Tag Archives: Coronavirus

A Few Of My COVID-19 Butterflies

by Woody

I am guessing that at one time or another, perhaps in a grade-school class or maybe on your own on the windowsill of your childhood kitchen, you placed a caterpillar inside a big jar along with a twig for it to climb on and some leaves or milkweed to eat, and then waited for the magic to happen.

One day, unless you forgot to poke air holes in the jar lid, the caterpillar spun a silky cocoon. Then, inside this protective casing, it wondrously transformed into a chrysalis before emerging as a beautiful butterfly.

It seems to me we have all been like caterpillars this past year, forced inside our stay-and-shelter cocoons. Now, thanks to the scientific magic of vaccines, it is becoming time to safely emerge.

The question is, do we have new wings or are we unchanged caterpillars?

Early on during the coronavirus pandemic, I shared a quote from my hero, John Wooden – “Things turn out best for those who make the best of the way things out” – and suggested this piece of wisdom seemed especially pertinent during these trying days and nights.

Fully a year later, I am curious if – and if so, how? – you have made things turn out for the best? Perhaps you became an expert baker or learned a new language or took up painting? Here are a few of my COVID-19 butterflies…

Visiting with loved ones and friends, while wearing facemasks and keeping a safe social distance, has made me appreciate hugs like never before.

Having a long-planned and greatly anticipated anniversary vacation to Italy cancelled gave me a greater appreciation for travelling than the trip itself could have. When we finally leave home for Rome, I believe my wife and I will savor it tenfold.

Although not quite a phobia, I truly do not like going to the grocery store and so discovering home delivery apps has been a godsend and something I will continue to use.

Despite taking no vacations during the pandemic, I did “travel” to The Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Conn., via an online virtual guided tour. Similarly, I re-“visited” The Edgar Allen Poe House and Museum in Baltimore and The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West for special presentations by expert storytellers. These “trips” required no air flights or hotels and were either free or nearly so and I plan to continue searching them out moving forward.

Similarly, I “attended” more than two dozen book talks given around the globe by award-winning authors – including George Saunders, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Anne Lamott and Nikole Hannah Jones – and even asked questions during the Q & A, while sitting on my couch!

I learned that my wife can put up with me 24/7 even after 38 years of marriage.

We have gotten into the habit of visiting with our daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter, and our son and his fiancé, almost daily via Zoom chats.

With Date Nights with my much-better half and Happy Hours with friends and most other social gatherings basically cancelled, it has been like having more hours in the day and even extra days in a month. Thus, things turned out for the best for me with more books read than my usual 52 annual goal – and also in writing a novel manuscript.

Returning to Coach Wooden, as I often do, I believe as the tragic tally of COVID-19 deaths has grown from heartbreaking to mind-numbing and beyond, the pandemic has made my favorite butterfly-beautiful Wooden-ism resonate more powerfully than ever: “Make each day your masterpiece.”

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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

Imagining a COVID Victory Day

by Woody

It remains one of the most iconic American photographs of the 20th century, of World War II specifically, a single image telling a thousand joyous words.

The black-and-white picture, taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt and published in Life magazine, was snapped in New York City’s Times Square on August 14, 1945 – “V-J Day” – after the news came of Japan’s surrender that effectively ended the war.

Close your eyes and, especially if you are old enough to be on the current COVID-19 vaccination age eligibility list, I bet you can see it in your mind’s eye right now:

In the middle of the crowded street that looks like a New Year’s Eve celebration albeit in daylight, a sailor in a dark uniform and white cap kisses a woman wearing a white dress, white stockings and mid-heeled white pumps. It is not just a peck kiss, but a swooning smooch that seemed choreographed by Hollywood.

The sailor leans the nurse slightly backward, pulling her close with his right hand on her arched back while his left arm cradles her shoulders and neck, and plants the kiss. As if in a romantic movie, she lifts one foot with bended knee behind her. In the background another sailor and a group of older women look on with amused smiles.

This famous photograph has been on my mind ever since the vaccinations for COVID-19 started ramping up. While coronavirus has certainly not surrendered, or been defeated, the end of this pandemic war is at least finally imaginable.

Yes, “V-S Day” (Victory over Stay-and-shelter Day) and “V-Q Day” (Victory over self-Quarantining Day) and “V-PJ Day” (Victory over wearing Pajamas every day Day) are imaginable.

In fact, it seems to me that each day now becomes a Victory Day worth celebrating for those who get their two vaccines – or one shot with the Johnson & Johnson.

Instead of kissing a stranger on the street, different iconic moments are happening as day by day more and more of us are celebrating our own Vaccine Day victory…

Grandparents are hugging their grandchildren for the first time in many months, if not for the first time in a full year.

These same grandparents are as well often hugging their own children for the first time in ages.

Senior citizens are happily embracing friends and fellow residents in assisted living facilities.

Uncles are hugging nephews and nieces, and nephews and nieces are hugging aunts, and aunts and uncles are hugging each other as well.

Some school children are even safely hugging their vaccinated teachers and, I imagine, teachers and principals and custodians and coaches are all embracing each other as well.

On and on, day by day, a parade of people are having 1945 Time Square moments in 2021.

Coincidentally, or thanks to what one of my dear friends calls “a god wink,” a random playlist on my computer recently played a Billie Holiday song from 1944 wartime titled, “I’ll Be Seeing You.” The lyrics, like the kissing photo, make me think of the happy days COVID-19 vaccines are making possible.

The song goes, “I’ll be seeing you … in all the old familiar places that this heart of mine embraces … in that small café … the children’s carousel” and so on. Of course, seeing in one’s imagination, as Holiday sings about, can’t compare to seeing each other in person without social distancing.

So if you have been vaccinated, or when you finally are, I urge you to have a little fun and recreate your own Times Square-like celebratory kiss – or, if more appropriate, a hug.

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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

Jewell-Like Senior Visits Are Missed

by Woody

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Jewell-Like Senior

Visits Are Missed

It has been nearly a year since coronavirus knocked the world tush over teakettle. Perhaps no group has been more upended than senior citizens who not only are among the most vulnerable to the heinous disease, but can feel lonely and quarantined even in the best of times.

Indeed, not being able to visit my 94-year-old father in the Ventura Townehouse for much of the past 11 months due to COVID-19 lockdowns has made my empathy surge for those elderly folks who have no one to visit them even outside with safe social distancing.

This, in turn, has me thinking about a former Townehouse resident named Jewell. Thanks to Ventura County’s Caregivers Assisting The Elderly, a sparkling jewel of an organization, and its student volunteer program, Jewell did have visitors.

Jewell with her favorite scarf.

“After school and on weekends, groups of teenagers supervised by Caregiver adults visit the homes of senior citizens and help them with gardening, cleaning and other household chores,” recalls my daughter, Dallas, who joined the program as a high school sophomore. “But the most requested service is simply providing a few minutes of company.”

Caregivers as friendship givers.

“Jewell was a natural storyteller who delighted in the smallest details,” Dallas shares. “I learned that as a young woman, she and her mother moved to California from Missouri. Jewell had lived in Ventura for more than half a century and I loved hearing what my hometown was once like.”

Long before Caregivers assisted Jewell, she was the caregiver for her mother through a long terminal illness.

“Even when sharing a sad story,” Dallas marvels, “Jewell would end it with a smile and say, ‘I sure am lucky. I’ve had such a blessed life.’ She was an inspiration.”

When Dallas moved off to college, her younger brother filled her absence visiting Jewell. Too, Dallas stayed in touch with letters and visited during holidays and summers.

“She never married and had no children, but I like to think Greg and I became her surrogate grandchildren,” Dallas says, adding happily: “Other Townehouse residents often assumed we were her grandkids and she always smiled and never corrected them.”

Dallas laughingly remembers their lunch outings together and how her frail companion sprinkled Splenda on most everything, including syrupy pancakes. But an even sweeter memory was the time Jewell asked Dallas and Greg to drive her to the drugstore because she dearly wanted a disposable camera.

“We had to go right away in the middle of a visit,” Dallas retells. “When we finally returned to her room, the urgency of her request became clear – she wanted to take a picture of the three of us to put on her refrigerator.”

“I miss you when you’re away,” Jewell told them.

“We miss you, too,” they replied.

When the photos were developed, Jewell mailed them copies and included a snapshot of her wearing a sky-blue scarf Dallas knitted as a gift the previous Christmas.

“I love that photo,” Dallas says. “I have it in a frame in my living room. Jewell’s smile was contagious – still is.”

Ten years ago last week, a brief illness claimed Jewell’s life at age 86.

“I was living in Indiana and as always sent my dear friend a card for Valentine’s Day,” Dallas shares. “Jewell died on February 12, but I like to think she received my card before she passed.”

As the final line of “The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway says, “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

It’s also pretty to think of all our seniors getting COVID-19 vaccinations and again enjoying in-person visits that are precious as jewels.

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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

2020 Newsletter: What A Year!

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Holiday Newsletter:

2020 Was Unbelievable!

Dear readers and friends,

Welcome to my annual Holiday Newsletter. What an unbelievably amazing year 2020 has been for our family! I’m sure it has been likewise for you and yours.

To begin, my wife and I did not take a long-awaited trip to her homeland of Italy. We did not enjoy a romantic gondola ride through the canals of Venice. We were not left breathless by Michelangelo’s masterpiece ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. And we did not taste amazing wines in the hills of Tuscany.

I wish you could have seen the stunning red-lava views when we did not take a white-knuckle helicopter ride over the volcanoes on Hawaii’s Big Island.

In April, my son, a former college distance runner, did not return to the Boston Marathon and win it this time.

My son’s fiancé, meanwhile, did not become a Le Cordon Bleu chef and start her own catering company – her oxtail joloff for Thanksgiving was amazing, by the way – as a fun little side hustle.

In May, the party celebrating my 60th trip around the sun did not have a hundred friends and family members traveling from microbrewery to microbrewery throughout Ventura County tasting special limited edition beers created in my honor.

Also in May, I did not travel to Columbia University to accept the Pulitzer Prize.

Speaking of Pulitzer Prize winners, not seeing “Hamilton” on Broadway in front-row seats was everything you can imagine.

Our precocious granddaughter, Maya, did not receive an early acceptance to Yale; or to Harvard; or even to pre-school.

Our son-in-law, aka Mr. Environment, who cycles to his Green Job every day, did not win the Tour de France. It was almost as exciting as the time he did not make all 14 traffic lights without getting a single red on his ride home from the office.

“What is, Win seven episodes and $219,000?” That’s right, my wife did not appear on “Jeopardy!”

In a discovery almost as amazing as James Marshall discovering gold at Sutter’s Mill, while visiting an estate sale looking for a typewriter I did not find – and buy for just $2 – a 1909 T206 Honus Wagner baseball card worth $3 million.

Speaking of big money, Paramount Pictures did not buy the option for an undisclosed amount (between you and me, it was a lot!) for my new novel “The Mystic Table: A Journey of Seven Generations” which was not published by HarperCollins in 2020.

Not traveling to Wimbledon to watch the Bryan Brothers not play on Centre Court for the final time in their storied doubles career is a memory my entire family will never forget.

All of us, including 2-year-old Maya in child-carrier backpack, did not climb to the peak of Mount Rainer, or Mount Whitney, or Two Trees.

Not to brag, but unlike the rest of my family – and every teacher in America – I did not master using Zoom.

My wife and I will forever remember the time we did not renew our wedding vows to celebrate our golden anniversary (it was actually only our 38th, but stay-and-sheltering during the coronavirus pandemic has made this year seem like 12) under the Eiffel Tower on a warm evening with the moon rising and the gentlest of spring rains falling. It truly was not magical.

Lastly, my daughter did not travel to The Swedish Academy in Stockholm to accept the Nobel Prize in Literature for her debut YA novel “The Best Week That Never Happened.”

Yes, indeed, 2020 was The Best Year That Never Happened!

Happy 2021 to you and yours,

The Woodys

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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 books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

80th Birthday is a Superspreader

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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80th Birthday is

a Superspreader

Sharon Martin recently turned 80 and her milestone birthday celebration turned into a superspreader. There wasn’t an outbreak of coronavirus, however – it was kindness that proved widely contagious.

“At my age I have enough stuff,” the longtime Simi Valley resident says, and thus asked family members and friends to each do a “Random Act Of Kindness” in her honor in lieu of a gift-wrapped present.

“I could hardly wait until the big day to open my birthday cards and see what RAOK people had done,” Sharon further shares. “I was like a 5-year-old waiting for Christmas Day.”

Her virtual Christmas tree had more than 50 “gifts” beneath it, including monetary donations to food banks, rescue missions and other charities while food and blankets were given to an animal shelter.

The RAOKs benefited the young and old alike. One woman donated an American Girl Doll to a foster child while several friends “adopted” senior citizens to visit by phone and drop off meals to during the pandemic.

One woman rallied her coworkers and put together 75 back-to-school backpacks filled with supplies for an inner-city elementary school. Similarly, two friends made donations to For The Troops to send “We Care” packages.

“My great-niece joined with others to help clean up the beach,” Sharon said and similarly noted that a 90-year-old nun has started picking up trash on her daily walks as a birthday gift.

“Some were small things,” Sharon continued. “My brother was at a health clinic and when he was leaving he found a pen on the floor. The pen had a special inscription about a nurse and he knew it was important to someone. He spent quite a bit of time interviewing all the nurses and finally found the right one. She was so appreciative as it had been given to her on the day she graduated from nursing school.”

One friend baked homemade bread and delivered it to a neighbor recovering from surgery, along with a good book to read, and another woman made gallons of apple butter to help raise money for families in need.

Another woman tallied up how much money she had NOT spent getting her hair done during the pandemic and sent an equivalent check to a family that is struggling.

“Residents at the Simi Valley Care Center will soon have a pretty gazebo to sit under,” Sharon happily reported, “thanks to a donation to the Eagle Scout project by Josh Hoover.”

One friend saw a man at Costco unsuccessfully trying to squeeze a large piece of furniture into a car that was too small. He brought his pickup truck around and then followed the man home with the special delivery.

Sharon proudly noted that Bill, her husband of 59 years, “is always doing random acts of kindness” and for her birthday celebration this included helping a friend take 5,000 pounds of donations to a Catholic food share.

Naturally, the couple’s three sons honored their mom with RAOKs: Chris went out of his way to make sure a food delivery got to the right person; Greg found a baby quail with a damaged wing and rushed it to a rescue hospital for successful care; and Tim cleaned out the rain gutters for the widow of a victim in the 2017 massacre in Las Vegas.

Turning 80 is a big deal, but how can it compete with the childhood excitement and cake-and-sugar rush of a fifth birthday or eighth or tenth? By giving, that’s how.

As Sharon concluded: “I can truthfully say that this was my very best birthday.”

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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 books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

Pandemic Can’t Derail Paris Trip

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Pandemic Fails To

Derail Paris Trip

Gloria, my dear friend affectionately called “Mama G” by loved ones, dreamed of celebrating her 70th birthday in Paris with her daughters. Plane tickets had been bought, hotel rooms reserved.

The coronavirus pandemic had other ideas.

Mama G’s four fabulous daughters had other ideas as well and made the Parisian celebration a reality – with an asterisk.

The asterisk: if they could not take their mom to Paris, they would bring Paris to her.

And so it was on her milestone birthday last weekend that Mama G, wearing a dazzling evening gown and stylish hat, enjoyed dinner al fresco at a bistro with lace tablecloths and candlelight, fine wine and gourmet food, and a view of the Eiffel Tower.*

Parisian “bistro” with a view of the Eiffel Towel in Southern California.

Asterisk: a poster of the iconic landmark and an elegantly decorated table were set up on Mama G’s backyard patio. Stephanie, Beverly, Jennifer and Jessica – the Fab Four – filled the seats along with one spouse and two fiancés, all safely quarantined beforehand.

Before dinner, Mama G spent the day sightseeing. Indeed, there are pictures of her in front of the Eiffel Tower and Cathédrale Notre-Dame; at the Arc de Triomphe and the Palace of Versailles; visiting the Louvre and more.*

Asterisk: the pictures were Photoshopped surprises.

The photographs taken at dinner, however, needed no Photoshopping to add in smiles as wide as the River Seine. Still, a faux Parisian party could not fully measure up to the real thing.

Again, the Fab Four had other ideas. The actual trip to The City of Light would have been a small private affair, but for the amended celebration they invited friends and loved ones from across the country, and beyond, to come along.*

Asterisk: thanks to Zoom, more than 60 people attended the birthday party in “Paris.” Scrolling through numerous computer screens was required to see every attendee.

In an actual bistro, it would have been too crowded to clearly hear the toasts given. But on Zoom, everyone in attendance simply took turns sharing their love to Mama G. It was wonderful. No, better than that: Gloria-ous.

The toasts and memories and stories came from people who have known Mama G for more than 50 years, those who entered her life five years ago, and even more recently.

One of the wonderful sentiments came from Deb, who tearfully offered in part: “Happy birthday to Mama G! To my second mother, I wish you another happy and healthy 70 years. You have raised four amazing, brilliant, beautiful women and took me in as your own. I am forever grateful to have you as me second mama.”

As you can imagine, like the champagne in the “bistro,” Mama G’s tears flowed freely. Dabbing her eyes near party’s end, she said: “It was fabulous walking down memory lane and celebrating in ‘Paris’ ”.

Speaking of tears, a second dear friend of mine also celebrated her 70th birthday in the past month’s span. Again, the pandemic led to a different kind of festivity than originally hoped for.

Instead of a large party, Barbara, affectionately known as “Mama Mac,” had a virtual gathering that featured 70 toasts – one for each candle on her cake – from 70 different family members and friends.*

Asterisk: this was not a Zoom party, but instead the toasts – intimate notes and short letters sharing why each person loves Mama Mac – were collected and published in a keepsake book. She cried. It was wonderful.

All the same, I hope 71 is the new 70 and Mama G can fly to Paris and Mama Mac has a big birthday bash in 2021.

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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 books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

Doubleheader of Baseball Tales

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Doubleheader of

Baseball Tales

Major League Baseball’s 2020 All-Star Game was to have been held at Dodger Stadium this past Tuesday, but coronavirus called it out on strikes. As consolation, here is a doubleheader of baseball stories.

The first is told by the great Vin Scully in the Introduction pages of “The Jim Murray Collection”:

“The Brooklyn Dodgers had lost a bitter one-run game to the New York Giants at Ebbets Field. As fate would have it, Jackie Robinson was involved in a very close play at second base for the final out, and he was steaming.

“Even though most, if not all, of his teammates felt he had been rightfully called out, Jackie was hollering at the top of his lungs about the unfair call, punctuating every steamy sentence by hurling furniture, equipment, and anything else he found handy into his locker.

“Now to really get the picture you have to understand the home-team clubhouse in Brooklyn. The pecking order and star status on the team placed big-name players’ lockers near the front door. Gil Hodges, Peewee Reese, Roy Campanella, Preacher Roe, Duke Snider, and Jackie were prominently displayed.

“After that, according to rank, a player was assigned a locker that befit his status on the team. In the farthest corner of the room, near the showers and the icebox that held the beer and soft drinks, was the locker of a somewhat obscure pitcher named Dan Bankhead. The fans didn’t know much about ’ol Dan, but his teammates did. Bankhead was not one to waste words and when he did have something to say, he had the immediate attention of all concerned.

“On this day as Robinson ranted and raved and hurled his bootless cries to the heavens, his was the only sound heard in the room. In the far corner Bankhead sprawled off the stool in front of his cubicle, naked but for a towel across his loins, hands folded at his stomach and reading glasses perched precariously at the end of his nose. Right in the middle of Robinson’s harangue Bankhead said softly, “Robinson…”

Jackie stopped in mid-sentence, adverbs and adjectives hanging in the air like wisps of smoke.

“Robinson,” said Bankhead, now that he had complete silence in the room. “Robinson … you are not only wrong … you is loud wrong.”

“Jackie stood and stared at ol’ Dan for a moment, and then his handsome features broke into a wide grin. The storm had passed, the point taken, and the wisdom received.”

I bring this tale up on account of different harangue going on these days that merits a Bankhead-like response: “Hey, you all who refuse to wear face masks during this coronavirus pandemic, you are not only wrong, you is loud wrong. Let’s all wear masks for each other and get through this storm.”

The second story comes from a friend who works a side job as a baseball umpire:

“I was driving too fast in the snow in Boulder, Colorado,” Dave related, “and a policeman pulled me over and gave me a speeding ticket. I tried to talk him out of it, telling him how worried I was about my insurance and that I was normally a very careful driver.

“He said I should go to court and try to get it reduced or thrown out.

“The first day of the next baseball season, I’m umpiring behind home plate and the first batter up is the same policeman. I recognize him, he recognizes me. He asks me how the thing went with the ticket?

“I tell him, ‘Swing at everything.’ ”

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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 books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

Acts of Kindness Are Real Gift

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Acts of Kindness

Are a Real Gift

I had big plans for a recent milestone birthday.

But like everyone else with grand occasions to celebrate in 2020, Coronavirus had other ideas. Thoughts of a local microbrewery filled to overflowing turned as flat as warm, day-old beer.

Life, however, is full of bubbly surprises. I casually asked friends and family, since we could not get together, to do random acts of kindness as a gift to me. Here are a few of the ribbons and bows…

Vicki brought in her neighbor’s trashcans in 90-degree heat and added: “It felt so good I did a few more houses down, too!”

Her deed provided a bonus smile because it made me think of my late friend, Sparky Anderson, who used to walk through his neighborhood and move trash barrels from the curb up the driveways. “It don’t cost you nothing at all to be nice,” he told me in explanation.

Susan checked in on the health and needs of some elderly friends.

Trudy hand wrote a card to an old high school friend “letting her know that my memories and moments with her were some of my best.”

Ronna addressed postcards to get out the vote for mail-in voting.

Ed went shopping and delivered the groceries to his senior neighbor.

Rebecca similarly went “shopping for friends during this pandemic.”

Michele was another Samaritan shopper, making a Costco run for three seniors and also picked lemons for a friend who is on unemployment and quarantined with four kids.

Tim, knowing how much I love books and libraries and kids, bought a bunch of children’s books for a Little Free Library.

Bill phoned two friends who are fighting cancer.

Carrie said, “I am too shy to share what I did, but it made my day to hear that it really helped!” Her secret surprise made my day, too.

Margaret put out a basket of snacks on the front porch for her postal carrier and UPS drivers.

Barbara did a similar kindness for her garbage man and shared at length: “I was on my porch when my refuse company truck pulled up and mechanically dumped the contents of one of my receptacles into the truck. The driver stopped for a moment longer and I saw him pour water into a towel and wrap it around his neck. It was very hot and I felt for him.

“While he finished up in my cul-de-sac, I went inside and got an ice-cold can of ginger ale from my fridge. When he returned the other direction in front of my house, I walked over and gestured for him to roll down his window.

“I asked if he would like a cold drink and told him how much I appreciated how hard he was working, especially in the heat and during this pandemic. I was shocked to see tears well up in his eyes as he took the can and thanked me.”

She later added a postscript: “Ever since that day, he honks as he passes if I am outside and we share a wave and two big smiles!”

Two more big smiles. First from Kathleen, who put Mother Teresa’s famous words – “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one” – into action by delivering a homemade dinner of chicken cacciatore with pasta to her neighbor in my honor.

Lastly, a dear childhood friend of mine and her husband turned Mother Teresa’s inspiring sentence backwards by feeding not one, but 750 people, with a donation to Food Share of Ventura County.

It was indeed a masterpiece birthday.

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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 books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

To Travel Hopefully Is On Hold

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Traveling Hopefully

Gets Put On Hold

“The journey,” the 16th Century great Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes said, “is better than the inn.”

Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson agreed, noting 300 years later: “To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.”

These sentiments resonate with added gravity of late as the coronavirus has put most of our journeys on hold for one tends not to travel hopefully when the inns are closed.

Early on during these stay-and-shelter times when I complained mildly of cabin fever, my much-better-half half-jokingly said: “How has your life even changed? You write at home all day before going for a run and you never go to the grocery story anyway.”

She had a point. My normal life leans towards being a writer’s retreat in the seaside paradise of Ventura. And yet she also missed the mark. Without the anticipation of various events, big and small, my retreat became the same Groundhog Day most everyone has been experiencing.

For example, suddenly I could not escape to a coffee shop to do some writing. Similarly, looking forward to pints at a local microbrewery with author friends – or non-author ones – as a dangling carrot to cure Writer’s Block disappeared.

“Friday Date Nights” similarly vanished as lighthouses guiding me, and countless married couples, through the rough waters of a workweek. And what of single people suddenly unable to travel hopefully toward a dating weekend?

Bigger events being erased from our calendars, like inns disappearing from the landscape, took away the anticipation of traveling hopefully for many of us. It is remarkable how much pleasure a long-planned trip – or concert, party, celebration – provides in the months and days leading up to departure.

I bet my list of cancellations and letdowns varies from yours only in specifics: high school and college graduations; a milestone birthday oversized gathering; an anniversary cruise for two to Italy and a family trip to Hawaii that logistics-wise was harder to solve than a Rubik’s cube; my daughter’s debut novel book signing at Barnes & Noble here in her hometown with a lifetime of friends and family and teachers able to celebrate in person; attending a series of lectures by famous writers and thinkers; a music concert; and finally seeing the play “Hamilton.”

On the heels of last weekend’s column about filling a mason jar with smooth beach stones, sea glass, sand and ocean water as a metaphor for how to live a full life, I am reminded of a bookend story.

Mr. Hawkins, my fifth-grade teacher, explained to our class how he had a large jar resting atop his dresser and every time something wonderful happened in his life he would drop a marble inside. His goal was to fill the jar, maybe even two or three, to overflowing by the end of his lifetime.

After getting married, I finally embraced my old teacher’s example, although substituting pennies for marbles.

A couple weeks ago, I added a twist to this with a new smaller jar. Instead of a penny or marble for something special I have just experienced, whenever I think of something I want to do – but cannot right now – I write it down on a slip of paper and drop it in.

Here are just a few items on my Coronavirus Delayed To-Do List: visit Italy; visit my quarantined dad; enjoy a crowded happy hour; have a belated crowded 60th birthday party; hug my friends; hug a helpful stranger; on and on, big things and small.

Later, when it is safe to do so, I will travel hopefully all the way to the bottom of the jar.

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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 books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …

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Sweet Thank You For Heroes

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Sweet Thank You

For Frontline Heroes

A cupcake is a small thing.

One thousand cupcakes is quite another.

Stephanie Nelson had the very big idea of honoring frontline heroes at Ventura County Medical Center with gourmet cupcakes. She selected National Nurses Day on May 6 for the confectionary celebration.

Because National Doctors Day passed two months earlier without any festivities due to the urgency of COVID-19 preparations, docs were also mixed into the new cupcake batter. In fact, because every worker in the medical profession is indispensible, it was decided that each and every member of the VCMC staff would be thanked with a fancy cupcake.

This was no small undertaking for Nelson, Director of Volunteer Services at the hospital, and her helpers. To deliver successfully required the harmony of an ICU team during a Code Blue situation. Call this a Code Red Velvet.

The baking angels were called upon at “Heavenly Cakes & More” in Oxnard to create a variety of gorgeous offerings in chocolate, vanilla, lemon and, of course, red velvet. The frosted artworks featured swirls, sprinkles and powdered dustings.

On the morning of Nurses Day, Nelson and two fellow cupcake crusaders – Mary McCarthy, a member of the VCMC Auxiliary; and Patient Advocate Marie Castaneda – picked up the baked bounty.

In a bakery’s version of Tetris, they puzzle-pieced 84 pink and white cardboard boxes, each holding a dozen delicacies, into their three cars and rushed them – “Stat!” – to VCMC.

“It took quite a while to load the cars and then unload them,” McCarthy shared in apparent understatement, for the boxes naturally had to be handled and stacked with care.

After the cupcakes were set out in various break rooms throughout the hospital, Nelson sent out word about the goodies to department managers. During brief reprieves from caring for patients, their work seemingly more nonstop than ever during this coronavirus era, staff members snuck away to savor a little taste of Heavenly.

Despite a sweet discount by Heavenly Cakes and a kind Samaritan stepping forward to pick up the tab for 100 of the cupcakes, dough was still needed to pay the balance. In stepped the Auxiliary with funds it raises from sales in the hospital gift shop.

The Auxiliary itself is a collection of hero volunteers. It routinely buys toys, books and games for young patients in the Pediatric and NICU wards and also stages holiday parties for the kids.

“It’s tough for them to be there, especially at holiday times,” McCarthy says of the hospitalized children. She further notes that because of COVID-19, the volunteers currently cannot visit the kids but instead must drop gifts off at the nursing stations.

As grand as the cupcake party was, here is something even more beautiful than a red velvet with a swirl of white frosting: for each of the 1,000 smiles delivered to VCMC there surely has been a similar deed of coronavirus-related kindness in Ventura County these past few stay-and-shelter months.

The cupcakes, however, seem a perfect metaphor for these times – and for a hospital. Unlike a giant-sized fancy cake where the cut slices touch one another, cupcakes are individually wrapped in paper liners – like tiny Personal Protective Equipment. Boxed together, or arranged on a table, they are the equal of any whole cake.

“I know it’s a small gesture,” McCarthy shares, “but I am so grateful to all those on the frontlines. The hospital is under enormous pressure. Hopefully the cupcakes provided a bit of cheer. Never underestimate cupcake power.”

Asked if all 1,000 cupcakes made it to the staff lips, Mary offered a confession: “I had a red velvet one – heaven!”

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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 books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …