Woody’s highly anticipated new book “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” is NOW available! Order your signed copy HERE! 

*   *   *

Birthday Gift is Unbridled Success

Weddings, it strikes me, are a lot like locusts – more accurately called 17-year periodical cicadas.

Except this genus is the 30-year periodic wave of matrimonial invitations.

The first wave for my wife and I struck after college when many of our friends tied the knot and now the second wave is rolling in as the adult children of these couples are exchanging vows – usually beautiful, heartfelt, poetic vows they write themselves, the young showoffs.

Anyway, the RSVP of a recent wedding invitation requested an interesting fact about each of us. For my much-better-half this was difficult because there are so many from which to choose – such as putting up for three decades with a knucklehead husband who suggested her fun fact should be that she is lousy at picking out birthday gifts for her husband.

Admittedly, this was a stupid thing for me to suggest. But, in my lame defense, it is true.

What is also true is that it is my own fault because a not-so-fun fact about me is that I am impossible to shop for. I refuse to make a list of gifts I would like nor do I drop subtle hints. Worse, I have been known to buy something for myself just days before my birthday – more than a few times causing my miffed wife to return what she bought me before I even open it.

Even when she is on the mark, I generally exchange it for a slightly different model, different color, different size.

“I love it! Thank you,” I will say, adding: “Did you keep the receipt?”

“Of course I did,” she replies, rolling her eyes but showing great restraint in not adding, “you ungrateful blockhead!”

Adding to the friction is that the interesting fact about me I suggested putting on the wedding RSVP is that one of my superpowers is giving great presents. I think outside the gift box; I listen for hints given so softly you need a stethoscope to hear them; and if all fails, I buy what they ask for.

Last weekend I celebrated my birthday – somewhere between how old I act (about 8) and how old my musical tastes, such as the Beetles’ song “When I’m Sixty-Four,” suggest I am. Usually my wife is stressed out for all of May because she has no clue what to give me besides a stink eye.

I don’t help matters by teasingly asking if I am going to like what she’s getting me. This year she was giddy with confidence.

“You are going to love it!” she said. “I tore up the receipt! And don’t bother guessing because you won’t come close.”

“Mom really came through,” both kids assured me. “You’re going to love it!”

They have all said this before and been wrong. This year they were wrong only in understatement. The long shot made it to the winner’s circle. My wife gave me a gift so thoughtful, terrific and outrageously unique that it makes my gift-giving superpowers seem like they have encountered Kryptonite.

My wife thought outside the box – and inside the barn. She got me a thoroughbred racehorse.

Actually, better than that. She got me the opportunity to name a racehorse in my honor. This is superior because I get a thoroughbred I can thoroughly call my own without having to pay for hay, housing and vet bills.

This is a big responsibility that I want to share with you dear readers. So I’m asking you to vote for one of three names. My win, place and show finalists are, in alphabetical order:

Masterpiece Day – paying homage to my favorite John Wooden maxim, “Make each day your masterpiece.”

Runs on Guinness – anyone who knows me knows I am a fan of “the good stuff.”

Streakin’ Woody – this is a nod to my running streak of 4,717 consecutive days as of today.

Please email your vote (or a write-in name) to me at woodywriter@gmail.com

After the ballots are counted, I think I will change my RSVP interesting fact to: “Named a thoroughbred racehorse (Fill-In-The-Winning-Name).

*  *  *

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

Check 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”

• Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
• Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

Woody’s highly anticipated new book “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” is NOW available! Order your signed copy HERE! 

*   *   *

Catching Good News by the Tail

Sometimes after you finish reading the newspaper you want to wash your hands – not just of newsprint, but of humanity.

One is reminded of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren’s comment, “I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people’s accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man’s failures.”

Now, even the sports pages are filled with cheats and liars and scoundrels.

As an antidote, here are a few stories to lift the spirits.

*

“Van Gogh would’ve sold more than one painting,” noted Bill Watterson, creator of the classic comic strip Calvin and Hobbs that features a six-year-old boy and his stuffed toy tiger who is real in Calvin’s imagination, “if he’d put tigers in them.”

In recent years it has seemed the only tigers left will soon be those in paintings.

In 2010, the world’s population of tigers in the wild was officially estimated at 3,200 – and declining. Indeed, Cambodia this year declared its tiger population had gone extinct. Meanwhile, new figures put Vietnam’s tiger count at five and China’s at seven.

Now the good news. According to “Scientific American,” despite the impact of poachers, deforestation and development, wild tigers are beginning to claw their way back in numerous countries. The top three are Indonesia with 371 tigers, Russia has 433, and India has 2,226.

Overall, the latest estimate of wild tigers is now 3,890.

Better news to make Calvin and Hobbs both smile: This marks the first time in more than a century the wild tiger population worldwide has increased.

*

Speaking of Tigers, I saw an old Calvin and Hobbs comic strip posted on Facebook the other day that made me smile:

Panel one. Calvin tells his striped friend, as they look outside through a window: “In the short term, it would make me happy to go play outside.”

Panel two. Seated at a table with a pile of homework in front of him, Calvin continues: “In the long term, it would make me happier to do well at school and become successful.”

Panel three. Whizzing down a steep hill on a sled, with Hobbs holding on from behind, Calvin concludes: “But in the very long term, I know which will make better memories.”

*

In the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” hero Atticus Finch tells his daughter, Scout: “You never really know a man till you walk a mile in his shoes.”

Outside a Waffle House in Indianapolis recently, a hero wearing a police uniform saw a man walking in shoes that were literally falling apart.

The homeless man was basically shoeless because size-17s are nearly impossible to find at a Goodwill shop.

The police officer, who has insisted on remaining anonymous, made it his mission to help. After air balls at Wal-Mart and sporting goods stores, he took a full-court heave and contacted the Indiana Pacers. It turns out NBA center Roy Hibbert wears size-17s.

Unfortunately, Hibbert left the Pacers for the Lakers. Fortunately, a pair of his shoes were found left behind.

According to a story in the Indy Star, the homeless man cried when he put on the white-yellow-and-blue high-tops; the officers cried; and the Waffle House employees cried.

I bet Atticus would have been happily teary-eyed, too.

*

One more story of giving. Sofia Andrade, a single mom in Massachusetts, recently won $200 on a lottery ticket. Later that day, as temperatures dropped below zero, she encountered a homeless man and bought him coffee and a meal – and, with her scratch-off winnings, three nights in a warm motel.

She also started a GoFundMe page that within 24 hours raised $5,000 for rent for Glenn Williams. Additional benefactors donated warm-weather clothing, food, and a barber gave him a free haircut.

“There’s a lot of good people in this world,” Williams told Boston’s ABC-TV affiliate WCVB. “I’m overwhelmed with all the help.”

*

Calvin and Hobbs again, this time the stuffed tiger tells the boy: “You know, there are times when it’s a sense of personal pride to not be human.”

Other times, our pride is restored.

*  *  *

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

Check 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”

• Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
• Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

Woody’s highly anticipated new book “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” is NOW available! Order your signed copy HERE! 

*   *   *

He is a roll model and inspiration

(This is Part 2 of a column that began last Saturday)

*

“Can I do this?” Alvin Matthews thought to himself, worry pumping through his veins, at the starting line of the 2016 Los Angeles Marathon.

A veteran of 20 previous marathons, including frigid treks at Antarctica and the North Pole, these were not normal pre-race jitters for the 44-year-old Ventura native.

Alvin Matthews at the 2016 L.A. Marathon

The reason for Alvin’s apprehension was because this was his first post-accident marathon. Two years ago, he fell three stories and suffered a “catastrophic” spinal cord injury that left him in a wheelchair with limited use of his arms and hands.

Reaching the L.A. Marathon starting line on Feb. 14 required a Herculean effort by Alvin. It also required a village of doctors and rehabilitation therapists, family members and friends, and Team NutriBullet members who bought him an $8,000 state-of-the-art three-wheeled recumbent handcycle.

Two more vital benefactors were Mike Pedersen, a 3:30 marathoner and member of the Ventura Running Tribe club, and Orange County tri-athlete Brain Dao. They volunteered to escort Alvin – and provide energy drinks and gels; apply moleskin on hand blisters; and much more – along the marathon course.

On the way to the staging area, Alvin rolled through a human “Tunnel of Love” comprised of nearly 100 well-wishers. “The outpouring of emotions was overwhelming,” Mike recalls. It proved a mere sprinkle compared to the emotional deluge in the 26.2 miles ahead.

At 6:32 a.m., the starting horn blared for the wheelchair and handcycle racers.

At Mile 4, on a steep uphill leading to the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the chain slipped off Alvin’s handcycle. As Mike and Brian fixed it, the able-bodied runners who had started 15 minutes behind now caught up.

For the remainder of the marathon, Alvin would be in heavy traffic – and wonderfully so. Instead of a hindrance, it was a blessing. Instead of glares for having to weave around Alvin, the runners offered cheers.

“Nobody ever got upset,” shares Mike. “People would all say, ‘You got this!’ ‘Good job, brother!’ ‘Way to go, man!’ I’m not talking tens of times, even hundreds of times, but easily a thousand voices of encouragement throughout the morning.”

Indeed, the sometimes-mean city streets became a “Tunnel of Love” comprised of runners and spectators, police officers and firemen, race officials and volunteers.

So appreciative was Alvin that he kept giving high-fives as thanks, even though this cost him momentum and required difficult effort to get his hands slipped back into the chest-high “pedals” each time.

“The support from everyone was amazing,” Alvin says, adding twice more for emphasis: “Amazing, amazing!

“Before race I was worried, ‘Can I do this?’ and didn’t want to let myself down. But as the race went on, I knew I couldn’t let down all these people who were supporting me.”

While the cheers warmed his heart, Alvin’s body temperature was at constant risk of overheating because paralysis has robbed his ability to sweat. Out of necessity, Mike and Brian doused him with water every mile until Mile 23 when a steady downhill to the finish line allowed the competitor in bib No. 307 to pull away from his two-man entourage.

Magically, wonderfully, unexpectedly, Alvin soon gained two new escorts when Chris Pryor and Roge Mueller sneaked onto the course pedaling beach cruisers. Together, the three boyhood friends rolled the final two miles and through the finish chute as the race clock read 5 hours, 34 minutes.

In a photo with the finisher’s medal proudly draped around his neck, a neck once shattered and the reason he is laying supine in a racing handcycle, Alvin’s smile is beatific. It is the joyous smile of a boy in a Matterhorn sled at Disneyland for the first time. A smile of triumph, not tragedy.

“My accident has brought me closer to my mom and my brother,” Alvin shares. “It has given me new friends. There is so much bad stuff in the world, but I’ve found there is also so much good. So many people have come out of the woodwork to help me, even strangers and anonymous angels.

“They have all helped me realize I still have a great life.”

*  *  *

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

Check 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”

• Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
• Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

Woody’s highly anticipated new book “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” is NOW available! Order your signed copy HERE! 

*   *   *

“Old Glory” Treated Like Old Laundry

Looking at the photograph while inside the warmth of my home gave me chills.

The photo was taken two weeks ago more than 2,700 miles away from Southern California in Virginia; taken during Winter Storm Jonas; taken as Arlington National Cemetery was being buried beneath two feet of snow.

Snapped at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the photo shows a proud member of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment – also known as “The Old Guard” – keeping sentry during the blizzard.

The Old Guard’s young guard is standing solemnly at attention, rifle resting on his left shoulder, both shoulders of his navy blue uniform coat dusted heavily with frozen dandruff.

His long vigil in the fierce conditions is more strikingly evidenced by two inches of snow that has piled up atop his dress cap like thick vanilla frosting on a fancy cupcake.

The chilly image gave me goose bumps of patriotic pride and a surge of gratitude for those who serve, and have served, in our military.

Another photograph, this one taken four days ago, taken in New Hampshire, taken late on primary night inside the campaign headquarters of Hillary Clinton, also made my spine shiver.

With sadness and with anger.

This photo was of an American flag crumpled on the floor in front of empty bleachers. Election night looked like laundry day.

Sadness. The warrior in The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier gave his life fighting for this flag. Anger. Our young men and women warriors sacrifice life and limb for it today.

These two photos, of The Old Guard on duty and Old Glory on the floor, reminded me of another image, this one recorded in my mind a few months past at the funeral of a local World War II veteran.

Charles Banker McConica, Navy veteran and family man and successful auto dealer and beloved friend and longtime admired member of the Ventura community, lived to be 94. The eulogies painted a beautiful and accurate portrait.

Son Jim spoke about how his dad was his biggest cheerleader. Son Charles recounted – one by one with examples of each – how his father exemplified the “Boy Scout Law” of being “Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent.”

And daughter Judy shared her parents’ cutest of cute meets, how her dad spilled salt in a USO dining hall in Belfast and her Ireland-born mom, seated nearby, suggested he superstitiously toss a pinch over his shoulder. The luck of the Irish ensued as their shared future held 69 years of marriage, three children, seven grandchildren and six great-grandkids.

The spoken words were poignant, but perhaps more so was the silent ceremonious folding of an American flag performed by two soldiers from Naval Base Ventura County.

Performed in slow motion, in full dress uniform, in a church so quiet you could hear your own heart beating, the speechless choreography of the two soldiers was as moving as witnessing a member of The Old Guard marching back and forth in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

After each lengthwise folding, the flag was pulled taught. Each fold was creased with care. Next came the triangular folds, each made with perfect corners, each creased with reverence, thirteen in all until the red-and-white striped portion of the flag met the blue field and white stars.

After the last corner was painstakingly tucked into an open edge, forming a triangle that represents a cocked hat to remind us of the soldiers who served under General George Washington, the two soldiers used their formal white gloves as though they were heated clothes irons and made the three edges crisp and sharp and perfect.

Hugging the folded flag to the chest as though it were as precious as a newborn baby, one solider then lovingly presented it to Charles’ widow, Rosena. Taps was played, more tears fell, and then the soldiers silently exited.

I wish the Clinton campaign staffer who ingloriously left Old Glory on the floor could have been at Charles McConica’s funeral. The New Hampshire photograph would have been different.

*  *  *

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

Check 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”

• Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
• Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

Woody’s highly anticipated new book “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” is NOW available! Order your signed copy HERE! 

*   *   *

Rapunzel and ‘Relay For Life’

How many wigs for cancer patients could Rapunzel’s long golden strands have made?

This thought crossed my mind after my daughter recently had a 10-inch ponytail cut off for Locks of Love.

Dear, dear friends Celine and Dallas.

In truth, a tangle of reasons had me thinking about Rapunzel and cancer and wigs. This includes Rachel Halpern, a freshman at Camarillo High School, whose recent class writing assignment was serendipitiously shared via email with my daughter the very day she donated her lovely locks.

Choosing Disney’s movie “Tangled” as her muse, Rachel wrote about tears and flowers and singing in her second-story bedroom.

“Every time she opens the window,” her personal essay says, “she half expects to hear, ‘Rachel, Rachel! Let down your hair!’ ”

“Stylist, stylist! Cut off my hair!” were tearful words for my daughter to utter, and not because she has had flowing locks since she was young child.

Rather, because of the reason behind the drastic haircut. It was in tribute to her dear, dear friend, Celine, who was tragically killed one year ago when her taxi was hit by a truck.

The first time they met, on Move-In Day their freshman year a decade past, Celine had very short hair because she had just donated her own lengthy brown tresses to Locks of Love. It was a brave thing to do right before starting college, but Celine was fearless.

In an effort to be more fearless herself, my daughter grew her “grief hair” out for a full year and on the anniversary of the tragic accident cut it off for a very worthwhile cause.

A wig for someone who has lost her hair while fighting cancer is no small thing. I remember my own dear, dear friend, Karen Hart Haight, whose Rapunzel-like platinum locks fell victim to chemotherapy.

The final time I saw her before she passed away, Karen briefly turned my tears into laughter by tipping her wig askew and sticking out her tongue in a funny face. That moment, thanks to a wig, matters to me 19 years later.

Something else that matters is the American Cancer Society’s “Relay For Life” which will soon kick off its annual season locally with 24-hour events that include: April 9-10 at Camarillo High School; April 30-May 1 at Isbell Middle School in Santa Paula; May 7-8 at Westlake High School; May 14-15 at Ventura College; May 21-22 at Nordhoff High School and also at Conejo Creek Park South; June 25-26 at Hueneme High School; July 16-17 at Oxnard High School; and July 30-31 at the Fillmore Courthouse. For further information: http://relay.acsevents.org.

In each of our own life relays many people, often strangers, help us carry the baton. For my daughter, in her past year of grief relay, this included a new stylist.

Her scissors in action, Anastasia asked my daughter why she was donating her hair. Upon hearing the tearful answer, Anastasia paused and gathered her own emotions before sharing that her best friend died in a car crash seven years ago.

“The first anniversary is the hardest,” Anastasia consoled. “It gets better. Just hang in there.” Her warmth was medicine for a weeping heart.

After sealing the ponytail in a plastic bag for donation, Anastasia styled my daughter’s short locks, added a blow dry and then did one thing more: she refused to accept any payment.

“This is a gift for your friend,” she insisted.

That night my daughter imagined Celine telling her, “Oh my god, Dallas! Your hair! You look fabulous!” and says she found solace in an Eskimo proverb that states: “Perhaps they are not stars in the sky, but rather openings where the love of our lost ones shines down to let us know they are happy.”

Rachel’s written words also added comfort, especially these: “The reflection of the stars makes her eyes twinkle like the stars themselves. Each star illuminates the dark night. They look down on her and sparkle a smile, almost reminding her that the world is still hers to explore.”

The title of Rachel’s wonderful essay: “She’s Shining in the Starlight.”

*  *  *

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

Check 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”

• Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
• Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

Woody’s highly anticipated new book “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” is NOW available! Order your signed copy HERE! 

*   *   *

Kind Acts, One by One, Add Up Big

Ventura’s One Million Acts of Kindness campaign is underway in an effort to document seven figures of nice deeds as the city approaches its 150th birthday on April 2.

I am doubtful One Million Acts of Kindness will actually be posted on social media – such as Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/venturakindness) and Tumblr (http://venturakindness.tumblr.com) – as encouraged, but I have zero doubt the target number will be performed locally by the Sesquicentennial celebration.

With nearly 110,000 residents in Ventura, mathematically each person needs to perform just one kind act per week from now until April 2 to reach the goal.

Spread out evenly, each of us would likewise be the beneficiary of 10 nice deeds by the big birthday. Judging from my personal experience on the receiving end of kindness in recent days alone, this is going to be a slam dunk.

A quick sampling . . .

*

My wife, daughter, son and I had just scooched in together around the only open table, designed for just two people, in the self-seating bar area of a local Irish pub when a young couple seated at a bigger table across the room waved us over and insisted we switch with them.

*

While I was on a run at Ventura Community Park, a driver pulled alongside me at the soccer fields and rolled down his window. Instead of asking for directions, he asked if I like avocados.

Avocados?

He explained he sees me running daily and just wanted to give me a token of thanks for inspiring him. He then handed me a beautiful avocado, with a sticker on it from the grocery so it wasn’t even a freebie from his own backyard.

*

A woman named Thelma mailed me the book “Life Wisdom from Coach Wooden” that she came across at a Ventura Friends of the Library sale.

She included this kind note: “I thought you might enjoy this if you do not already have a copy.”

*

Speaking of books, and John Wooden, Mark Wilson bought four copies of my “Wooden & Me” and requested I donate them to disadvantaged youth.

Nancy and Richard Francis did likewise with a couple copies of my newest book, “Strawberries in Wintertime.”

*

I have mentioned here previously a lady selling flowers at a local farmers market who bargained me down from a $5 tip to $2.

The next time I bought flowers, I stubbornly “won” our tip negotiations.

Which brings us to our most recent transaction. Walking up, I overheard her say “That’ll be seven dollars” to the customer before me. When I selected an identical bouquet of sunflowers, however, I was told the cost was $5 – she had already started our tip dance.

I continued our two-step, telling told her I knew these flowers cost $7. She smiled playfully, agreed to take $7, but insisted on getting me a fresher bouquet from inside her van.

She then returned with a bouquet twice as large!

*

My friend Scott had a similar tipping experience recently after taking a shuttle from long-term parking to LAX. Upon being dropped off at his terminal, he realized his smallest bill was a $20.

Scott asked the driver if he could make change, but was told: “Don’t worry, you can get me next time.”

Getting this same driver ever again was, of course, a long shot. But a bigger long shot is for Scott to stiff someone of a tip, so he handed over the $20 bill.

Remarkably, the driver refused it.

Scott insisted, and persisted, until the driver accepted.

However, the driver then dug deep into his pocket and insisted, and persisted, until Scott accepted a wad of uncounted $1-bill tips – $13 it turned out – as change.

“I was struck by how hard he pushed to not take a tip that he obviously thought was too much,” Scott recalls. “There was no doubt he was sincere. The dignity with which he handled this small exchange was inspiring.”

*

Inspiring. That’s a good word to describe our citizenry throughout all of Ventura County.

Indeed, with Ventura’s One Million Acts of Kindness campaign the bar seems to have been set too low.

*  *  *

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

Check 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”

• Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
• Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

Woody’s highly anticipated new book “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” is NOW available! Order your signed copy HERE! 

*   *   *

Feliz Navidad Arrives Belatedly

An uninvited guest dropped by on the first Sunday morning of this New Year and instantly made herself right at home.

Lunch came and dinner went, and still she stayed, making herself comfortable on the couch. It was obvious she expected to spend the night, if not longer.

“Navi” making her cute self at home on our couch.

It was all my wife’s fault. She not only welcomed our guest with open arms – she carried her in her arms across a busy stoplight intersection and then the final few blocks to our house, fearful the small lost dog would dart into traffic.

The dog, you see, had started following my wife while she was out on an early-morning run. How long the dog had been giving chase before being noticed, my wife was not sure.

“Stay,” “heel” and “stop!” commands all failed. The interloper kept following.

My wife circled through this unfamiliar neighborhood, listening for a worried owner’s shout and looking for an open gate to a backyard, all to no avail. The dog, with no collar and ID, still followed.

We immediately drove back to where the dog latched onto my wife’s Nikes and canvassed the area. A boy, about age 10, seemed to recognize the white dog with black markings and directed us to a house where he thought it lived. Indeed, a very similar-looking dog answered the front door with its owner.

After striking out with a few others we encountered, we put up half-a-dozen “FOUND DOG” signs throughout the area and also posted messages on the Ventura County Animal Shelter’s webpage.

A visit to the veterinarian revealed the dog had no microchip for identification. (Public Service Announcement: collars with identification tags can come off so get your pet microchipped!)

As a Hail Mary, I posted a photo on my own Facebook page and asked Ventura friends to “share” it.

We cancelled our afternoon plans, stayed home, and waited.

Frankly, I did not do cartwheels having a lost dog in our backyard. Our 9-year-old boxer, Murray – named after the great writer, Jim Murray – was none too pleased either. He and I both knew it was only a matter of time, and not much, before my wife’s heart melted and she brought the dog inside from the chill.

The over-under-was an hour. The “under” bets won, and easily.

The energetic small dog not only won over my wife (no big feat), she also won over Murray (no small feat). I, too, quickly succumbed to the charms of this affectionate and playful pup.

That night, as we contemplated confining the new dog in the laundry room, she raced into our bedroom and hopped onto the bed. If you tell me you could have looked her in those brown doey eyes and ordered her “off!” I will tell you that you are lying.

Before we drifted off to sleep, the dog had snuggled her way into our hearts.

Mid-morning the following day, the only thing that would have made us happier than adopting this lost dog happened: the social media Hail Mary was caught in the end zone.

Joey Archuletta, a sophomore at Buena High, recognized the dog in the Facebook picture as belonging to his good friend and classmate, Diego Villa. Within an hour, the story had a happy ending.

Here’s how happy: “I felt like Joey just cured me of cancer when he showed me that you found Navi,” Diego told me.

Feliz Navidad on January fourth.

Navi, you see, is short for Navidad – named thusly because Diego and his family got the Jack Russell-Labrador mix as a 12-week-old puppy for Christmas 2014.

Nine days after this Christmas, the side gate had been left unlatched and Navi escaped unnoticed. That she also leapt over a four-foot-high wall comes as no surprise after seeing her jump entirely over our couch with the ease of an Olympic high jumper.

The surprise here is that Diego says Navi is an outdoors dog and does not sleep in his bed.

One more surprise: even after just one night of her company, the foot of our mattress feels a little empty without Navi.

*  *  *

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

Check 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”

• Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
• Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

Woody’s new book STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter is available for Pre-Order HERE NOW! In time for the holidays!

*   *   *

Acknowledging Ball-Givers Bellringer-Style

“I always turn to the sports page first, which records people’s accomplishments,” former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren famously said. “The front page has nothing but man’s failures.”

When Christmastime rolls around, I like to turn to the Star’s “Local” section first to read the Julius Gius Bellringer campaign’s daily update which records nothing but people’s generosity.

Gius, the late, great, longtime editor of The Star, was a role model and his annual Bellringer drive helped inspire “Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive” dedicated to giving new sports balls to disadvantaged kids.

And so, Bellringer-style, I want to acknowledge in print a few benefactors who represent many, many more who to date have donated more than 100 new sports balls this holiday season.

As has become a tradition, the very first person to get the ball rolling was Jim Cowan, who again donated ten Spaulding NBA basketballs.

“In the past I have done so in honor of my family, my coaches and friends,” said Cowan, a former star college basketball player and star educator afterwards. “This year I did so with a thought from a poet that didn’t attend Whittier College as I did, but I am sure John Wooden would have been one of his fans – John Greenleaf Whittier: ‘The joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you.’ ”

*

Jim Parker, my old press-box pal, wrote in an email with the subject line One More Through The Hoop: “I drained one from 3-point distance into the annual St. Paul’s Episcopal Church Christmas toy/gift drive box. Swish!”

*

Sherrie Basham swished Five More Through The Hoop, writing: “I have a small landscape design business with wonderful clients, who gift me generously this time of year. I decided to turn some of that around and donate to your drive.

“My mom, Janice, who died in 2013, would have been on board with this so in her memory I dropped off five NBA basketballs.”

*

“We just dropped off a basketball, football and soccer ball with Lea at the Ventura Boys and Girls Club,” shared Alan and Kathy Hammerand, adding: “Lea told me that she has been working there since 1988 and looks forward to the ball donations from your program every year.

“We are grateful to be able to be part of this effort to keep kids active and bring joy to them at this special time of year.”

*

Glen Sittel, who donated a basketball, football and soccer ball, similarly noted: “It’s always a great feeling to give something so simple, yet so important, to our youth in need.”

*

The narrative behind Leslie Seifert-De Los Santos’ donation of two NBA basketballs is especially touching. She shared:

“I spent some time thinking about my father, Arthur Seifert, whose lifelong recreation was basketball. He loved and excelled in it until he was 79 years old, when he suffered a heart attack while playing basketball.

“Dad recovered enough to shoot baskets for several years. He died three years ago, at 92 years old, after watching a basketball game with me the night before.

“Whenever I see a basketball, hear one bounce, watch children or professionals play, I remember my father’s eyes shining as he taught his daughters, the neighborhood children or the ‘young guys’ at pick-up games all over town, how to play and appreciate the game.

“Hopefully, whichever youngsters plays with the basketballs can enjoy that lifelong love of the game as well. Thanks for giving me the moment to remember.”

*

The thanks belongs to everyone, too many to mention all here, who have already contributed and a reminder that there is still time to drop off a new sports ball at any local youth club or the Ventura County Star offices (Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., through Dec. 21) at 550 Camarillo Center Drive near the Premium Outlets.

If you do pass out an assist, please email me at woodywriter@gmail.com so your donation can be added to the final tally.

And remember, “The joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you.”

*  *  *

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

Check 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”

• Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
• Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

Woody’s new book STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter is available for Pre-Order HERE NOW! In time for the holidays!

*   *   *

Bah-Humbug Hangover From Black Friday

If you were expecting 700 words of holiday nice and pumpkin spice here this morning, you are going to be as disappointed as a kid who doesn’t find a Hoverboard under the tree this Christmas morning.

I have a Black Friday hangover. If you want good cheer, phone your grandma. I’m in a “Bah-humbug” mood.

*

For starters, it annoys me when an all-inclusive “Happy Holidays” is misconstrued as being a “War on Christmas.”

*

Call me Scrooge, but I say “Bah, humbug!” to Black Friday and Cyber Monday and to radio stations that started playing nothing but Christmas music before Thanksgiving arrived.

Ditto for stores and homes that put up holiday lights and reindeer decorations before the Halloween pumpkins were tossed out.

*

It annoys me that so many drivers fail to even yield at a STOP sign but stop at YIELD signs when the roadway is clear.

*

The simply red “War on Christmas” holiday cups at Starbucks don’t bother me, but I was annoyed the other day when the barista wrote my name as “Woddy.”

Actually, it made me laugh.

*

“Small Business Saturday” annoys me – not because I am anti-local businesses, but because I think we should all make an effort to shop locally every Saturday.

For example, one study claims that for every $100 spent at a local businesses, $68 remains in the community versus just $43 for chain stores.

*

I’m steamed at Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg for announcing that he, and his wife Priscilla Chan, will give away most of their fortune – 99 percent of their company shares with a current estimated value of $45 billion – in an effort to make the world a “better place” for their newborn daughter, Maxima, and others.

Why am I ticked? Because hitting the “Like” button for this Facebook post seems wholly inadequate, as does a modest donation to The Star’s annual Julius Gius Bellringer drive.

However, small local donations – to any cause – matter, so we all need to follow Zuckerberg’s example and give what we can.

As me hero John Wooden used to say, “Small things add up to big things.”

*

I don’t much care whether Los Angeles gets an NFL team because I am a lifelong Cleveland Browns fan (pronounced “sufferer”).

Well, the Brownies – 12 seasons without a playoff appearance, 21 years without a playoff win, 51 years without a championship – ticked me off yet again last Monday night.

As they lined up for a last-second game-winning field-goal attempt against their archrival Ravens, I told my wife: “Because they’re the Browns, you just know the kick will get blocked and returned for a touchdown.”

My old Star sports page colleagues Jim “Swami” Parker and Derry “Deuce” Eads were never more clairvoyant: the blocked kick was returned 64 yards into the end zone as time expired. Even for the “Factory of Sadness” Browns, it was an impressive way to lose.

*

Speaking of losing, Kobe Bryant ticks me off for not retiring two years ago instead of turning the Lakers into a West Coast “Factory of Sadness.”

*

Telemarketers who ignore the No Call List get me more steamed than a freshly made Starbucks Holiday Pumpkin Spice Latte in any color cup.

*

I’m also steamed at Adele, the pop megastar whose comeback album broke the all-time record for first-week sales with 3.38 million.

You see, I pre-ordered “25” as a gift for my daughter only to now learn that for the same price there is a Target Deluxe Edition available with three bonus tracks.

*

It annoys me when the salsa is gone before the tortilla chips are.

*

Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t like it when guys wear hats in a restaurant. Many of them remind me of a quip my writing hero, Jim Murray, once told me at the sight of a young man wearing a ball cap backwards in the press box dining area: “I bet he has his brain on backwards, too.”

*

I will end my bah-humbugging here before providing too much evidence that my own brain is on backwards.

*  *  *

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

Check 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”

• Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
• Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon

Woody’s new book STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter is available for Pre-Order HERE NOW! In time for the holidays!

*   *   *

‘Holiday Ball Drive’ needs rainbows

The images, in both pictures and thousands of words, coming out of Paris the past week have been overwhelmingly horrific and overpoweringly heart-wrenching.

And, over and over, also heartwarmingly magnificent: taxi drivers shutting off their fare meters and rushing people out of harm’s way; citizens opening their homes to total strangers; and, most remarkable – yet also somehow common in times of terror and disaster – heroes rushing not away from danger but towards it to help.

In a kaleidoscope of dark images, I choose to focus on these brightly colored ones of people helping one another.

It is not only in times of tragedy we need to try to be, as the late Maya Angelou put it, “the rainbow in someone else’s cloud.” It is every day. Most certainly, this includes the holidays.

Dorothy Jue Lee, a longtime Venturan who passed away last month at age 81, was a rainbow daily. Growing up, she helped others while working in her family’s singular Jue’s Market.

In adulthood, for nearly four decades as an educator, she was a rainbow in the lives of school children.

Too, she served on more service groups and philanthropic boards than there are days in the week.

Here is how I also remember Dorothy: being a loyal and generous supporter of my annual “Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive” which strives to provide gift sports balls to local disadvantaged youth.

Last year, for example, Dorothy personally gave me two NBA basketballs and one official NFL football to pass along for her, saying: “As a retired elementary teacher, I know how valuable balls are for children.” A few days later, she donated two more Christmas-morning smiles.

Being a rainbow is easy: just drop off a new sports ball at a local Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, youth recreation center, fire department or house of worship – the organizations’ leaders will see that the gifts wind up in deserving young hands.

New this year, here are three businesses that have agreed to accept balls (Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., through Dec. 21) which I will pick up and deliver to kids in need: in Camarillo, the Ventura County Star offices at 550 Camarillo Center Drive (near the Premium Outlets); in Thousand Oaks, Mustang Marketing at 3135 Old Conejo Road (across the 101 Freeway from Home Depot); and in Ventura, Jensen Design & Survey at 1672 Donlon St. (near Target on Telephone Road).

Why sports balls? To begin, a basketball or football or soccer ball does not need batteries, will outlast most toys, and promotes exercise.

Actually, to begin, let me retell a story from about 20 years ago. I was at a youth basketball clinic when former Ventura College and NBA star Cedric Ceballos awarded autographed basketballs to a handful of lucky attendees.

Leaving the gym afterward, I happened upon a 10-year-old boy who had won one of the prized keepsakes – which he was dribbling on the rough blacktop outdoor court and shooting baskets with while perhaps imagining he was Ceballos.

Meanwhile, the real Ceballos’ Sharpie signature was smudging and wearing off.

Curious why he hadn’t carefully carried the trophy basketball home and put it safely on a bookshelf, I interrupted his playing to ask.

“I’ve never had my own basketball,” the boy answered matter-of-factly between shots.

That Christmastime, visions of the boy – and other boys and girls like him who don’t have their own basketball to shoot or soccer ball to kick or football to throw – danced through my head. So I asked you dear readers to help make the holidays happier by donating new sports balls.

You responded that year, and every one since, like MVPs – Most Valuable Philanthropists.

This year’s holidays will not be the same without Dorothy Jue Lee. In her honor, I am kicking off the 2015 drive with two NFL footballs and three NBA basketballs.

Who will you honor with your own gift ball or balls? Email me at woodywriter@gmail.com so I can add your generosity to this year’s tally.

Together, we can turn the clouds of many children into rainbows.

*  *  *

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

Check 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”

• Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com
• Unsigned paperbacks or Kindle ebook can be purchased here at Amazon