Tag Archives: Life

Some Things I Have Come to Know…

by Woody

The mile marker of a birthday is a good time for reflection and so today, shortly before beginning a new personal lap around the sun, here are a few things I have come to know…

Always double-knot your shoelaces.

Never pass up a barefoot walk on the beach.

Love is more powerful than penicillin.

Never ever pass up a chance to gaze at a sunrise or sunset.

Always take the opportunity to gaze at the stars on a clear night – or at Starry Night and other masterpiece paintings.

Speaking of art and masterpieces, these two bookend John Wooden-isms will carry you far: “Make friendship a fine art” and “Make each day your masterpiece.”

Who you travel with is far more important than where you travel.

All the same, Robert Frost was right: Take the road less traveled by.

John Muir was also right when he said, “Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.”

Don’t save the good china plates and crystal goblets and heirloom silverware for special occasions only.

Do spend as much time as you can with people who lift you up and as little as possible with those who pull you down.

Saying “You’re welcome” is as important as saying “Thank you.”

Writing a thank-you note or handwritten letter is always a few minutes well spent.

A good many movies and books are far too long, but most hugs are too short.

Never pass up a chance to hold hands with a boyfriend or girlfriend, a husband or wife or partner, a child or the elderly.

Don’t let your fears outweigh your dreams.

One minute of encouragement following a defeat or failure or during hard times is worth far more than an hour of accolades and praise after a triumph or big success.

Artificial Intelligence doesn’t worry me half as much as Real Stupidity.

The value of a compliment is often underrated by the giver, but rarely by the person receiving it.

A positive attitude will positively carry you a long, long way.

This African proverb is right: “There are two lasting gifts you can give your child: one is roots, the other is wings.”

Do unto others as you would have them do unto your children or grandchildren is a better Golden Rule.

We can always make room for one more at the dinner table or in our heart.

Maya Angelou was right: “When you leave home, you take home with you.”

The best travels, and life journeys too, often wind about a little crookedly.

Even a “bad” road trip will give you some good memories to last a lifetime.

It is not truly a favor if you make the recipient feel like you are doing a favor.

It takes worn-out running shoes to finish a marathon; worn-out brushes before you can paint a masterpiece; burnt pots and pans to become a seasoned chef, and blistered fingertips to finally master the guitar.

Some of my very favorite adults seem like they are just tall children.

No matter your age, never pass up a chance to ride a Ferris wheel or carousel.

If you can be world class at only one thing, make it kindness.

My dear friend Wayne Bryan is right: “If you don’t make an effort to help others less fortunate than you, then you’re just wasting your time on Earth.”

Don’t waste your time on Earth.

We should all make a wish and blow out a candle 365 times each year because every day is a once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece to be celebrated.

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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.

Still Feeling Lucky Decades Later

by Woody

It is hard to imagine anyone being luckier in Las Vegas than I was 40 years ago come next month. Freshly graduated from UCSB, but jobless, I got a phone call that proved to be like a Jackpot-Jackpot-Jackpot spin on a slot machine.

A newspaper editor had tracked me down on my honeymoon, no easy feat back before cellphones, to offer me an interview for a sportswriter position. That was the good news.

The bad news was the tiny twice-weekly publication, The Desert Trail, was in Twentynine Palms – a one-stoplight triple-digit-temperatures town that was not exactly where a young bride dreams of beginning her new wedded life. No matter, Lisa and I cut our honeymoon a couple days short and took a detour through the high desert on our drive back to Goleta.

Dave Stancliff, a top-dog newspaperman, mentor and friend.

I not only got the job, I got a great boss, life-changing mentor, and dear friend in the deal. The latter happened – nearly literally – overnight as Dave Stancliff, his wife Shirley and their three young sons, took me into their home for three weeks until Lisa could join me.

Under Dave, I received a hands-on journalism education that surpassed a master’s degree and made me a better writer. More importantly, he imparted life lessons that made me a better person. For example, instead of giving a homeless person a few bucks for a fast-food hamburger, Dave would buy him or her a restaurant meal. Sometimes he even surprised Shirley by bringing a hungry stranger home as a dinner guest.

Along with a heart of gold, Dave has mettle of steel. Straight from high school he went to fight in the sweltering jungles of Vietnam and Cambodia. Stories of his experiences as a soldier gave me nightmares, yet he didn’t even share the worst of the hell he saw.

Indeed, a decade before Tim O’Brien’s remarkable Vietnam War novel, “The Things We Carried” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, I learned about “The Things Dave Carried” home from that war: PTSD and physical health issues caused by Agent Orange. He bravely battled those foes – and still does – as if they were merely opponents in the ring when he was an Army boxing champion.

To say I admire Dave is a great understatement, so a recent “As It Stands” blog post he wrote headlined “The Two Most Inspirational People I’ve Ever Met” caught my eye. After all, to be worthy of Dave’s highest esteem would require someone quite special. Eugene “Red” McDaniel certainly measures up. He is a Vietnam vet who, after being shot down over Hanoi in 1967, spent six years as a POW before being freed.

“Red, who received the most brutal torture at the hands of his North Vietnamese captors, showed me how indomitable the human spirit is in the worst of times,” Dave writes now, having first met McDaniel in the mid-1970s while writing for the campus newspaper at Humboldt State.

“His positive attitude about everything in life was actually therapeutic for me (and my PTSD),” Dave continues, happily concluding: “Red is 93 years-old and is still going strong.”

Reading further along, I was suddenly struck by twin lightning bolts of shock and disbelief: “The other really positive person in my life is Woody Woodburn…”

The flowery praise that follows is, with no false modesty, unmerited. Nonetheless, the kind words put birdsong in my heart and bring to mind something Chuck Thomas, another dear mentor of mine, liked to say: “Don’t wait until tomorrow to tell a friend how you feel about them today.”

Wise advice for us all.

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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

 

 

“Today Is The Only Day”

by Woody

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Live Today, Not in the Past or Future

            “Make each day your masterpiece” merits all the yellows in my rainbow of favorite John Wooden maxims, but it is a Woodenism in a neighboring shade of green, “Today is the only day – yesterday is gone,” that is on my mind at the moment.

Two months of todays past, I wrote a column about longtime Thousand Oaks resident Bob Fitch and his love of typewriters. More specifically, about how having learned to type in a high school class benefited him in the military in the 1950s.

Two weeks of todays after “Typing Out A Memorable Story” ran in this space, I received an email bearing a rainbow-eclipsing storm cloud. It was from Bob’s son, Dave, who wrote:

“Some sad news to share with you – my dad recently was checked into Los Robles Hospital. They determined his respiratory issues were due to a failing heart valve that had been replaced 10 years ago.

“Dad passed away on Monday. We were with him and he passed away peacefully. We are comforted and assured by God’s word, knowing he is in a far better place now. We had a lot of fun with him and we will miss him. Thanks for being a part of his life!”

After signing off, Dave added a kind postscript: “Oh, BTW – he did get to see your article and enjoyed it!”

By coincidence, serendipity, or perhaps fate, a symbiotic email arrived the very same day. This one was from my daughter, forwarding a blog of one of her favorite writers, Alexandra Franzen.

“My younger sister Olivia, my dad, and I all went out for dinner in New York City,” Franzen began. “I live in Hawaii (mostly) these days. Miss O is based in Colorado. Dad’s in California. It’s unusual that we’re together in the same location. I wanted to make the most of this rare, precious moment.”

A few paragraphs later: “I listened to my dad’s stories. I nodded when my sister spoke. I smiled when it was appropriate to smile. I politely thanked the waiter for each item. But, to be honest, I wasn’t completely in the room. My mind was only halfway present.”

After sharing a laundry list of her distractions, Franzen shared an epiphany moment: “While collecting our coats at the exit, the restaurant hostess smiled at me and said, ‘It’s wonderful that you got to have dinner with your dad tonight.’

“ ‘Yeah, uh huh, for sure,’ I said, or something to that effect. Only half-listening. In a thick fog. Rummaging around in my bag for a stick of gum.

“ ‘My dad died last year,’ the hostess added, very quietly. Her voice was so soft, nearly drowned out by the din of the bustling restaurant. ‘I miss him every day.’

“I looked up, meeting her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry.’

“I stepped outside and immediately linked elbows with my dad, holding him very, very close as we walked arm in arm back to the hotel. Sometimes, I fall asleep in the middle of my own life. Until something, or someone, reminds me to wake up.”

Franzen concluded with this sagacious advice: “If there’s something you want to do, do it now. If there’s something you want to say, say it now. If you’re reading this on a phone in your bed, put down your device and hold your partner instead. The emails can wait. One day, all of this ends. But for now, here we are. And today is not over yet.”

In other words, in John Wooden’s timeless words, “There is only today – yesterday is gone.”

And tomorrow is not promised.

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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” …

 

Part 2: Twain and Muir’s Meeting

by Woody

Part 2: Twain and Muir’s Meeting

Except for a story believed to be apocryphal, Mark Twain and John Muir, separated by only three years in age, never met. The two famous writers did, however, cross paths astrologically on April 21 – Muir born on the date in 1838 and Twain dying on it in 1910.

Following is Part 2 of how I imagine their conversation, using their own written words, might have gone had they shared a campfire in Yosemite.

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Muir: “A slight sprinkle of rain – large drops far apart, falling with hearty pat and plash on leaves and stones and into the mouths of the flowers.”

Twain: “A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.”

Muir, laughing: “Wash your spirit clean. Keep close to Nature’s heart – and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life.”

Twain: “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”

Muir: “As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature’s sources never fail.”

Twain: “Lord save us all from old age and broken health and a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms. I was young and foolish then; now I am old and foolisher.”

Muir: “Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away.”

Twain: “If all the fools in this world should die, lordly God how lonely I should be.”

Muir: “Most people are on the world, not in it. In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.”

Twain: “There is no use in your walking five miles to fish when you can depend on being just as unsuccessful near home.”

Muir: “I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

Twain: “Now, the true charm of pedestrianism does not lie in the walking, or in the scenery, but in the talking. The walking is good to time the movement of the tongue by, and to keep the blood and the brain stirred up and active; the scenery and the woodsy smells are good to bear in upon a man an unconscious and unobtrusive charm and solace to eye and soul and sense; but the supreme pleasure comes from the talk. It is no matter whether one talks wisdom or nonsense, the case is the same, the bulk of the enjoyment lies in the wagging of the gladsome jaw and the flapping of the sympathetic ear.”

Muir: “Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter.”

Twain: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”

Muir: “Going to the mountains is going home.”

Twain: “There is nothing more satisfying than that sense of being completely ‘at home’ in your own skin.”

Muir: “The mountains are calling and I must go.”

Twain: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Muir: “The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.”

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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” …

Champagne for the Heart

by Woody

 My new memoir WOODEN & ME is available here at Amazon

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Compliments Are Champagne for the Spirit

A short while ago, I wrote about a party for Laszlo Tabori in honor of history’s third four-minute mile he ran 60 years ago. The theme of that occasion, and my column, was exemplified by this old Irish proverb:

’Tis better to buy a small bouquet / And give to your friend this very day,

Than a bushel of roses white and red / To lay on his coffin after he’s dead.

1twaincomplimentWhile the anniversary party was a grand bouquet, I have personally witnessed how a single flower in the form of a few kind words can make a person feel as though champagne is flowing through his veins. Considering compliments cost nothing, it seems a shame we are oftentimes stingy dispensing them.

As my son puts it: “Giving compliments does a lot more good than taking out the trash, and should thus be done more than once a week.”

At the risk of appearing self-serving, I hope sharing a few compliments I have received recently will serve to inspire others to give their own friends, family, and even strangers, a verbal splash of champagne to lift some spirits before they next take out the trash.

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Let me begin with the generous people who complimented me by responding to a request in this space a few weeks ago to sponsor sign-up fees, and buy new gift tennis rackets, for the USTA youth lessons program that began this week at Buena High School.

Led by a generous donation from Carolyn Hertel – who noted with her contribution, “Tennis is not only a sport for life, the people you meet are often friends forever” – readers served up more than $1,200 to give disadvantaged kids a better summer.

As program director Paul Olmsted told me: “Wow! With all the trouble in the world it is uplifting to know that there really are some generous people out there.”

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Among of the nicest compliments I have received as a writer was when a man came up to me at a restaurant, pardoned himself for the interruption, and proceeded to show me one of my columns he keeps in his wallet. I have figuratively folded up the memory for my own safekeeping when I need a lift.

In a span of just a few days another reader came up to me at a “Wooden & Me” book signing and shared that she routinely displays my columns on her refrigerator; a teacher told me she occasionally reads and discusses my columns with her high school class; and a woman at a service group I was a guest speaker at showed me a thick folder of my columns she has clipped out, explaining through tears how my words have affected her life over the years.

As Paul Olmsted put it, “Wow!” Each encounter took only a brief moment from the giver, but I can assure you the good feelings in the receiver have been lasting.

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Sometimes a first-rate compliment can be passed forward secondhand.

Larry Baratte, head swimming coach at Ventura College and a Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame inductee, attended the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Awards Luncheon as a guest two weeks past.

The event featured a Father’s Day theme and one of the speakers was John Wooden’s daughter, Nan. Larry had the opportunity to meet Nan and happened to mention me to her. This in itself was a kind thing to do, but even kinder was his reaching out to me afterwards with Nan’s immediate response: “Daddy loved Woody.”

Hearing those three words left me sitting speechless for five minutes, lost in memories with tears in my eyes but also champagne in my heart. Larry’s forwarded compliment not only made my day a masterpiece, to borrow one of my favorite Wooden-isms, it made my entire month a masterpiece.

Remarkably, despite my two-decade friendship with Coach and many visits in his home, I have never met Nan. This is something I must soon remedy. I need to find the right words, a small bouquet of a compliment, to put some bubbles of joy in her veins.

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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”

Column: Masterpiece Grads

by Woody

New Grads, Create A Masterpiece Day (And Repeat)

Dear Class of 2015, I am honored to have been invited (albeit by myself) to address you here today.

Michelangelo, when asked how he had created one of his masterpiece sculptures, replied simply: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”1angel

Creating your own masterpiece life, dear graduates, as you journey forward requires a similar process: You must see the angel – your passion – and then set it free.

For Michelangelo, this meant chipping away the pieces of marble that did not look like the angel or the horse or David. In our lives, this means chipping away the distractions and challenges and even the negative people who are preventing us from achieving our dreams.

In addition to being sculptors, you are also painters who create your masterpiece by adding brushstokes of color to the canvas. In other words, by adding determination and patience and love, to name just three key hues.

For good reason my dear mentor John Wooden advised focusing on creating your masterpiece day and not your masterpiece life. A masterpiece sculpture is created one chisel strike at a time; a masterpiece painting one brushstroke at a time; a masterpiece novel one keystroke at a time. So is a masterpiece life – private and professional – created one masterful day at a time, one after another, until they add up to masterpiece weeks, months, years.

To focus on a masterpiece life, or even a masterpiece year, is too daunting. Better to keep in mind this additional wisdom from Coach Wooden: “Little things add up to big things.”

A parable about a starfish emphasizes the big power of little acts. It was a beautiful Southern California morning and a beachcomber was walking along the sand that was littered with kelp and driftwood from a violent storm the night before. In the distance he noticed a man bend down to pick something up and then toss it into the ocean.

Every few steps, the man repeated this calisthenic: stop, bend, stand, toss. But what was he throwing, the beachcomber wondered: Driftwood sticks? Broken seashells? Skipping stones?

As the two morning walkers neared each other, the beachcomber finally realized the man was picking up starfish that, by the hundreds, had been washed ashore by the violent storm’s high surf and left stranded.

The beachcomber could not help but laugh at the other man’s futile efforts. “You’re just wasting your time,” he said. “There are too far many starfish for you to make a difference before they die.”1gradpic

“Maybe,” the man replied as he gently tossed another starfish into the waves. “But to this one I’m making a world of difference.”

As you venture out into the world, Class of 2015, keep an eye out for “starfish” who need your help.

Before closing, I would like to share a passage near the end of Ray Bradbury’s classic novel, Fahrenheit 451: “Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.”

These words remind me of a poem by my grandfather Ansel, handwritten on the title page of his medical college textbook Modern Surgery and dated Oct. 1, 1919, less than a year before Bradbury was born:

“The worker dies, but the work lives on / Whether a picture, a book, or a clock

“Ticking the minutes of life away / For another worker in metal or rock

“My work is with children and women and men / Not iron, not brass, not wood

“And I hope when I lay my stethoscope down / That my Chief will call it good.”

By finding your passion and work that you want to live on, dear graduates, and by creating your masterpiece day, over and again, in the end your Chief will call it good.

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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”

Column: Glory Days

by Woody

Looking at Life in the Rear-View Mirror

Bruce Springsteen’s classic “Glory Days” played on the radio the other day and it got me thinking about athletes who spend their post-playing days looking — and living — in the rearview mirror.

Such as New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath who coolly guaranteed, and more coolly delivered, victory in Super Bowl III against the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in 1969. Three decades later, Namath told me: “It was the pinnacle of my life. It was a high I haven’t felt or equaled since. If I could be any age again, I would want to stay 25.”

And, yet, staying forever 25 would mean he would have missed out later on having his two daughters.GloryDays.png PM

Another Hall of Famer, Bill Bradley, once wrote of retiring from the NBA: “What’s left? To live one’s days never able to recapture the feeling of those few years of intensified youth.”

In other words, even being a U.S. senator was a letdown from being a young shooting star with the New York Knicks.

“What’s left?” How sad to ask this at age 25 — or even 35, dotage for most pro athletes.

In “Glory Days” Springsteen sings: “I hope when I get old, I don’t sit around thinking about it / But I probably will / Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture / A little of the glory of, well time slips away / And leaves you with nothing, mister / But boring stories of glory days.”

Fifteen years after his glory days as an All-American high school quarterback, Neely Crenshaw, a character in John Grisham’s novel “Bleachers,” returns to his small hometown to visit his old coach who is dying.

Crenshaw suffered a career-ending knee injury in college and tells his former teammates: “When you’re famous at 18, you spend the rest of your life fading away. You dream of the glory days, but you know they’re gone forever. I wish I’d never seen a football.”

How tragic. Can you imagine a gifted teacher wishing she’d never seen a chalkboard; an astronomer lamenting ever touching a telescope; a concert pianist ruing a keyboard?

The night he lost his heavyweight title to Rocky Marciano, Joe Louis was asked whether Rocky punched harder than Max Schmeling had 15 years earlier, the only other time Louis had been stopped.

“The kid,” Louis said of Marciano, “knocked me out with what — two punches? Schmeling knocked me out with — musta been a hundred punches. But I was 22 years old then. You can take more then than later on.”

“Later on” comes far sooner for athletes. A writer, teacher or architect may not reach the zenith of his or her powers until age 50 or 80. Physicians, too, for as Benjamin Franklin noted: “Beware the young doctor.”

My dad is not a young doctor. Now 86, he is still enjoying his glory days saving lives by assisting on cases in the operating room.

“I feel I’ve always kept improving as a surgeon,” Pop shares. “My hands are as steady as ever. What I’ve lost is the stamina to do long cases. I used to be able to operate all day long, get called back into the hospital that night to do an emergency operation, get two hours of sleep and come back and do it all again the next day. Not anymore. My eyesight is still there, my technical skills are still there, but I don’t have a young man’s stamina.

“On the other hand, I have continued to gain knowledge so my decision-making is always improving. Maybe when you are younger, you are more aggressive — sometimes too aggressive. So I think as an older doctor, I’m also a wiser doctor.”

John Updike, a highly successful author right up to his death at age 76, once noted, “We all, in a way, peak at 18.”

My dad disagrees. “I don’t think I peaked at 18 or 25 at all,” he allows. “I couldn’t chose one favorite age I’d want to be because I wouldn’t want to have missed everything that came after it. At the time I’ve lived it, every age has been the best.”

That’s a glorious attitude.

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Woody Woodburn is a columnist for the Ventura County Star.