Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.
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I have a craving for corn on the cob.
Also, memories being a funny thing, my mind has leapfrogged from fresh corn to garbage cans and jumped again to saying “hello” to total strangers. All of this because Chi Chi Rodriguez, one of the greatest and most charismatic golfers ever, died last week, his age matching the number of keys on a piano and in my cerebrum’s ear I hear the music of a story he once told me.
Let me begin, however, with a memory about Sparky Anderson, the late Hall of Fame baseball manager, who, on his daily morning walks through his Thousand Oaks neighborhood, would personally deliver onto front doorsteps any newspapers still resting in driveways. Moreover, on trash day he would go for an evening walk and move empty garbage barrels from curbside up to the garage doors.
Asked why, Sparky replied simply: “Woody, it don’t cost nothing at all to be nice.”
It also don’t cost nothing at all to be friendly, as another Hall of Famer, basketball coach John Wooden, illuminated to me with an anecdote. He was driving a friend to the airport after a weeklong stay in Southern California and the Midwestern visitor complained to his transplanted Hoosier host: “John, I honestly don’t know how you can stand to live here. No one is friendly like they are back home.”
“Sure they are,” Wooden answered. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been here an entire week and not a single person out on the street or sidewalks has said ‘Hi’ to me.”
“Did you say ‘Hello’ to them?” Wooden wisely asked.
“Well, no,” the visitor explained with slight exasperation. “I didn’t know any of them.”
Even to strangers Wooden made friendliness a fine art. An excellent example is an encounter a woman shared with me after I gave a talk about my long friendship with Coach.
She was in a coffee shop, very early, literally the only customer at the moment. Enter Wooden, who walked over—remember, every other table was available—and politely asked if he could join her. Years later, she still lighted up in the retelling of her masterpiece breakfast with a perfect stranger.
Which leads, as promised, back to Chi Chi Rodriguez, one of the nicest and friendliest athletes I ever had the privilege to meet, and the inspiring lesson that sprang to life in my mind upon hearing of his death.
“When I was a young boy we had a little field that was overgrown with bamboo trees,” Rodriguez had recalled of his childhood in Puerto Rico. “My father wanted to plant corn, but clearing the bamboo would have taken a month. He didn’t have the time because of his job. So every evening when he came home from work, my father would cut down a single piece of bamboo.”
A pause.
“Just one piece.”
A knowing smile.
“Every evening.”
A longer dramatic beat.
“The very next spring, we had corn on our dinner table.”
A hole-in-one grin.
“The bamboo story to me is the secret to success,” Rodriguez went on. “If you really want something and set your mind to it and work hard enough, one by one, little by little, miracles happen.”
And so, this weekend I plan to have corn on the cob on my dinner table; sweet and fresh-picked from a roadside stand; boiled with some salt and a little butter added to the water; then served in honor of little miracles and a 5-foot-7 golfer and champion philanthropist who stood tall as a single stalk of towering bamboo.
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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.
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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” …