Tag Archives: bench

Pier Bench Is My New Favorite

by Woody

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

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

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Do you have a favorite bench?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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

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Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.

Epilogue: New Free Book Bench

by Woody

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

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

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

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

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

And I knew the perfect bench.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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

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Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.

“Free! Very Good! Read Me!”

by Woody

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

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Good books can help you run away from wherever you are, but the reverse happened to me a short while ago: running brought me to good books.

Here is how it happened…

While spending a few days visiting my son’s family in Redondo Beach, I went for my daily run on a local woodchip path that is popular for good reason as it so near the ocean as to carry salty perfume in the air and furthermore is amply lined on either side by trees whose canopies form a tunnel of shade.

The pathway stretches for some four miles in a park-like median between two heavily trafficked roads. The cross streets are few and far between and not very busy, sans just a couple with stoplights, making the soft trail idyllic for clearing the mind and getting lost in one’s thoughts without worrying about four-wheeled vehicles.

Along the footpath are numerous wooden benches, all on the eastern side and facing toward sunset, most with memorial plaques on the backrests. On this recent morning, azure-skied and summertime-warm by 10 o’clock, one of the benches caught my attention. Specifically, I noticed a book resting on the slatted seat, all alone, its owner apparently having stepped away for a moment or, perhaps, accidentally forgot it behind entirely.

Curious of its title, but not so much so as to stop and look, I continued on my way without pause, enjoying the ease and rhythm of my stride, enjoying the sunshine, enjoying the shared company of numerous flitting monarch butterflies here and there as well as more than a few other runners plus many, many walkers. The latter were generally side-by-side in pairs, friends with slight spacing between them as they talked; couples closer together holding hands; moms pushing strollers; folks with dogs on leash; and, most memorably, an elderly woman alongside a younger man – her son perhaps, or a healthcare aide – lovingly helping her take a slow stroll using a wheeled walker that did not roll well at all on the woodchips.

After reaching the path’s distant endpoint, I turned around and headed back whence I began and when I came to the bench again the abandoned paperback was still there. Curiosity now got the better of me and I stopped, stepped close enough to see its title – Mitch Albom’s “Tuesdays With Morrie,” a memorable book I read years ago – then quickly resumed my run.

Next day, same path, same bench, but a different orphaned book: “Angela’s Ashes” by Frank McCourt. Newspapers discarded in public are common, even today as newsprint editions become more rare, but an abandoned book brings to mind a lost puppy in need of rescuing. Looking around and seeing no likely owner, only fellow runners and walkers and dogs, I picked up the hardback edition and on the back cover found a blue Post-It Note: “Free! Good Book. Enjoy Me!”

Having already read this Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, I left it for someone else to find and enjoy for it is indeed a good book. The curator of this Little Free Library Bench was two-for-two in my eyes.

Third day in a row on these knee-friendly woodchips, my last run of this visit, I was greeted by an abandoned hardcover I initially thought was Ernest Hemingway’s quintessential “Old Man and the Sea” but in a beat realized it was actually “The Old Man by the Sea” by Domenico Starnone. Another blue sticky note read: “Free! Very Good! Read Me!”

Intrigued, I jogged off with it in hand.

Epilogue: It lived up to its Post-It Note review.

* * *

Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

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

*

Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.

Pier Bench Is My New Favorite

by Woody

Do you have a favorite bench?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 *   *   *

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