Tag Archives: Friend

Friend Turns Floodwaters Into Sunshine

by Woody

What a difference a day makes.

More accurately, what a difference a friend can make on a day. Such it was on recent back-to-back afternoons that for me were as polar as sunshine and flooding rain, figuratively and almost literally.

Let me begin with the rainstorm. My Much Better Half and I are having our kitchen and downstairs guest bathroom remodeled. “Don’t expect smooth sailing,” we were forewarned. This proved a portentous metaphor because returning from my daily run I opened the front door and found myself in need of a boat.

While I was out, a worker clogged and broke the toilet – a toilet that was not to be used for it was covered by protective plastic during painting – and it runneth over continuously for an hour or more. Floodwaters overtook the entryway, dining room, family room, and most of our primary bedroom. The tide even surged into the kitchen and garage.

With hardwood floors ruined, carpet too, my spirits the following day were soggy as well. When I went on a run that afternoon, for a rare time during my running Streak of 7,341 consecutive days, I felt like cutting my intended miles shorter. But then…

“Hi, Woody!” came a voice from behind my left ear, so close and loud and unexpected that I flinched. Because I was wearing earbuds, the greeter’s volume was purposely turned up to be heard. However, because of a dead battery I was not listening to music. As a result, I may have yelped as if startled by the sight of a slithering rattlesnake two strides ahead.

Instead, it was a friendly face that I have seen from time to time at Kimball Park. Brody, a handsome young man with sharp features and a soft smile, grew up in Ventura and is a recent graduate from UC Santa Barbara, my alma mater, where he was in the ROTC. I learned all this, and more, on previous occasions he joined me for a few miles when our running paths crossed.

This go-round-and-round around the soccer fields he updated me about his enlistment as an officer in the Army (the Irish meaning of Brody is “protector,” perfectly fitting for someone safeguarding our country); that he is now married; and is stationed in Texas, which he said has been so Hades-hot lately that this 80-degree Ventura day felt chilly to him.

And just like that, like morning dew under August sunshine, my soggy mood over “The Great Woodburn Flood of ’23” quickly evaporated. My heavy feet that felt like I was slogging through a muddy boot-camp obstacle course suddenly had Hermes-like wings on their ankles and the next two miles breezed by. Brody’s pace was surely slower than he wanted, mine a tad too fast, for isn’t friendship sometimes a compromise?

The last time I had seen Brody was in a rainstorm, the showers so steady that the park’s fields then coincidentally resembled my downstairs floors only 24 hours earlier. On that rainy day we had laughed as we splish-splashed along; this day now, I suddenly felt winsome and recalled a poem titled “On Friendship” by John Wooden:

At times when I am feeling low, / I hear from a friend and then

My worries start to go away / And I am on the mend

No matter what the doctors say – /And their studies never end

The best cure of all, when spirits fall, / Is a kind word from a friend

Indeed, a kind word – better yet, a couple miles of friendly conversation – can turn rain into sunshine.

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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.

Masterpiece Friends Elevate Us

by Woody

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Masterpiece Friends Elevate

Us To The Clouds

“A friend,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, and wisely, “may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.”

One such masterpiece in my life celebrates a milestone birthday today, having completed 60 voyages around the sun. Thinking of My Masterpiece Friend brings also to mind my first best friend throughout childhood.

Dan and my relationship got off to an odd start a year before starting kindergarten together when our moms, who were in the same bowling league, set up an introductory play date.

When Mrs. Means – parents did not have first names in the 1960s – called out for Dan to come into the family room to meet me, he did not appear. She tried again, slightly louder. Again, Dan did not show up or answer. Not one to yell, Mrs. Means directed me down the hallway to the last door on the right.

I found Dan’s room, but not Dan. From beneath the bed, however, came a soft rustling noise. I crept over, dropped to my hands and knees, and lifted the hanging bedspread. Hiding like a fox in a den, Dan was playing with G.I. Joes.

Dan gave me a Cold War reception, like I was G.I. Vladimir, and refused to come out. Meanwhile, I dared not crawl into G.I. Dan’s foxhole. Instead, my mental Kodachrome footage shows the strangest thing: I started doing pushups, counting aloud, “One, two, three … ten!”

Why in the world would I act like a mini-Jack LaLanne? I have no idea other than I was trying to impress Dan in the same manner I sometimes reacted when my two older brothers told me I was too puny to join their activities.

Dan eventually Army-crawled out from his under-the-bed bunker and we played G.I. Joes. Next, we fed his two pet gerbils – “Bruce” and “Wayne” in honor of Batman’s true identity – and then headed to the basement to play with Hot Wheels.

Murray was a four-legged masterpiece friend.

Dan and I were fast friends indeed, literally so at a go-kart speedway once. More accurately, that day I was his fast-and-reckless friend. On the opening lap I bumped his wheels while trying to pass and sent us both spinning into the grass infield. We were instantly expelled from the track. Instead of being ticked off at me, Dan laughed like Muttley the cartoon dog having a loud asthma attack.

Fast forward four decades. I met My Masterpiece Friend in similar fashion to how I met Dan. Instead of two matchmaking moms, a shared acquaintance set up a play date of sorts to introduce us. This time, I did not do any impromptu calisthenics.

“Make friendship a fine art,” John Wooden advised and in this vein My Masterpiece Friend is a modern Rembrandt. One example may serve as well as 100. Recently, our nearly 13-year-old boxer grew gravely ill with cancer. The day arrived when the only humane recourse was to have a veterinarian come to our home to relieve Murray’s suffering through euthanasia.

The vet, who had the couch-side manner of an angel, needed help lifting Murray onto the stretcher afterward. I risked aggravating a recent injury, although that pain would be preferable to having my distraught wife do the morose task.

Not to worry because My Masterpiece Friend dropped everything and rushed over. What is even more, I knew he would.

“What wealth is it to have such friends that we cannot think of them without elevation!” wrote Emerson’s great friend, Henry David Thoreau. I can still envision Dan and me kicking the clouds with our toes while soaring on the playground swings, but My Masterpiece Friend elevates me higher still.

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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” …

Friend in Deed is Friend Indeed

by Woody

1StrawberriesCoverWooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upFor a Personalized Autographed copy of “STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME” or “WOODEN & ME” use the PayPal link on my home page or mail a check for $25 to:

Woody Woodburn

400 Roosevelt Court

Ventura, CA 93003

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Friend in Deed is Friend Indeed

In an ironic turn of events, our microwave oven had its goose cooked the other day.

Finding a replacement of similar dimensions for the built-in spot proved to be a wild-goose chase. Four local stores, and an on-line search, all came up short – or, more accurately, came up too wide or too tall.

Unlike Goldilocks’ napping beds, none of the microwaves was “just right.” The best solution was to get a smaller model and add a shelf to position it suitably.

Alas, my last foray into woodworking was making a skateboard in eighth-grade shop class. I got at best a C-plus on the assignment – and a D-minus while on the skateboard.

Indeed, I’m a wordsmith, not a woodsmith (which isn’t a word, but should be). I can use a hammer and screwdriver and duct tape, but that’s about the extent of my This Old House-like skills. For me to invest in additional tools would make as much sense as buying surgical instruments. I’m handy only with my typing fingers.

Therefore, even for a simple shelf, I reached out for help. My first thought was to ask my friend, Mike Pederson, because he has the skills of Noah and MacGyver combined. I believe he fully remodeled his kitchen during halftime of an NFL game. More recently, he started rebuilding his mother’s garage that burned down in the Thomas Fire and will probably complete it before I finish writing this column.

Mike with wheelchair athlete and friend Alvin.

The reason I didn’t ask Mike, however, is because I embarrassingly still owe him a couple pints at a local micro brewery in payment for the last fix-it job he did for me.

Instead, I asked my Facebook friends if anyone could help me out with a piece of plywood measuring 23-1/4 inches by 15 inches. I promised that All-Thumbs Me could sand and paint it.

Two days later, my posted request far from mind, I was out for my daily run at Kimball Community Park. Rounding a corner on my familiar loop, I spotted a familiar Paul Bunyan-esque figure ahead, then a familiar face, finally a familiar smile.

I stopped to say “hi” and Mike greeted me by revealing from behind his back a shelf. Not a slab of plywood cut to needed size, mind you, but rather a finely sanded shelf complete with decorative front rail. It is so handsome that no painting by me was required. My old woodshop teacher would have graded it “A-plus.”

John Wooden would have loved Mike because he “makes friendship a fine art.” Mike also creates a lot of such “art.” As example, Mike has twice escorted our mutual friend Alvin Matthews, a wheelchair athlete, in the Los Angeles Marathon.

“As busy as he is with his own life and family’s, he always seems to find time for me,” Alvin says, noting further that Mike frequently drives him to training outings and assists him in and out of his missile-like racing chair; researched a beach-access wheelchair; and has been by his side in the hospital. “He’s top-notch as a friend!”

Given Mike’s giving nature, it seems fully appropriate he was born on Christmas Day. To be sure, he brings to mind the poem “On Friendship” penned by Coach Wooden:

“At times when I am feeling low, / I hear from a friend and then

“My worries start to go away / And I am on the mend

“No matter what the doctors say – / And their studies never end

“The best cure of all, when spirits fall, / Is a kind word from a friend”

Or, in Mike’s case, a kind deed.

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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 Kickstarter Front PhotoCheck 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” …

Column: Stranger Becomes a Friend

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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Downside of ‘Hello’ is ‘Goodbye’

“A stranger,” Will Rogers said, “is just a friend I haven’t met yet.”

Three years ago, Jongsoo was a stranger to me.

And then we met, crossing paths at the Ventura Aquatic Center community park. I was on my daily run going one direction around the soccer fields and he walked, aided by a cane, in the opposite. “Hi,” I said as we passed.

My joyful friend, Jongsoo, and me before saying goodbye.

My joyful friend, Jongsoo, and me before saying goodbye.

“HELL-OHHH!” Jongsoo replied in all capital letters with the “o” drawn out and punctuated with an exclamation mark.

Jongsoo not only greeted me with “HELL-OHHH!” whenever I saw him in the days and months that followed, often a few times a week, he would sing it with the same enthusiasm on each ensuing loop, sometimes a dozen times in one afternoon, as if every encounter was the first.

Soon we were exchanging a hug with the day’s first “HELL-OHHH” and high-fives thereafter. Jongsoo’s carbonated joy always added a lightness to my stride and heart.

Too, he made me laugh. For one thing, Jongsoo often walked with a transistor radio, sans earphones, blaring loud enough to scare away birds. Moreover, he sometimes did a few dance steps for my amusement.

The sight of Jongsoo and me trying to converse had to amuse all who saw us, an odd couple to be sure: he two decades older than me; me a foot taller; and neither of us understanding much of what the other was saying despite our pantomimes.

One day early on, Jongsoo was limping more than usual and through gestures I asked about his leg. He answered by displaying a scar that looked like a great white shark had taken a bite out of his hip and thigh. Through charades it became clear the shark had been a car.

Last week, Jongsoo gave me a note, in English, explaining he was leaving in five days and would not return for at least a year.

“Thanks for cheering me up whenever I see you at the park,” it also read. “Thank you for being my friend.”

The following afternoon I handed Jongsoo a return note of thanks with some questions about him. One, two, three days passed and I did not see him at the park. I feared I would not get to say goodbye to my friend.

Why had I not realized sooner that Jongsoo must be living with someone who could translate for us? Mad at myself, I recalled what sports writer Frank Graham once wrote about Bob Meusel, a gruff outfielder with the New York Yankees who in his fading playing days warmed up slightly: “He’s learning to say hello when it’s time to say goodbye.”

On the final day before Jongsoo would fly back to South Korea, as I was nearing the end of my run and about to leave the park, a VW Beetle honked and pulled into the parking lot. Jongsoo had insisted his daughter, Kim, drive him over one last time in hopes of catching me.

“HELL-OHHH!” Jongsoo sang.

“An nyoung!” I said back, after asking Kim for the Korean translation.

From Kim I learned that her father is 76 years old, has three children and his arranged marriage is closing in on its golden anniversary. He has been staying in Ventura with Kim, who came to American in 1994 to earn a doctoral degree in Special Education and remained here to teach, and her husband Cory, a software engineer.

I also learned that a taxi had struck Jongsoo five years ago in Seoul; his hip socket and part of his shattered femur needed to be replaced. How he now walks for one to two hours daily is remarkable and inspiring. Surgery and chemotherapy for colon cancer also did not slow him down for long.

After giving my friend a hug, I asked Kim how to say goodbye in Korean.

“An nyoung!” I said again, for the salutation she explained is the same going as arriving.

I learned to say hello when it was time to say goodbye – but now I’ll be ready to say hello when goodbye ends and Jungsoo and I meet again at the park.

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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-mock-upCheck 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”