Tag Archives: Batman

Thoughts on This and That

by Woody

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

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This and That on a Lovely Morning

A smorgasbord served up in 700 words . . .

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Jennifer Niven, author of the award-winning Young Adult novel “All The Bright Places,” believes “lovely” is a much-underused word.

I agree with my lovely friend.

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In exchange for sharing some stories about John Wooden, which is always my great pleasure, I was recently treated to lunch by the Ventura MC Chapter of the P.E.O. Sisterhood, a service group that helps young women further their educations.

What made the afternoon especially lovely was the sisterhood itself, including three of my charming and vibrant tablemates who are ages 90, 92 and 93 – and make being a nonagenarian look like the new octogenarian.

All three still have their drivers licenses – one proudly shared she got a 100-percent on her most recent test – and can drive, although only the 92-year-old actually still does.

The very kind Aryls Tuttle

The very kind Aryls Tuttle

Arlys Tuttle, matriarch of the community treasure Tuttle family, gave me as kind an introduction as I think I have ever received, the loveliest part being when she said she saves my column each Saturday morning as her “breakfast dessert.”

I hope seeing her name here this morning is a lovely dollop of whipped cream for Arlys.

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Speaking of Coach Wooden, his “7-Point Creed” is always worthy of sharing:

Be true to yourself.

Make each day your masterpiece.

Help others.

Drink deeply from good books.

Make friendship a fine art.

Build a shelter against a rainy day.

Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.

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I saw a post on Facebook that I think merits adding as an eighth point, echoing “Be true to yourself”:

“Always be yourself. Unless you can be Batman – then always be Batman!”

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Why do crunchy foods go stale and become soft while soft foods get stale and become crunchy?

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Oh, boy, did I get out-haggled at a local farmers market the other day buying a bouquet of gorgeous sunflowers for my lovely wife.

1sunflowersI gave the lady, who I get flowers from fairly often, a $20-bill and she gave me back $15. However, I really did not think five bucks was a very fair price . . .

. . . so I handed her a $5-bill back. She looked confused. I smiled and said, “Keep it.”

She shook her head no: “They only cost five dollars.”

“Yes, but they’re so beautiful I want you to keep it,” I explained.

“That’s too much,” she replied and pushed the $5-bill back at me.

“OK,” I finally relented, but requested five singles as change.

This she did and I handed four of them back to her.

She smiled, kept one, and gave three of them back to me.

I gave her two back and tried to leave, but she forced one more back. And then, for my meager $2 tip total, she gave me a $10 hug.

Thinking about it as I write this, even after those sunflowers have lost their bloom, still brings a smile to my face.

I vow to redouble my haggling efforts with her next time!

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This recently occurred to me: A good friend surprises you with a nice deed. A great and lovely friend does a nice deed that surprises you – until you think for a moment and realize you are not really surprised at all.

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Like John Wooden’s “7-Point Creed,” this masterpiece quote from Albert Einstein seems worthy of sharing any day:

“Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of others . . . for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.”

E=MC2 has been called elegant, but this wisdom is lovely.

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Halloween Suggestions

by Woody

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

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Trick-or-Treaters I’d Like to See

Spoiler alert for tonight. According to Google Freightgeist, the 10 most-popular Halloween costumes nationwide this year are: Harley Quinn, Star Wars, Superhero, Pirate, Batman, Minnie Mouse, Witch, Minions, Joker, and Wonder Woman.

Harley Quinn

Harley Quinn

I don’t know about you, but this list raised a couple questions for me, the first being: Who, or what, is Harley Quinn? A new motorcycle? After a Google search I learned that Harley Quinn, aka Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel, M.D., is a DC Comics character and adversary of Batman.

As for her why her costume ranks No. 1, well, I’m guessing adult women more than girls account for this as Quinn is basically The Joker version of The Sexy Nurse costume.

My second question: Isn’t it redundant for Google Freightgeist to list “Superhero” when Batman and Wonder Woman are also ranked? And where in he world is Superman?

Google Freightgeist also has an interesting map showing popularity by region and city. Ventura does not appear, but Santa Barbara’s Top 5 are: Sexy Pirate, Sexy Snow White, Sexy Lion, Sexy Gray Wolf, and Sexy Doll. (Note: I added the Sexy after Googling these costumes that are obviously marketed for women.)

Indeed, unlike when I was a kid, Halloween has become a national holiday for adults, too. If you can believe it, pets now also get in on the fun with Batman and Lion being the two most popular costumes this year on eBay.

When I was a kid, no one bought Halloween costumes for their pets or children. You made do. For example, my Batman costume consisted of thermal underwear as Bat-Tights and a bath towel pinned around my neck.

In that same spirit, instead of sterile costumes from a box, here are some outside-the-box Halloween outfits I’d like to see come knocking on my door tonight:

Real superhero firemen, paramedics and nurses dressed up as cartoon superheroes with capes.

Teachers, and most especially special-needs educators, same as above.

Superman, Batman and Iron Man dressed up as Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone, the three American tourists who helped thwart a terrorist gunman on a train bound for Paris earlier this summer.

Vin Scully wearing a headset as a guest in Fox TV’s broadcast booth for the 2015 World Series.

Angels manager Mike Scioscia dressed up again in a Dodgers uniform.

The 2015 New York Mets dressed up as the Amazin’ Mets of 1969.

The Cubs dressed as World Series Champions.

Malala Yousafzai dressed up as the future President of the United Nations.

Donald Trump dressed up as a mime and Dr. Ben Carson as an over-caffeinated high-energy TV pitchman.

Bernie Sanders as, of course, Larry David.

Every presidential candidate in both parties dressed up as someone taking a lie-detector test.

Martin Shkreli, CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals who put a 5,000 percent markup on a lifesaving drug, dressed as greedy Mr. Potter from “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Or as a thief in jail stripes.

Kobe Bryant dressed in his rookie Lakers uniform, complete with young, springy legs.

Tom Brady in a costume as a deflated football.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell dressed up as a concussion patient.

1tricktreatA family out for dinner in a restaurant dressed as Amish Mennonites instead of everyone having his or her attention focused on a smartphone screen.

No one in costume as Caitlyn Jenner.

Mrs. Figs’ Bookworm owner Connie Halpern dressed as Oprah because she’s equally effervescent and a book reader’s best friend.

Roger Thompson, Venturan author of “My Best Friend’s Funeral,” dressed up as a New York Times best-selling writer.

Drew Daywalt, local author of two children’s books currently atop the NYT Best Sellers List with “The Day The Crayons Came Home” at No. 1 and “The Day The Crayons Quit” at No. 3, dressed up as, of course, a crayon.

The USDA Food Pyramid dressed up as a Fourth of July red-white-and-blue paper plate stacked with hotdogs, bacon and cold cuts.

KVTA radio early-morning host Tom Spence dressed as The Tonight Show’s late-night host Jimmy Fallon because Spence is funnier.

Every drunk driver dressed up as a taxi, Uber or Lyft passenger.

Lastly, my wife as Harley Quinn.

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

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”

Column: Back to School with Batman

by Woody

Back to School with Batman

 

            Social media was all a-Twitter with outrage earlier this week when it was announced Ben Affleck has been cast as Batman in the upcoming sequel to “Man of Steel.”

 

            As someone who routinely wore Bat Gloves complemented by a bath towel safety-pinned around my neck to kindergarten, I am more steamed that Batman is guest starring in a Superman movie rather than the other way around.BatmanLunchbox

 

            But here is what really got my Bat Tights in a twisted bunch – the fact that my mom long ago tossed out the “Batman and Robin” lunchbox I used in first grade. On eBay these lunchboxes produced in 1966, the year the Batman TV series debuted, are now collectibles selling for more than $200 – higher if the Thermos is still intact. The fact that any of the Thermoses have survived nearly five decades boggles my mind because I am fairly certain I dropped mine and shattered its glass liner within five days.

 

            The lunchbox itself was far more durable. This was a good thing because while Batman had to contend with the Joker, Riddler and Penguin, my super villain was Adam – a lunch-stealing black lab about the size of a grizzly bear who lived along my walking route to school.

 

I should point out that my mom packed my lunch pretty much every school day of my elementary life. That is roughly 1,100 lunches. All of them, I believe, were Oscar Meyer bologna on white Wonder Bread along with either two Hostess Ho-Ho’s or one larger Ding-Dong.

 

My great friend Dan Means’ mom, meanwhile, always packed him a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich and Fritos. One memorable day in first grade, Dan had trouble opening the mini-bag of corn chips. His frustration growing, Dan gripped the opposite sides of the bag extra tightly and gave a mighty tug and . . .

 

. . . RIPPP! Whoosh! The entire sealed seam at the top gave way, sending Fritos flying everywhere, high and far, like confetti shot from a cannon. A few Fritos even got caught in the long florescent light fixtures high overhead that looked like ice-cube trays turned upside-down.

 

In my entire life I have yet to meet someone with a better laugh than Dan’s – it was half-cackle and half-emergency-asthma attack – and he never used it more enthusiastically than at that very moment.

 

Adam, however, was no laughing matter. I cannot tell you how many times I was lunch-jacked by him on my walk to school, though an estimate of two dozen might be on the shy side.

 

The first couple times Adam confronted me, I tried freezing in my tracks and commanding him to stop. This was as pointless as asking a mugger to put his gun away and leave nicely. The best thing to do was drop your lunch and run before Adam knocked you over while taking it. Trying to outrun Adam from the get-go was futile.

 

            You might think my bologna sandwich and Ho-Ho’s were safe inside my metal Batman lunchbox. You would be wrong. Somehow he managed to unlatch it. I reckon Adam could have cracked open a bank safe if there were Ho-Ho’s inside.

 

            Even kids who did not have to walk or ride their bikes past Adam’s house on the way to school were not safe from his lunch-jackings. Like a hungry dragon, if Adam was not sufficiently fed he came looking for villagers.

 

Adam routinely got loose and roamed a mile to school before the morning bell. At the sight of him the playground would erupt in frenzied terror with screaming kids scattering and fleeing this way and that like frightened beachgoers in the movie “Jaws.”

 

            After each incident, teachers would tally up the casualties and the principal would phone the mom of the family who owned Adam. Mrs. Young would then make, pack and bring the required number of replacement lunches.

 

            To be honest, except for the trauma of it, having your lunch stolen by Adam actually was not so bad – it was sort of a badge of honor. Plus, Mrs. Young packed homemade chocolate-chip cookies.

 

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME comes out in September and is available for pre-order at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.