Tag Archives: Disneyland

Angel’s Share and Titanic Tears

by Woody

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here) and orderable at all bookshops.

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Contrary to its worldwide catchphrase, Disneyland is not, according to one kilt-wearing tour guide in the Highlands of Scotland, The Happiest Place on Earth.

Leaving Loch Ness, which seems The Remotest Place on Earth almost, our tour group drove along a road so narrow that whenever we passed a vehicle coming the other direction our bus had to suck in its breath like a person trying to button a familiar pair of pants after gaining ten pounds.

The Highlands of Scotland en route to Loch Ness.

Along this breath-holding drive we passed breathtaking scenery and passed through a small town and in doing so passed by a wee little whisky distillery—no “e” in whisky’s spelling in Scotland as apparently “whiskey” also sucked in its breath.

Directly across from the distillery was a neighborhood of timeworn cottages all built of sandstone blocks, all with stone fences so ancient they leaned off balance as if having consumed too much whisky. Despite the visual suggestion of hardscrabble lives within, our guide told us the residents were The Happiest People on Earth.

“Every day they open their windows and get drunk on the air and sunshine,” Callum said. Noting the steady rain coming down, he added: “Or they open their windows and get drunk on the air and Scottish mist.”

After requesting we open the bus windows a crack, he explained that as whisky ages in oak casks about 10 percent evaporates annually and this is called “the angel’s share.”

Sweeping a hand towards the humble houses Callum went on: “So you see, they are The Happiest People on Earth because they are stealing their fair share from the angels.” He inhaled through his nose, deeply, as if cookies were baking—smiled—and added with a wink: “Now before we all get drunk, close the windows.”

Continuing his playful sommelier’s soliloquy, Callum said: “In Scotland whisky is distilled twice while Irish whiskey is distilled three times. Three times might sound better than twice, but this is not the case at all—the Irish do one extra because they can’t get it right in two tries.”

A mist of gentle laughter floated through the bus and days later similarly did so in the tasting room at Jameson Distillery in Dublin, Ireland, when its tour host buoyantly reversed the punch line: “The Scots are too lazy to do it the right way which is three times.”

Helen Churchill Candee’s flask.

There was no laughing inside the oppressively somber and, fittingly, impressively gigantic Titanic museum and shipyard in Belfast where the infamous ship was designed, built, and launched.

Among the heart-wrenching artifacts on display, and echoing the whisky-and-writers theme that emerged on this trip, was a silver flask belonging to Helen Churchill Candee. On fateful April 15, 1912, she was a 53-year-old American author and journalist.

While Candee would live to 90, her story, as related on a placard, caused an angel’s share of tears to well up in my eyes: “As ship was sinking, she was helped into Lifeboat No. 6 by her First Class companion, Edward Kent. She did not have pockets in her coat, so entrusted Kent with her hip flask—a cherished family heirloom. Tragically, Kent did not make it to safety and died in the icy waters. The hip flask, however, did find its way back to Helen. It was recovered from Kent’s body, and returned to its owner after the authorities traced her family through the Churchill family motto engraved on the flask—”

Here, fact proves far more creatively perfect than fiction.

“ ‘—Faithful, but Unfortunate.’ ”

Next week: Serendipity smiles at St. Andrews Golf Club.

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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.

E-ticket Ride of Happiness

by Woody

With apologies to Disneyland, it seems to me “The Happiest Place on Earth” is a wedding. Any wedding and every wedding, extravagant or simple, grand or intimately small. Attending a wedding always puts helium in your heart.

And so it was two Sundays past that my spirits soared skyward on a cloudless blue spring day that felt like summer when my princely son married the princess of his dreams in the wedding of her childhood imagination. If any detail was overlooked, any expense spared, I cannot imagine what it was. No white doves were released, I suppose, nor did the couple depart in a hot-air balloon.

The happy newlyweds, Jess and Greg!

Posh as it was, what made the occasion truly special was what also makes a shoestring wedding equally special – the gathering of people. Indeed, as I stood as a groomsman beside my daughter, the Best Matron, who stood next to her kid brother as he and his bride exchanged personally written vows, all with the Pacific Ocean as a breathtaking backdrop behind us, I looked out at the sea of moist-eyed faces and was inspired to add this opening to my prepared dinner toast:

“Jess and Greg, it has been a whirlwind day for you both, so I want to ask you to pause and take a deep breath and take moment to look around at all these faces gathered here. Really take them in. They aren’t just faces, they are your favorite people.

“Some of us have known you since the days you were born. Others came into your lives a little later; some later still; some much more recently. Some came here today from near; many from further away; and more than a few traveled great distances. But we are all present for the same reason – because of how amazingly special you both are.

“Look around, we’ll wait…

“Okay, now I ask the rest of us to all look at Jess and Greg and take a moment to silently recall one of your favorite memories of them. Maybe it was the first time you met them or perhaps it was last night’s wonderful Ghanaian Engagement Ceremony.

“As you fondly reflect back, know this – these two people that we all hold so dear are amazingly special thanks to each and every one of you.”

This wedding-day thought, it strikes me now, applies to all of us. We, too, are the product of our favorite people – and they of us. Alas, too often it takes a wedding, graduation, or other special occasion blessed with a vast constellation of our star supporters as rare as the planets aligning to appreciate the roles they have played in our lives. Wise it would be to occasionally keep this in mind on the small days between The Big Days.

Continuing my toast, and this theme, I next shared that at Mark Twain’s home in Hartford, Connecticut, the great writer had a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson engraved in brass and prominently displayed above the main fireplace: The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.

“I love this sentiment and think it extends beyond the walls of a house,” I explained. “After all, as the late, great poet Maya Angelou said: When you leave home, you take home with you.

“It seems to me that having the treasured friends and family who ornament the lives of Jess and Greg here today makes this beautiful site their ‘home’ away from home and makes their wedding day a true masterpiece day.”

In nostalgic Disneyland parlance, it was truly an E-ticket ride of day.

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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

 

 

Column: Airport Bliss

by Woody

Another Happiest Place on Earth

Driving someone to the airport, especially when it’s for a departure flight, always brings to my mind the closing scene in “Casablanca” when Humphrey Bogart, playing Rick, famously bids goodbye in the fog of night to Ingrid Bergman:

Going to Burbank Bob Hope Airport reminds me of "Casablanca."

Going to Burbank Bob Hope Airport reminds me of “Casablanca.”

“Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that. Now, now. Here’s looking at you, kid.”

An airport pick up, especially at Burbank Bob Hope, also reminds me of “Casablanca” because that is where the classic closing scene was filmed – or so legend had it.

Now, now that myth has been busted. Warner Bros. studio archives have been uncovered revealing the airport footage not shot on a sound stage was actually taken at Van Nuys Airport. This truth is almost as heartbreaking as Bogart sending off his great love.

I prefer the myth when I find myself at Burbank Bob Hope. TSA lines don’t mean a hill of beans compared to goodbye hugs and farewell waves.

Disneyland claims to be “The Happiest Place On Earth” but this is another Southern California myth because an airport arrival gate is even more so.

While I loathe waiting for red lights and store lines and doctor appointments that always seem hopelessly behind schedule, I like to arrive early at the airport to give myself time to wait – and watch.

Watch young couples reunited and old couples, too, because the joy exhibited by both is more contagious than the flu.

Watch children run into their parents’ embrace. And grandparents quicken their shuffle to get a hug from their grandchildren.

Watch men give flowers to their loved ones and women give balloons to theirs.

Watch soldiers in uniform lift a child in one heroic arm and a wife in the other, and also lift the spirits of everyone around because of their brave service.

Watch taciturn countenances, weary from waiting, finally glimpse a special face and light up with 100-watt smiles – and those arriving faces, weary from a long day of travel, beaming back.

I imagine my own face lit up a couple nights ago when the special face I was waiting for finally walked through the arrival doors at Bob Hope Airport; my daughter’s face in turn shined as golden as the bouquet of sunflowers I held for her.

Moments before our reunion I witnessed a scene worthy of Hollywood, a uniting that began with running squeals of delight and ended in a minute-long embrace. All eyes looked up from their smartphones/texts/emails to watch and smile and even tear up themselves.

The two girls, each in her early teens, appeared to be sisters who had been separated for many months or perhaps close childhood friends now living distantly. To be sure, they disproved Robert Louis Stevenson’s belief: “To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.”

I was curious, but did not wish to intrude. As fortune would have it, however, the arriving girl had been on my daughter’s connecting flight and so as we all waited at the luggage carousel I asked her, “Are you sisters?”

“No, BFFs,” came the reply, teen girl talk of course for Best Friends Forever.

Then their story got even more wonderful, because the arriving girl did not mean “forever” as in the past but rather into the future. You see, this was the first time the two had actually met in person.

The arriving girl, despite being a casting director’s dream of a beach blonde “California girl,” was actually from Kansas City, Missouri, while the shorter redhead was from the Los Angeles area. They “met” and became BFFs in the 21st Century version of being pen pals via Facebook, Instagram and email.

Their itinerary over the upcoming two weeks, the L.A. redhead said, include all of the “Hollywood things” and the beach . . . and, of course, the blonde from Kansas City excitedly added, “Disneyland!”

“This is The Happiest Place on Earth,” I thought of the airport arrival area, though I did not say it. Instead, I wished the two BFFs a great time. Here’s looking at you, kids.

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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”