thumb resting upon – in truth, gently and tirelessly caressing – the metacarpophalangeal knuckles.

Look more closely and you will see that the embraced hand is more aged and that the younger wrist wears two similar bracelets: a sunny yellow “Livestrong” cancer silicon band and a green-and-yellow swirly one.

The joined hands are resting on a red fleece blanket mostly, partially on a blue bedsheet, and if the photo were not cropped so tightly you would see an oxygen breathing tube running across the mattress – and suddenly the yellow bracelet would take on added gravity.

Pop and me…

For 20 years I have worn this Livestrong bracelet in remembrance of friends and family and colleagues, a roll call that has tragically grown far too lengthy, who have died from cancer. The swirly bracelet, meanwhile, is in similar honor of cancer survivors, the green, like spring leaves on a tree, signifying lives still blooming.

Two days ago, on the last day of February if this were not a Leap Year, the bracelet honoring my 97-year-old dad who previously defeated an array of serious skin cancers, and most recently battled bone cancer, switched from green-and-yellow to all yellow. On John Steinbeck’s birthday, just as the Pacific sun was setting on the Channel Islands, a sight my dad dearly loved to watch but for the past few weeks could not, Dr. James Dallas Woodburn II – a formal mouthful of syllables but just “Pop” to me – left our earthly Eden.

The eyes may be windows to the soul – Pop’s were blue and clear until the very end – but it is his hands I wish to focus on here. Those hands had magic in them. I mean that truly. Those hands saved far too many lives to count, and restored the quality of life to endless more, for they were a surgeon’s hands.

During my final visit with my dad…

Amazingly, those hands, quite large and strong, kept their skill and dexterity well into their ninth decade, performing their magic in the Operating Room at Ventura’s Community Memorial Hospital, where he joined the staff in 1972, in mid-career, until three years ago. That’s right, Pop was operating until age 94, albeit in the latter decade only assisting. It may not be a record for surgical longevity, but surely it makes the hall of fame.

Those hands, belonging to the son of a country physician, had the proud joy of performing their magic alongside his two eldest sons, my older brothers, general surgeons both.

“Are Jim and Doug as good as you were?” I asked Pop during our daily evening visits the past few months. With Midwest modesty, for he was born and raised in Ohio, he answered, “You’ll have to ask them,” but his wry smile revealed his true feelings of mastery.

Those hands, as a boy tossed, footballs and baseballs and shot basketballs with his friends and later did so with his three sons.

Those hands, as father of the bride, guided his fourth-and-youngest child down the wedding aisle.

Those hands blessedly held nine grandchildren, “The Grands” he proudly called them, and even more blessedly held “a lucky 13 Greats.”

Those hands did crossword puzzles in a flash, always in ink, up until the final few days when his razor-sharp mind finally became foggy from increased painkillers.

While heinous cancer and toxic chemotherapy, four rounds of three sessions each, a medical torture for a nonagenarian, seemingly stole every ounce sans his skin and bones, those hands amazingly did not become skeletal and knobby. Indeed, caressing the hand in the photo, I marveled at its soft and smooth skin.

Long, long ago on a blind date in college, on a hayride, those hands of a Navy veteran, back home from World War II, bravely held the hand of a beautiful blonde college coed for the first time, and would eventually hold that woman, my mom, through 38 years of marriage before she died three decades ago.

 I like to imagine those hands now gently brushing away the happy tears from the cheeks of my mom upon their reunion.

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Woody’s debut novel “The Butterfly Tree: An Extraordinary Saga of Seven Generations” will be published in late March.

Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Endings Prequel: Opening Sentences

by Woody

Last week’s column featuring some memorable ending sentences I have “collected” while browsing bookstores brought numerous requests for a bookend prequel of opening lines that really knock me out, to paraphrase Holden Caulfield.

Speaking of Holden, J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” has this all-time great introductory line: “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

Speaking of “David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens: “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” Also, from his “A Christmas Carol”: “Marley was dead, to begin with.”

“The Satanic Verses” by Salman Rushdie: “ ‘To be born again,’ sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, ‘first you have to die.’ ”

Add death, from “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

From “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White: “ ‘Where’s Papa going with that axe?’ said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.”

Short but not so sweet. “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker: “You better not never tell nobody but God.” In “Beloved” by Toni Morrison: “124 was spiteful.” And “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury: “It was a pleasure to burn.”

Bookend numbers of note. “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien: “When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.” And in “1984” by George Orwell: “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

Succinct trio. “I am an invisible man,” from “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison. “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut: “All this happened, more or less.” And “Catch-22” by Joseph Heller: “It was love at first sight.”

Poetically from “The Red Badge of Courage” by Stephen Crane: “The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.”

Speaking of fog, I love this darkly vivid opener from “Fog” by Venturan author Ken McAlpine: “They ran across the sloping deck like marionettes, arms and legs akimbo, and when the waves caught the sailors their arms jerked out, snatching at the night, before they disappeared without a sound.”

Also from the ocean. “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston: “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.” And from “The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway: “He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.”

“Peter Pan” by J. M. Barrie: “All children, except one, grow up.”

Lastly, the first line of the first book I remember checking out long before I grew up, “Where The Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak: “The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another his mother called him ‘WILD THING!’ and Max said ‘I’LL EAT YOU UP!’ so he was sent to bed without eating anything.”

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Woody’s debut novel “The Butterfly Tree: An Extraordinary Saga of Seven Generations” will be published in late March.

Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

New Postage Stamp Priceless (to me)

by Woody

In just over one week’s time, on Jan. 21 to be precise, U.S. Postal Service first-class postage for a one-ounce letter will rise two pennies to 68 cents.

My two cents on the rate increase is that it remains a minor miracle, and a major bargain, to have a letter delivered from sea to shining sea, and anywhere between, in only a few days for such a price.

Considering the Pony Express charged five dollars in 1860 for a half-ounce letter, the equivalent to $191 in 2024, 68 cents seems a steal indeed.

Moreover, while the Pony Express was Hermes-like speedy, employing a relay system of fresh wing-footed horses and tireless riders to deliver mail from Missouri to California, a distance of nearly 2,000 miles, as quickly as 10 days, today’s mail travels by Jet Engine 30,000 Horsepower Express.

Along with the postage hike, two recent news items put stamps on my mind. The first was the auction sale of an “Inverted Jenny”—a 24-cent stamp issued in 1918 of which 100 were erroneously printed with the blue image of a biplane upside-down framed by a background of red—for more than $2 million.

More priceless to me personally, however, was the announcement a few days later that the USPS will release early this year a limited-edition first-class Forever Stamp honoring my hero and friend, the late and legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden.

Thorough thought went into the stamp’s design. In addition to featuring a head-and-shoulders portrait of Wooden from his coaching days, wearing black-framed glasses and a suit and tie and also wearing a game-face countenance, the background has two generic players—a jump shooter in a white No. 4 jersey and a No. 10 defender in black, the latter being the number of national championships Wooden’s Bruins won during his 27-years in Westwood and the former being the number of undefeated seasons they enjoyed. Additionally, “John” appears in blue and “Wooden” in gold, these being UCLA’s school colors.

It is further worth noting that Wooden, who passed away at age 99 in 2010, becomes only the second basketball coach thusly honored, the first being James Naismith in 1961. This is a rarefied pair as high-flying as an Inverted Jenny—the man who invented the game and the coach who perfected it.

Having been fortunate, blessed beyond measure in truth, to have enjoyed a 20-year friendship with Coach Wooden, here is one of my memories, a collage actually: every time I visited him in his home there would be two plastic tubs from the post office, each about the size and shape of a laundry basket, one brimming with incoming fan mail, the other filled with outgoing replies.

Many fans requested an autographed photograph or copy of his famous Pyramid of Success while others sent magazine covers, trading cards, jerseys, even basketballs for him to sign and send back.

Remarkably, and quite thoughtlessly, rarely was return postage included. No matter, Coach Wooden cheerfully packaged the items up, carted them to the post office and paid the postage himself. Week after month after year, this surely added up to a princely sum, but he was a prince of a man. As he said a million times, “You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.” John Wooden, who walked four miles each morning, also walked his talk.

An estimated 18 million Wooden stamps are set to be issued and I personally plan to buy enough to mail a heaping laundry basket worth of letters.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Tally of Kindness Merits an Update

by Woody

Two weeks ago, I gratefully announced the final tally of “Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive” to be a record by more than 100, but it turns out a few smile-givers slipped through the cracks uncounted and I would like to acknowledge them now…

Kids giving to kids always puts birdsong in my heart, so one of my favorite 2023 MVPs (Most Valuable Philanthropists) is Rayo Arriaga Gladish. Great-grandson of Arlys Tuttle, who passed away late last year at age 101, 12-year-old Rayo took the lead for the entire Tuttle family and donated 13 balls – plus two scholarships for the Ventura Youth Basketball Association, which has special meaning since his great-grandfather and husband of Arlys, legendary Ventura High School basketball coach Bob Tuttle, created the VYBA long ago.

“We will be missing my great-grandma this Christmas,” Rayo shared, “and hope to be part of bringing happiness and sports to kids in her memory and spirit.”

In addition to Rayo, thanks goes to Andrea Arriaga, Raymundo and Trudy Arriaga, Toni and Jaime Santana, Gayle and Leo Camalich, Gary Tuttle and Ruth Vomund, Erica and Mark Herring, Carly and Jared Wilson, Mary Antoci, Geoffrey Quemuel, Monica Ruiz and Mark Etchings, Summer Helms, Matt and Aimee Pesendian, and Mary Osborne and Lance Gilbert.

Meanwhile, Matt and Michelle Demaria gave a dozen combined basketballs, soccer balls and footballs; and Linda Peddie, with a shopping assist from her husband Jim while she was battling COVID-19, added four more.

All of which adds up to a revised final count of 1,171 children’s smiles handed out these past holidays.

Meanwhile, I keep thinking about 12 smiles handed out by Steve Askay, a former teacher of both my kids in high school. More especially, I cannot forget the tears in my heart over his donation being in memory of his “beautiful granddaughter Mabel Rae Askay.”

Beautiful is a grand understatement, as evidence by the photographs Steve shared with me. If Hollywood had a casting call for a 6-year-old cherub, Irish as Guinness with long curls the color of a shiny penny, a smile as bright as a full moon, and blue eyes that fairly twinkle, the part would have gone to Mabel with no others needing to audition.

Tragically, the Ventura girl died two summer ago, just weeks after finishing kindergarten, when, in an unbelievably freak accident, she fell off a float during a Fourth of July parade in Mandan, North Dakota, where her family was visiting relatives.

From the cloudburst of tears, remarkably, a Rae of sunshine emerged. For the past two years, her Dec. 10 birth date has been “Mabel Rae’s Day of Kindness” where people have been encouraged to do acts of “extravagant love, kindness and generosity.” There is even a “mabel-ray-shines-on” Instagram account.

Here is the kind of shining girl she was, as shared in her obituary: “Mabel Rae Askay lived her life like a red-haired tornado that fiercely loved everyone she ever came across. She never met anyone, or any of God’s creatures, that she couldn’t be friends with.”

Lynn Bova, Mabel’s kindergarten teacher, echoed this in The Star at the time: “You must imagine the warmth of the sun when she skips into the room. The joy in her sparkly blue eyes, her kindness as she rescues a lost spider or bug that found its way into our classroom, the silliness of her green tongue after enjoying a popsicle, and the love she shared with everyone she met.”

December 10 is a long way off – how much better if we treat every day like Mabel Rae’s Day of Kindness.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Recognizing Firsts Easier Than Lasts

by Woody

We love firsts. First place. First in line. First downs. Most of all, perhaps, we love first times.

Especially new parents, who are constantly experiencing firsts. Baby’s first smile. First words. First steps.

First, first, first.

In truth, the firsts never cease. Like chocolates on the conveyor belt in the classic episode of “I Love Lucy,” the firsts keep coming. First day of kindergarten, first solo bike ride, first time driving.

First, first, first.

Sometimes, however, I think we focus too greatly on firsts. Partly this is because firsts are easy—not necessarily easy to accomplish, mind you, but easy to recognize.

Your son has never ridden a bike without training wheels or your hand steadying it from behind and now he does. Let’s go to Ben & Jerry’s to celebrate! Your daughter scores her first soccer goal. Another recognizable milestone: Do you want a cone or a cup?

Of any age, we all have our own conveyor belt of firsts. First rollercoaster ride, first airplane flight; first crush, first kiss; first this and first that, all easy to recognize and store away in a mental scrapbook.

But what about lasts?

“Never thought we’d have a last kiss,” Taylor Swift poignantly sings, and this rings true also for the last time we read a bedtime story to our children or a last time we give them a piggyback ride to bed. But, of course, there was a last “Goodnight Moon” together with my daughter and a last schlep up the stairs carrying my sleepy son, for the girl and the boy are now a woman and a man, themselves parents of little ones.

Lost lasts. How sad that we rarely recognize a last while it is happening and miss out on the chance to press the “record” button on our mental smartphones.

I wish, for example, I could specifically remember the last time my mom, gone three decades now, held my little hand crossing a street—or, older, I helped her cross.

Lasts, lasts, lasts, lost, lost, lost.

Nor can I draw to mind last time I gave my son and daughter baths in the tub. Had I know it was the last time, surely I would have memorized all the details and splashed a little more—no, a lot more!—and laughed louder—much louder!—at the wet soapy floor.

When was the last time I brushed their teeth for them? Read them Dr. Seuss? Played “Sam the Alligator Man” with them, giggling their heads off, wrestling on the floor?

Sometimes, if you are lucky, life gives you a do-over. Indeed, grandchildren afford not only the chance to savor the whole menu of firsts again, but to try to recognize and savor the lasts this go-round. And so it is that I am again reading “The Runaway Bunny” aloud and giving piggyback rides to my three granddaughters.

Come to think of it, unlike firsts, we often have the power to create a brand-new last. Thus, I can read “Goodnight Moon” to my grown daughter a new last time and—if I take Tylenol afterwards—give my 6-foot-3 son a new last piggyback ride.

Two nights hence, we shall sing “Auld Lang Syne” to 2023 and fondly bring to mind some of our long-ago firsts. And as we ring in 2024, it seems to me we should resolve not only to celebrate the firsts that await us, but also to embrace other moments as if they were old acquaintances not be forgot.

Because you never know when the last kiss is.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Gift Balls Roll In For Big Final Tally

by Woody

Words fall far shy in fully expressing my gratitude to everyone who participated in “Woody’s 2023 Holiday Ball Drive,” but know this: whether you gave one ball, or many, you filled my heart with birdsong.

And no music was sweeter than from Steve McFadden, who gave four balls in memory of his dad, Harold – aka “Coach Mac,” one of my all-time favorite teachers – noting: “It always makes me smile to know a deserving child might have a little better Christmas. My dad would love to be part of your ball drive.”

Here are some more smile-makers…

Shelly and Steve Brown gave half a dozen balls in honor of their six grandchildren, and Jim and Sandie Arthur gave four balls in honor of their daughters and grandchildren.

Steve Askay gave a dozen balls “in memory of my beautiful granddaughter, Mabel Rae Askay,” and Brandon and Tommy Kendlinger, and Elijah Ontiveros, gave 20 “in the loving memory of their cousin and brother, Michael Kendlinger.”

Ken and Elaine Lyle’s grandchildren – Joshua and Brynlee Lyle, and Corbin Spahr – each picked out one ball, and Jerry and Linda Mendelsohn similarly took their grandkids to pick out 20.

Brad and Mia Ditto gave 10 balls in honor of Brad’s late father, Cliff, a former high school coach, and Chuck and Ann Elliott gave 10 “in memory of Jim Cowan.”

The Lance Eaton family likewise donated one ball “in memory of mentor James Cowan; two in memory of Roy Gilmore and our late son Mark; and two more to honor Mickey Perry and our Special Olympian son, Ian.”

Mickey Perry, meanwhile, and fellow legendary basketball coach Joe Vaughan donated 10 balls, as did Ann Cowan to honor her late husband, Jim.

Peggi and Denny Clayton gave one ball; Mike Wildermuth and Georgina Sandy, two; Connie Gajefski, three; George Saunders, four; Bob Vrtis, five; and Bobbie and Dave Williams added six. 

Irma Paramo gave two balls, as did Richard Dreher; Steven and T. Yamamoto gave three; Ben Coats, ten; and Al and Carol Gross donated 11 in memory of Dick Utter, a member of the ’49 Ventura High 30-0 basketball team that won the CIF.

Karen and Dave Brooks, and their trusty canine companion, Watson, also gave 11 balls, and Cristina Kildee gave three “in the loving memory of my furbaby, Bear.”

Kay Giles and Michael Mariani gave six balls, as did Carole Rowland; Tom and Sheila McCollum gave 18; and from my Buena High Class of ’78, Bob Colla Jr. gave two and Robert Schwartz added one.

Steve and Bobbin Yarbrough gave two balls; Thomas and Karyne Roweton, four; Katherine and Frank Anderson, five; Fran and Kate Larsen, six; Laurie Rutledge, eight; and Laura McAvoy and Sol Chooljian added 10.

The Pleasant Valley-Somis-Camarillo Lions Club gave 150 balls; a group of former Marines added 30; and patrons of The Goebel Adult Community Center in Thousand Oaks donated 65.

In another group effort, 287 balls were given by the “A Team” of family members and friends who wished to only have their first names used: Grandma Alma, Nancy and Rick, Connie and Andy, Carmen and Louie, Alma and Tomas, Christine and Tyler, Ruth and Shaun, Alast and Allen, Rachel and Mike, Reina and Michael, Juan, Beth and Stan, Caren and Achilles, Charlene and Phil, Rose and Jace, Dave and Yoda, Kellie and John, Shelly, Michelle and Michael, Beverley and Ricky, Steve, Jesus, Leroy, Dave, Cathy and Carlos, Claudia and Mike, Will and Heidi, Kelly and Lisa, Pamela, Tina and Chris, Lane, Deborah, Maddie, Mary Kay and Steve, Mel and Todd, Dawn and Jim, Donna and Art, and Ilene and Mitch.

Auden McAuley and Amara Woodburn each gave one ball; Anna and Tom McBreen, two; Judy Windle, three; Rick Estberg, four; Kent Brinkmeyer, five; and Glen Sittel gave six in memory of is mom “who was such a great supporter of my youth sports.”

Alicia and Hall Stratton gave five balls, as did Kathy and Ken McAlpine, and Lauren Siegel as well.

Secret Santas gave a combined 63 balls, including 25 in memory of my former Star sportswriting colleague Loren Ledin, a star person who recently lost a warrior’s decade-long battle with cancer.

Mike and Bob Bryan donated 50 assorted balls and, in a closing note of birdsong for my heart, for her fifth birthday Maya McAuley picked out one gift ball for a child she will never know but said she can imagine her-or-his smile.

And now, the final tally for 2023 is … drumroll, please … a whopping 1,142 gift sports balls, surpassing last year’s previous record by more than 100 children’s smiles!

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Some Far From Ordinary Books, ’23

by Woody

Without undue preamble, other than to say I surpassed my annual book-a-week goal this year, here are some favorites from my 2023 reading list…

“What You Are Looking For is in the Library” by Michiko Aoyama is a collection of short stories linked by a hint of magic and a librarian who is large and gruff, but also kind and wise, and is worth looking for on library or bookstore shelves.

“The Prospectors” by Ariel Djankian is a terrific tale switching back and forth between today and the gold rush in the Yukon.

My mountain of books read this year totals 62 with time still for a couple more!

“Let Us Descend” by Jesmyn Ward is a powerful, heart-wrenching story about a young woman who is sold by the enslaver who fathered her and the hellish relocation journey on foot she endures while accompanied by the memories and spirits of her mother and African warrior grandmother.

 “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store” by James McBride and “Tom Lake” by Ann Patchett both require a little patience early on, in my opinion, but eventually reward the reader fully.

“Saint Monkey” by Jacinda Townsend is a masterful and musical coming-of-age story of two friends told by a narrator whose storytelling voice absolutely sings.

Even though I have never played a musical instrument, I found Glenn Kurtz’s memoir “Practicing: A Musician’s Return to Music” to B-flat out wonderful with the author’s passion contagious. Another musical-themed book, the fictional “Symphony of Secrets” by Brendan Slocumb, is a terrific page-turning mystery.

“The Museum of Ordinary People” by Mike Gayle is far, far better than ordinary, and you do not have to be a runner to enjoy Jeffrey Recker’s “The Humiliation Tour” which is long in both pages (at 460) and laughs (4,600).

Conversely, “Baumgartner” by Paul Auster, about a widower wrestling with memories and grief, and “The Gift” by Pete Hamill, about a GI during Korean War coming home from boot camp to Brooklyn for Christmas, are both thin on pages but thick on beautiful storytelling.

“The President’s Hat” by Antoine Laurain is a fun journey following a hat with a mystical power to change the lives of all who wear it.

“Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin is a wonderful and wonderful and wonderful love story while “Tomorrow Will Be Better” by Betty Smith is a story about a lack of love with a protagonist, Margy, you cannot help but love.

John Wooden liked to say that the trouble with new books is they keep us from reading old ones. On the 20th anniversary of its publication, I reread

“Off Season: Discovering America On Winter’s Shores” by local wordsmith Ken McAlpine and enjoyed it ever as much as the first time.

Another local offering, by Ventura native Deborah Holt Larkin, that merits a high recommendation is “A Lovely Girl: The Tragedy of Olga Duncan and the Trial of One of California’s Most Notorious Killers.”

Evidence that good things come in threes, a third local author makes my list with “The Unsold Mindset” by Ventura native Garrett Brown and Colin Coggins.

Runner-up for my favorite book this year is “Remarkably Bright Creatures” by Shelby Van Pelt. My only complaint about this remarkably creative novel is that I wanted more of the chapters narrated by the octopus!

And – drum roll, please – the king of the 62-book-tall mountain I have read this year is “The Kudzu Queen” by Mimi Herman, whose poetry chops shine through with lyrical writing, precise word choices, and vivid imagery in this southern novel that brings to mind “To Kill a Mockingbird,” including young narrator Mattie’s voice that has echoes of Scout.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Dinnertime Nancy Drew Mystery

by Woody

A common parlor game, with the number often varying, is to ask: “If you could invite any three people, real or fictional, to dinner who would they be?”

The other evening, on a date night out with my much-better-half, I would have given most anything, even my delicious appetizer crab cakes, to have Sherlock Holmes, Lieutenant Columbo, and Nancy Drew pull up chairs for I unexpectedly found myself trying to solve The Case of The Mystery Glass of Whiskey.

“Thanks, but that’s not for me,” I told the waitress as she set down a tumbler filled with amber nectar. Gesturing at my pint glass, still nearly full with a tasty local craft brew, I added: “I think you have the wrong table.”

Cheers on a recent date night with Lisa…

Smiling, she said someone had sent the drink to me.

“Who?” I asked.

Her smiled broadened, taking on a hint of mischievousness: “Sorry, I promised not to tell.”

“But I need to thank them,” I persisted.

“Too bad,” she said, her eyes dancing with delight to be part of the whodunit.

I scanned the restaurant but saw no one I recognized, albeit the mood lighting and too many backs of heads, which is all I saw of half the patrons, made identification rather difficult.

Naturally it would be rude to delay in sampling the gift, for surely the secret Samaritan was surreptitiously watching, so I raised the glass high with a “Sláinte” toast to my unkown benefactor and took a wonderful warm sip.

I am no whiskey connoisseur, although I have toured the Jameson Distillery in Dublin, Ireland – twice, including earlier this year – and if I had to guess I would have ventured it was indeed Jamo.

When, against all odds, the waitress confirmed my stab in the dark was correct, it was a valuable clue. You see, for a recent anniversary gift I gave some dear friends an Irish bottle of Jameson personalized with their names on the label. I looked around again, searching the room more thoroughly, certain I would spot them.

I did not. Surely they were hiding, laughing at my bafflement.

Alas, a quick series of exchanged texts with the husband convinced me that This Hound of the Baskerville was barking up the wrong tree and they were in fact not the playful culprits. By now my wife and I were amused to giggles trying to solve the mystery.

Out of the blue, an “Elementary, my dear Watson!” insight struck me. Yes, whiskey was the vital clue – but not Jameson specifically. Knowing next to nothing about whiskeys, I have more than once asked a close friend, whose blood has surely been aged in oak barrels, for his recommendations.

“Are you out for dinner tonight?” I texted him now, naming the restaurant.

Without delay my phone pinged. The reply was simply a dimly lit photo of my wife and me at our table. A moment later my friend sidled up to share a big laugh and two bigger hugs.

No whodunit was involved in a similar encounter a few days later, in a different restaurant, when my beloved dentist personally delivered a coastal microbrew to me, also with a smile and some shared words. Best of all, he didn’t add a shot of Novocaine to make it a boilermaker.

Between these boozy bookend encounters, at yet another local eatery, a friend in my wider circle dropped by my table to say hello, sans largesse libation. But here’s the important lesson: spirit, not spirits, is what truly matters, for her impromptu visit warmed my chest ever as much as a mystery whiskey.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.