Tag Archives: anniversary

Bookend Meals to Fondly Remember

by Woody

“Chocolate, s’il vous plaît,” I said, pointing at the dessert menu, at what I thought was ice cream, at crème glacée.“

You mean chocolat?”the waiter said, his tone mocking.

My wife and I were at a charming café in Nice, France, on a recent dream trip celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary, yet our waiter was anything but charming. To call him surly would be far too kind.

“Oui,” I said, trying my best to parrot his pronunciation, “Chocolat.”

“Chocolat,” he sneered again with emphasized inflection and a dismissive eye roll.

Cheers to a wonderful 40th anniversary trip…

My mind flashed back a few days, back to when we were in Olympia, Greece, and our tour guide, a lovely woman named Nicolette, taught me a less-than-lovely Greek word our bus driver had barked out in frustration at a driver who displeased him. I was tempted to repeat those two displeasing syllables now at our waiter, but instead bit my tongue until the chocolat ice cream could soothe it.

Happily, that rudeness and margherita pizza that tasted like it came frozen in a box, were the exception on our 12-day travels from Venice to Barcelona. From a delicious assortment of tapas al fresco while protected under a canopy beneath rainy skies to velvety gelato at a seaside table outdoors where it was impossible to tell which was forget-me-not bluer, the sky or the water, we had many meals to remember for the right reasons.

Two, however, stand out above the rest as all-time unforgettable meals. Remarkably, they were the very first and last dinners of our trip.

The lunch of tapas we enjoyed in Barcelona were simply amazing!

We arrived at our hotel in Venice after a long night, long day, and long evening of travel at nearly 9 o’clock and promptly went looking for a place to dine. Serendipitously, an Italian restaurantwas literally next door.

Carpaccio Trattoria is too small to be described as cozy, but we were too weary to look further. Without any wait, and with the temperature in the mid-70s, we were given a table for two on the waterfront patio with a front-row view of the scenic Grand Canal.

The ambiance could not have been lovelier with lapping water serving as soft music and an apricot-hued moon balanced on the steeple of the landmark Palladian Church directly across the waterway as if it were a basketball spinning on a Harlem Globetrotter’s index finger.

Maria, whose appearance was as pleasant as her manner, showed us to our table; took our orders; and served us as well. We learned over the course of the meal that she is also the owner, pasta chef, and bakes all of the desserts which she proudly noted she always samples. The latter was nearly impossible to believe for the dessert menu was not at all slim and yet Maria very much was – a positive testament to the walking lifestyle here.

Since boyhood, spaghetti has been my favorite meal and the gold standard has always been my mom’s. For the past 30 years, I have wistfully pined for her magical sauce and handmade pasta.

God bless Maria. Her tender-yet-firm pasta and simple sauce that was almost as sweet as chocolat – “The secret magic is the fresh local tomatoes,” she confided – was not the equal of my mom’s, impossibly it surpassed it. I wish you could have tasted it.

We passed on dessert, but Maria would have no such nonsense. Learning this was our anniversary eve, she brought a cannoli and a slice of triple-chocolate cake as her gifts to us. Both were heaven on a plate.

Next week: The second bookend meal to long remember.

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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.

Personalized Signed copies of WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and  “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” are available at WoodyWoodburn.

Gondolier Lorenzo and ‘Anna Silvia’

by Woody

Head to toe, Lorenzo looked as one imagines a Venetian gondolier should.

His outfit included a flat-brimmed straw boater with a red hatband; loose-fitting, short-sleeved, white-linen shirt over a polo with traditional horizontal stripes of navy and white; black pants and black rubber-soled shoes. Oh, yes, and seemingly a song on his lips.

On the recent Italian afternoon of our 40th wedding anniversary, my wife and I were excited to celebrate with an authentic gondola ride. As we strolled toward a long ticket line, a charismatic gondolier intercepted us and guided us to the nearby dock where his long and narrow boat with high-rising stern and bow was moored.

Celebrating our 40th anniversary in Venice with a gondola ride thanks to Lorenzo.

No sooner did we sit down on a thinly cushioned loveseat bench than I began to wonder if we had been hoodwinked into an unseaworthy vessel for it tilted to the right, and greatly so. A heavy wake from a passing motorboat taxi would surely have us taking on water.

Not to worry. When Lorenzo took his position, standing above and behind us atop the left-hand side of the stern, the boat largely righted itself thanks to his wiry-framed weight. Not only is this imbalance by design in all gondolas, the keels purposely curve slightly to the right because rowing with a single 13-foot-long oar, always mounted on the starboard side, naturally pushes the boat leftward.

Rowing, by the way, is actually a short motion called “stirring”. Thanks to the forearms of a blacksmith, Lorenzo effortlessly stirred the gondola through the “streets” of Venice, as the canals are called. In truth, he only made it look easy.

“I’m 62 and getting too old,” he said at one point as the thermometer’s mercury approached 90 degrees. “It’s a young man’s game. It’s physically taxing and takes more effort that it looks like.”

Lorenzo with his 13-foot-long magic wand of a boat oar.

Lorenzo can still turn back the pages of the calendar. Not only did he turn the oar into a wizard’s wand, he sometimes assisted his steering by dancing on the wall like Fred Astaire in the most memorable scene in “Royal Wedding.” Specifically, Lorenzo would lift and place a foot on the side of a building rising from the water and push off. The gondola, despite measuring 36 feet in length, fishtailed gracefully to turn on a dime around blind corners.

“Gondolas are all handcrafted only in Venice and cost very much money,” said Lorenzo, whose black beauty originally belonged to his father. The floating family heirloom, in accord with the local custom of bestowing gondolas with two female names, was christened “Anna Silvia” after Lorenzo’s mother and sister.

“My dad died much too young at age only 52,” the boatman continued, noting sadly he thus inherited his father’s boat – and job – “at age only 18.”

With more than four decades experience, Lorenzo gave us a masterpiece tour. Here was Casanova’s Palace; there was the home believed to have been the residence of Marco Polo; here was Libreria Acqua Alta, the self-proclaimed “most beautiful bookstore in the world”; there, passing overhead, was the Bridge of Sighs, its name coming from the poet Lord Byron, who wrote: “I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; a palace and a prison on each hand.”

And here, inside the bow of “Anna Silvia”, was another quote, painted in black upon a carved olive wreath of gold, from a poem by Dante: “Lo Bel Pianeta Che Ad Amar Conforta.” Translation: “The beauteous planet, that to love incites.”

Certainly this beauteous city, and our smooth-as-a-magic-carpet ride with Lorenzo, incited anniversary love.

To be continued next week in Olympia, Greece…

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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.

Personalized Signed copies of WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and  “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

 

This Rom-Com Stands Test of Time

by Woody

Upon meeting a married couple, from newlyweds to having celebrated their diamond anniversary, I love to ask how they met. Blind date or meet cute or online dating match, they always light up in the retelling – as do I in the listening.

In the hopes that you feel likewise, let me share a synopsis of my in-progress screenplay with the working title, “When Woody Met Lisa.” Instead of starring Billy Crystal (dark hair, not the required shaggy ginger-blond) and Meg Ryan (blond, not brunette), the leading characters will be played by Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams.

The movie opens on the campus of UC Santa Barbara, in a dining hall, at dinnertime. There are three hot-food lines and Woody intentionally chooses the longest one. When he finally reaches the front we see why: the server, even with her cascading locks tucked up in a hair net, is the prettiest girl he has ever seen.

Our first date, the very next evening after meeting at a party…

“Lasagna and tater tots, please,” the freshman says, choking on any attempt to flirt because the sophomore beauty is far out of his league. A quick montage follows, showing him in her line all year with similar failed results.

Fast-forward two years to a Christmas party at the off -campus apartment of two of Woody’s wild-and-crazy former freshman dorm mates. Across the crowded room, Woody sees a girl who makes his heart pick up a faster drumbeat. She is wearing a light-blue sweater, and no hair net, but no sooner does he try to strike up a conversation than the keg runs dry and the party breaks up and everyone decides to go to another friend’s bash.

Everyone, that is, except Lisa, who has promised a different friend she would drop by her party. Alas, their romance seems derailed before it has even begun.

“I’ll walk you there,” Woody quickly, and wisely, blurts out and the Nora Ephron-like fun begins. At one point, Woody gets Lisa a beer while she goes to the restroom – and when she returns he has slyly maneuvered himself underneath a hanging sprig of mistletoe. Lisa accepts the red Solo Cup and then unexplainably pulls Woody across the room, thwarting his ploy before he can act on it.

…and still feel like were dating all these years later!

All is not lost, however, as Woody and Lisa do kiss later that evening – with no assist from mistletoe – and then go on a dinner date the following evening and promptly fall in love.

As in all good rom-coms, just when things are going perfectly a break-up strikes like a lightning bolt. Both start dating others and at this low point, with Woody crushed by the flu, Lisa brings him an Easter basket filled with a chocolate bunny and candy, his favorite fresh bagels and cream cheese, and an array of cold and cough medicines. Woody’s fever instantly soars even higher with lovesickness and to this day he counts his lucky stars he got sick.

Also to this day, by the way, Lisa insists she never saw the mistletoe the night of their meet cute.

In two days – on September 4th – the two lovebirds will celebrate their ruby wedding anniversary of 40 years. Woody already knows the toast he will give her at dinner, quoting a line in a novel by one of his favorite authors, Brian Doyle, where the narrator, recalling his first kiss with his future wife many, many years earlier, says: “How can you not stay in love with the girl who was with you the very moment you were introduced to true happiness.”

Our movie ends, naturally, with a kiss beneath a sprig of mistletoe.

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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.

Personalized Signed copies of WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and  “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

 

 

A Walk Long Remembered

by Woody

A very personal anniversary arrives next week, not of my wedding, but rather a milestone marking 35 years to the morning when I walked with John Wooden for the first time.

March 31, 1987 – Tuesday then, this year Thursday – was a day so special I marked it in my datebook of birthdays and anniversaries to remember. It proved to be an occasion that changed my life for Coach became my friend and mentor, and later a great-grandfather figure to my two children. I pinch myself still for such grand luck.

Coach and me during one of many magical visits.

In the long span since, I have written more columns on Wooden than on anyone else, as well as a book; when I give guest talks he is the person most often asked about, even now 12 years after his death at age 99; so here is a stroll down memory lane.

After interviewing Coach following a lecture he gave, he invited me to join him on his daily four-mile walk. Aware of his maxim, “Be on time whenever time is involved,” I left Santa Maria when the stars were still out and arrived in Encino with nearly an hour to spare.

At the appointed time, seven o’clock sharp, I nervously pressed the buzzer outside the condominium’s entrance. Coach, true to his code, was ready and waiting and immediately came out. After warm pleasantries on a cool and dewy Southern California spring morning, we set forth around Mister Wooden’s Neighborhood.

For the first mile or two, I peppered Coach with basketball questions but he then turned the tables and asked about my life. He was delighted to learn I was going to become a father in August and asked when was the due date.

“The eighth,” I replied and Coach stopped cold, his eyes visibly misting up. That was his and Nell’s wedding anniversary, he shared. High school sweethearts, they had been married 53 years before her death to cancer two years before our walk.

On that magical morning, I was 26 and Coach was 76 – the exact age at which my paternal grandfather died two decades earlier. Indeed, sitting in Coach’s living room after breakfast I felt like I was not with a living legend so much as visiting with what I fondly remembered my beloved grandfather to be like.

Like Wooden, my Grandpa Ansel was raised on a Midwestern farm – in Ohio rather than Indiana. Like Wooden, Grandpa enjoyed Shakespeare greatly and also similarly favored “Hamlet.” Like Wooden, Grandpa loved poetry and wrote verse. And like Wooden, Grandpa had once been a schoolteacher, albeit for only a few years in order to earn tuition for medical school.

Moreover, Grandpa’s familiar reminder to me, “If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right,” surely echoed Coach’s oft-repeated aphorism, “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” Similarly, Grandpa’s “If you don’t learn anything today it will be a wasted day” dovetailed perfectly with Coach’s “Learn as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die tomorrow.”

John Muir, reflecting on meeting – and walking with – Ralph Waldo Emerson in the Yosemite Valley, wrote: “Emerson was the most serene, majestic, sequoia-like soul I ever met. His smile was as sweet and calm as morning light on mountains. There was a wonderful charm in his presence; his smile, serene eye, his voice, his manner, were all sensed at once by everybody. A tremendous sincerity was his.”

Such is how I felt about John Wooden during our first walk and visit – and feel so still.

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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.

Personalized Signed copies of WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and  “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

 

9/11: Yesterday, a Lifetime Ago

by Woody

Where were you when you learned the world stopped spinning twenty years ago today? If you are older than 25, I’m certain you remember as clearly as if September 11, 2001 happened yesterday.

For my wife and me, it was a typical weekday morning rush helping our daughter and son get ready for school and ourselves off to work. In the midst of our familiar routine the phone rang. My brother-in-law was at the other end: “Turn on the TV.”

“What channel?” my wife asked.

“Any channel,” he said gravely.

The surreal images were beyond imagination: One of New York City’s iconic Twin Towers was billowing black smoke after being hit by a jetliner; then a second plane, seemingly flying in slow motion, slammed into the bookend skyscraper; thereafter the North and South Towers both collapsed, also as if in slow motion.

In all, four hijacked passenger jets were turned into terrorist missiles with the other two crashing into the Pentagon, and – as a result of heroic passengers putting up a fight with their lives – a field in Pennsylvania en route to its target in Washington D.C.

Today, we pay remembrance to the nearly 3,000 lives lost in the horrific attacks. The truth, of course, is that the loved ones and friends and co-workers of those victims have remembered them every single day for the past two decades.

Nine months after the infamous event, I was in New York City covering the NBA Finals of which I remember nothing specific. But I cannot forget my visit to Ground Zero, which by then was a deep, steep-walled, square hole that looked like a giant grave being dug.

I have toured Gettysburg’s battlefields and cemeteries; visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall with more than 58,000 names etched into the black mirror-like marble; and seen the USS Arizona Memorial that marks the resting place of 1,102 sailors. The sight of a canyon-sized hole at Ground Zero squeezed my heart ever as tightly.

The devastation that had been cleared away was numbing: 200,000 tons of twisted steel wreckage, 600,000 square feet of shattered glass, 425 cubic yards of concrete, and even 40,000 doorknobs that had all come crashing down from 110 stories high, entombing more than 2,600 innocent victims.

Left behind were shattered hopes, wrecked lives and broken hearts – and also, at a nearby makeshift memorial site, countless notes and cards. One hand-written message I saw read: “You will always be remembered as heroes” in honor of the 344 FDNY firefighters and 71 police officers who lost their lives after courageously rushing into the burning buildings trying to save the lives of others.

Another note, this one from a young schoolchild who wrote in her best printing: “Dear Firemen, THANK YOU for everything you did for our country. Love, Jodi.”

Similarly there was a picture of seven firemen in uniform, young and handsome and in the prime of their lives, with these words: “Thank You, Seven In Heaven, Ladder 101 FDNY.”

And this: “To Daddy, We love you, miss you and you’ll always be in out hearts. Love, Gyasi and Craig.” My heart aches for them growing up without their Daddy and all the milestones – graduations, weddings, perhaps the birth of his grandchildren – he missed.

At Ground Zero that day, I also met a woman whose husband died in one of the Towers. Cradling an infant baby, she tearfully shared this: “Her father never met her.”

That baby girl is now 19 going on 20, and to her 9-11-2001 does not seem like yesterday. It was her lifetime ago.

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Woody Woodburn 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.

Personalized Signed copies of WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and  “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” are available at WoodyWoodburn.com