Tag Archives: gardens

Books, Butterflies, Botanical Beauty

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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The most wonderful thing happened when I was four years old, so thrilling it imprinted as one of my very first memories that to this day remains golden as a summer sunrise, so life-changing it planted the seed for becoming a writer – for before one becomes a writer, he or she must first be a reader.

Before I even entered kindergarten, my mom took me to the local public library to get my very own library card, which goes a long way in telling you I had a masterpiece mother.

While I cannot remember the first book I checked out, the first unforgettable one was “Where The Wild Things Are.” Week after week, I re-re-re-checked out this illustrated treasure by Maurice Sendak until the librarian finally told me I needed to return Max and his wild creature friends for other kids to enjoy.

So it was that my love affair with libraries began, a romance that has grown and not diminished six decades later, for I agree with the great author Pat Conroy who once noted: “I was born to be in a library.”

His and my enchanted experiences seem to be the norm, not the exception. Indeed, it is rare to meet an adult who does not fondly recall going to the library as a child.

Long before he became a silver-screen storyteller, Robert Redford was a storybook reader, having recalled before his recent passing: “I don’t know what your childhood was like, but we didn’t have much money. We’d go to a movie on Saturday night, and then on Wednesday my parents would walk us over to the library. It was such a big deal, to go in and get my own book.”

Public libraries remain a big deal, and a free deal, providing not just books at no charge but also Wi-Fi and, here in Ventura County in the summertime when school is out, free lunches for kids, and so much more. For example, in addition to enjoying listening to storytimes, my young granddaughters love reading aloud to therapy dogs at the library.

“I discovered me in the library,” said author Ray Bradbury and I feel likewise. It is fair to say I would not be a journalist, nor have authored the novel “The Butterfly Tree: An Extraordinary Saga of Seven Generations,” if I had not been a library-goer.

As the title suggests, butterflies and botany are woven into its pages; additionally, a public library has a meaningful role; thus, I am especially honored to be a speaker and have a book signing at the “Books, Butterflies & Botanical Gardens” fundraiser benefiting the Ventura County Library Foundation on October 19, noon to 4 p.m. (For tickets or to be a sponsor: https://bit.ly/4gmQXVP )

My daughter Dallas Woodburn, an award-winning YA author who got her first library card, also at age four, at the bygone H.P. Wright Library, will join me as we discuss writing and reading, favorite authors and books, and such.

Also, Jana Johnson, a renowned conservation biologist, will discuss the two-decade-long recovery efforts to save the critically endangered Palos Verde blue butterfly.

Ventura’s Botanical Gardens afford a lofty panoramic postcard scene of our slice of paradise – ocean, iconic pier, islands, mountains – worthy of mailing to the most beautiful locales on earth to make the recipients a little envious. And yet the views inside any public library surpass this or even Yosemite Valley at its Ansel Adams’ best because the books in the stacks can take you anywhere and everywhere in the world – and beyond, to worlds only imagined.

Thanks, Mom!

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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.

My Own ‘Charlotte’s Web’ Tale

by Woody

In E. B. White’s popular children’s novel “Charlotte’s Web,” as you very likely once read and still fondly recall, a spider named Charlotte befriends a pig named Wilbur.

Here is a 280-character Tweet-length synopsis: As winter approaches, Wilbur is destined for the dinner table. Charlotte devises a plan to save his life by making him too famous for slaughter. She proceeds to weave four messages into her web – “Some Pig”, “Terrific”, “Radiant” and “Humble” – above Wilbur’s pen. Suddenly, people from far and wide are coming to see this special pig.

It is Charlotte, of course, who is truly special. In fact, most spiders are special for they are pest-control stalwarts. Hence, when I find one inside the house I go to the trouble of capturing it under a coffee mug; sliding a piece of paper under the rim; then carrying it outside to release in our drought-resistant yard. Usually.

Confession: When I encounter a spider during a middle-of-the-night trip to the bathroom I am more apt to grab a flip-flop sandal, not a mug of mercy, and administer a deadly TWHACK!

Such was my initial instinct not long ago, in the wee-wee hours of darkness, when I was greeted by an eight-legged intruder. Luckily for it – or she, for I soon named it Charlotte – she was inside the bathtub. I say luckily because since the tub is enclosed with sliding glass doors it seemed too much effort – and too noisy, for the doors rumble a bit and might awaken my much-better-half – to exterminate Charlotte.

Also, once you name a spider you really can’t THWACK! it with a shoe or rolled-up magazine.

Since the enclosed bath is basically a terrarium with no plants, I figured I would go back to bed and capture Charlotte in the morning and relocate her to the garden. This plan seemed good for both my cacti and my karma.

Come morning, as you might have guessed, Charlotte was gone. Possibly she made a prison break by climbing up and over the glass doors, although it seemed more likely she went down the drain like her famous nursery rhyme cousin The Itsy Bitsy Spider.

That night, to my surprise, my own itsy bitsy spider had climbed up the drain again.

“Hello, Charlotte,” I said, for that is what you do when you have named a spider. Moments later, turning off the light, I said in a pillow-talk whisper: “Goodnight, Charlotte.” Fortunately, my wife did not awaken and hear me for who knows what she would have thought since Charlotte is not her name.

This pattern continued for perhaps a week with the tub empty in daylight and Charlotte reappearing in the dark of night.

Then came a surprise. One afternoon, Charlotte materialized in the tub as if the moon was out. My impulse was to finally take her outside. On my way to get a coffee mug for capture, however, I had second thoughts. While Charlotte would be good for my garden, would the garden be good for her? Or, instead, might she wind up as a bird’s breakfast? As it was, she seemed to have a safe home in the drainpipes below.

And so I left well enough alone. Later, however, when I found a small spider web – empty at the time – anchored to the faucet and shower wall, it seemed she had decided to move in up above and I decided I would have to move her out the next time I saw her.

Alas, she has never reappeared, day or night.

Sadly, my Charlotte didn’t even weave a “Goodbye” note.

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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