Tag Archives: love

Valentine’s Day Is More Than Candy

by Woody

It is easy to view Valentine’s Day – which will once again sneak up, on tiptoes, on a lot of forgetful boyfriends and husbands a few days hence – through jaundiced eyes as a holiday contrived for selling greeting cards and flowers, fancy chocolates and fancier restaurant dinners.

Looking through long-stem roses colored glasses, however, Cupid’s big day always reminds me of weddings. This of course includes my own, although admittedly the ceremony and reception – held before nuptial videography became en vogue – are a blur. Forty years later, I wish we had a videotape to fill in our memories.

Indeed, after watching my beautiful bride walk down the aisle to meet me at the pulpit, everything else – the verse readings, the minister’s words, our vows and our first kiss as husband and wife, the giddy walk on air with helium in our shoes back down the aisle together, the reception line, toasts given, our first dance, even how in the world one of the groomsmen wound up in a swimming pool in his tux – is pretty much all lost in the fog of time.

Given a time-machine trip back to Sept. 4, 1982, I would make a concentrated effort to stop and smell the bridal bouquet, so to speak, and savor more specific moments from the whirlwind day.

The next best thing to a time machine, for me, is going to weddings. Sitting in a church pew, or nestled around a gorgeous garden spot or gathered together overlooking the ocean, allows one to experience the pomp and circumstance much more clearly than can the two people standing front and center – and excited and overwhelmed – taking their vows.

Being a wedding spectator offers the chance to vicariously be the groom or bride again, this time with the advantage of not being bowled over by the occasion, and woos you to silently renew your own vows and commitment as you watch the marquee couple do so.

To be certain, it is almost impossible not to have your own heart chirp in song while watching two lovebirds join The Matrimony Club. The next time you are at a wedding, when the bride and groom are saying their vows, slyly peek around and notice how many married couples in attendance reach down and squeeze each other’s hands; after their big kiss, see how many little kisses among wedded spectators follow.

Another thing I like to do, if it hasn’t been mentioned among the toasts, is to ask the bride and groom how they met. Even if their “meet-cute” was not the stuff of a Nora Ephron movie, the blissful couple will always light up in retelling.

Meanwhile, listening to their tale always lightens my heart and reminds me of my own enchanted first encounter that led to “for better, for worse, in sickness and in health…”

Valentine’s Day, like weddings, affords a similar opportunity to be inspired by love. If you go for a walk along the beach this February 14th, or out to a restaurant, you will have no trouble picking out the dating couples and newlyweds and recently-weds.

Equally heartening are the couples you can tell have been together for a long, long time yet still glow like they are newly in love. If there were a polite way to do so, I would love to interrupt these veteran darlings and ask how they met – and their secrets to keeping the magic alive.

I have a strong hunch some of them might mention that going to weddings always results in being struck by a rejuvenating arrow from Cupid’s bow.

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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.

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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

This Rom-Com Stands Test of Time

by Woody

Upon meeting a married couple, from newlyweds to having celebrated their diamond anniversary, I love to ask how they met. Blind date or meet cute or online dating match, they always light up in the retelling – as do I in the listening.

In the hopes that you feel likewise, let me share a synopsis of my in-progress screenplay with the working title, “When Woody Met Lisa.” Instead of starring Billy Crystal (dark hair, not the required shaggy ginger-blond) and Meg Ryan (blond, not brunette), the leading characters will be played by Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams.

The movie opens on the campus of UC Santa Barbara, in a dining hall, at dinnertime. There are three hot-food lines and Woody intentionally chooses the longest one. When he finally reaches the front we see why: the server, even with her cascading locks tucked up in a hair net, is the prettiest girl he has ever seen.

Our first date, the very next evening after meeting at a party…

“Lasagna and tater tots, please,” the freshman says, choking on any attempt to flirt because the sophomore beauty is far out of his league. A quick montage follows, showing him in her line all year with similar failed results.

Fast-forward two years to a Christmas party at the off -campus apartment of two of Woody’s wild-and-crazy former freshman dorm mates. Across the crowded room, Woody sees a girl who makes his heart pick up a faster drumbeat. She is wearing a light-blue sweater, and no hair net, but no sooner does he try to strike up a conversation than the keg runs dry and the party breaks up and everyone decides to go to another friend’s bash.

Everyone, that is, except Lisa, who has promised a different friend she would drop by her party. Alas, their romance seems derailed before it has even begun.

“I’ll walk you there,” Woody quickly, and wisely, blurts out and the Nora Ephron-like fun begins. At one point, Woody gets Lisa a beer while she goes to the restroom – and when she returns he has slyly maneuvered himself underneath a hanging sprig of mistletoe. Lisa accepts the red Solo Cup and then unexplainably pulls Woody across the room, thwarting his ploy before he can act on it.

…and still feel like were dating all these years later!

All is not lost, however, as Woody and Lisa do kiss later that evening – with no assist from mistletoe – and then go on a dinner date the following evening and promptly fall in love.

As in all good rom-coms, just when things are going perfectly a break-up strikes like a lightning bolt. Both start dating others and at this low point, with Woody crushed by the flu, Lisa brings him an Easter basket filled with a chocolate bunny and candy, his favorite fresh bagels and cream cheese, and an array of cold and cough medicines. Woody’s fever instantly soars even higher with lovesickness and to this day he counts his lucky stars he got sick.

Also to this day, by the way, Lisa insists she never saw the mistletoe the night of their meet cute.

In two days – on September 4th – the two lovebirds will celebrate their ruby wedding anniversary of 40 years. Woody already knows the toast he will give her at dinner, quoting a line in a novel by one of his favorite authors, Brian Doyle, where the narrator, recalling his first kiss with his future wife many, many years earlier, says: “How can you not stay in love with the girl who was with you the very moment you were introduced to true happiness.”

Our movie ends, naturally, with a kiss beneath a sprig of mistletoe.

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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

 

 

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

 

 

Sailboat Pic Sets Memories Afloat

by Woody

Just as I savor listening to the ocean’s waves as a nighttime lullaby, so too do I love gazing out to sea under the light of day. Such was I doing recently, playing hooky from all responsibilities, when my phone pinged with a text.

Tempted to ignore it, I was glad I did not for it was from my son. He had sent me a photo, taken just then 70 miles south of Ventura, that was a matching bookend to the postcard scene I was simultaneously enjoying, except for one small addition: a sailboat in the distance.

This was extra special because “sailboat” has long been a cipher between the two of us that means “I love you.” He came up with it, for reasons unknown even by him, at age 5 or 6. All these years later, whenever either of us sees a sailboat – on the water, in a painting, on bookshelf, et cetera – we text the other a photo, no words necessary.

This small sailboat in my son’s texted photo gave me a very big smile.

As always, the tiny picture on my phone screen gave me a big smile. As sometimes, it also sent my mind sailing over the deep waters of past ocean memories.

First, I mentally returned to the gorgeous waters of Peggy’s Cove, a quaint fishing village in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where my wife and I traveled a few years ago. In addition to seeing myriad sailboats, we saw “The Titanic Grave Site” where 121 victims of the infamous sea disaster are interred. They found their final resting places there because two ships based in Halifax – the Mackay-Bennett and the Minia – assisted the search for bodies.

Later on our same trip we visited Plymouth Rock and I could only marvel at how the Mayflower, a wooden ship that was far less “unsinkable” than the great inch-thick-steel-plated Titanic, had survived its perilous journey. I marveled anew at this now, which led to another thought…

… how the sea gods, or perhaps just old-fashioned good luck, smiled on a very sinkable wooden ship that set sail from Ireland in 1792 for the faraway shores of America. Had that sailing vessel suffered a Titanic-like fate I would never have been for my great-great-great-grandfather James Dallas, then only 14 and traveling alone, was onboard.

I imagine James was fleeing famine or other hardship. His voyage must have been far more difficult and dangerous, and his bravery greater, than I can even imagine.

Heritage is a funny thing. I feel proudly lifted by James’s steely mettle as if it is magically my inheritance, yet had he been a thief or murderer I would not cling to that as an anchor pulling me down.

Buoyed by my roots, in my mind’s ear I have often heard my distant forefather inspiring me to be braver, take chances, pursue my dreams even if rough seas must be sailed. Such feelings have seemed amplified when I am at the Ventura Pier or beach, touring the lighthouse at Peggy’s Cove or two dozen similar beacons I have traveled to see, on a cruise ship or sailboat.

By coincidence, or perhaps by godwink, the very morning I sat down to write this column the front page of The Star featured a story and photograph of a replica 19th-century wooden tall ship. The Mystic Whaler, an 83-foot-long schooner with twin 110-foot tall masts, had arrived at its new home in Channel Islands Harbor.

You can be sure I am going to visit this “floating museum” upon its official opening and let my imagination set sail. And, naturally, I will text a photo to my son.

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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

 

 

Mourning On A Gloomy Morning

by Woody

My favorite Wooden-ism, as I call John Wooden’s maxims, is “Make each day your masterpiece.”

This past Tuesday never had a chance to be a masterpiece. It was a canvas painted with ugly graffiti; a day where the Southern California sunshine seemed gloomy; a masterpiece ruined because Nan Wooden, the late legendary coach’s daughter, passed away in the morning at age 87 of natural causes.

The news squeezed my heart so hard it felt bruised and brought me to tears. Losing a friend is never easy, even one you have never met. Indeed, all the times I visited Coach in his home during our two-decade friendship, Nan never happened to be present.

That is not entirely accurate. Her presence was always felt through photos on display and our conversations.

Coach John Wooden and daughter Nan at at UCLA basketball game.

When my daughter Dallas was born – coincidentally, and sentimentally for Coach, her due date was his and Nell’s wedding anniversary – he shared how over-the-moon he had been when Nan was born and that I was likewise sure to be wrapped around my own little girl’s finger.

Two years later when my son arrived, Coach pointed out that we had both been blessed with “one of each” and in the same order. After that, I always paired Nan with Dallas, his Jim with my Greg, and I think Coach did likewise.

When Coach passed away a decade ago, I sent Nan a condolence card care of her father’s address. In the months, and even years, to follow I wish I had made a greater effort to reach out through others to set up a visit.

Among many things I would have loved to ask her was something I should have asked her “Daddy” as she called him even in her old age: Did he ever put notes with Wooden-ism – Daddy-isms to her! – in her school lunches?

I would have shared with Nan how I had made a daily habit of writing notes such as “Have a great day!” or “Good luck on your spelling test!” or “I miss you lots!” on paper napkins and putting them inside Dallas’s Little Mermaid lunchbox and Greg’s Power Rangers lunchbox.

Then, after I took them to meet her Daddy one unforgettable afternoon when they were 10 and nearly 8, I started adding his pearls of wisdom such as “Be quick, but don’t hurry” (a great reminder before a spelling test) and “Happiness begins where selfishness ends” and “Little things make big things happen” and dozens more.

Coach’s Seven-Point Creed, one line at a time, became a frequent go-to napkin jotting: “Be true to yourself. Make each day your masterpiece. Help others. Drink deeply from good books. Make friendship a fine art. Build shelter against a rainy day. Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.”

We would discuss Wooden-isms at the dinner table and also talked about Coach’s “Pyramid of Success” and his personal definition of success: “Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.”

Today, Dallas is already teaching Wooden-isms to her nearly 3-year-old daughter Maya and Greg frequently texts Wooden’s gems to me! I think Nan would have enjoyed hearing all this.

About losing Nell, Coach wrote to me once: “I no longer have any fear of death as that is my only chance, if He will forgive me of my sins, to be with her again.”

Maybe last Tuesday was a masterpiece day after all, in Heaven, with Coach, Nell and Nan smiling at their reunion.

 *   *   *

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 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

Poor Proposal, Rich Marriage

by Woody

Among Carol King’s full catalogue of memorable songs, one lyric is most dear to me. It is from her iconic “Tapestry” album and goes, “Where you lead, I will follow.”

That, without the piano accompaniment, was what my college sweetheart told me matter-of-factly a month before I was to graduate from UC Santa Barbara. Wherever I eventually found a newspaper job, she promised to follow.

“Well, then, we might as well get married,” I replied without a moment’s hesitation, without a ring, without getting down on bended knee. It was perhaps the least planned and least romantic proposal in history.

Our very first date…

“Quit joking,” she replied and laughed.

She had good reason to think I was kidding. After all, we had dated for less than a year and a half, and that included a three-month breakup in the middle of our romance – of course, doesn’t every worthwhile rom-com have a breakup? – plus a full summer spent apart. Moreover, we were so very young. She was only 23 while I was still a couple weeks away from turning 22.

No matter. After she stopped laughing, I tried once more: “I’m serious. Will you marry me?”

This time she said “yes” and today – Sept. 4 – we celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary.

I cannot speak for my much-better-half, but when asked for my secret to a blissful marriage here is my answer: Find a former homecoming princess whose inner beauty impossibly outshines her outward comeliness; who is supremely kind and confident and charming, intelligent and generous and strong; with a sense of humor and an ocean of grace and, importantly, has a soft spot in her heart for a knuckleheaded guy.

Thirty-nine years – and two children raised to adulthood, and one grandchild thus far – is a long time, yet it also seems to have passed in about 39 days. The French writer Andre Maurois noted, “A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems too short.” That’s how Lisa makes me feel.

… and as a beautiful bride.

Too, she brings to my mind the poetry of Tennyson and these lines: “If I had a flower for every time I thought of you . . . I could walk through my garden forever.” If only I had recited those syrupy lines when I proposed it might have compensated for not having already bought an engagement ring.

In “As You Like It” Shakespeare wrote, “Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?” So it was with me.

Our meet-cute happened under a sprig of mistletoe at a college Christmas party thrown by mutual friends. She was wearing a light-blue turtleneck sweater, jean bell bottoms and running shoes, while I was soon wearing a smile that reached from Isla Vista to the Channel Islands.

Our first date was the very next day, a hole-in-the-wall dinner out, and I showed up at her door with a single yellow rose. At the time, I had no clue that yellow roses convey “friendship” while red ones signify “love.” In hindsight, yellow was perfect because it exemplifies a passage from A.A. Milne’s “Winnie-the-Pooh” that still describes my love for Lisa:

“ ‘We’ll be Friends Forever, won’t we, Pooh?’ asked Piglet.

“ ‘Even longer,’ Pooh answered.”

Half of forever later, as I reminisce about watching “Leese” walk down the wedding aisle, the words of the great John Steinbeck invade my heart. In his essay “The Golden Handcuff” about his long and deep love for San Francisco, he wrote: “My God! How beautiful it was and I knew then how beautiful.”

My God! How beautiful she was and I knew it then. I know it still.

 *   *   *

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 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

Two Stories As Sweet As Cider

by Woody

“One of these days in your travels,” Damon Runyon wrote, “a guy is going to come up to you and show you a nice brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the Jack of Spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in your ear.

“But, son, do not bet this man, for as sure as you are standing there, you are going to end up with an earful of cider.”

As a break from the earful of sour news we all get squirted with daily, here are two stories to give you a smile – one sent to me by a friend, the other by my nephew, authors unknown.

*

“I was shopping in a big store and heard a loud crash. Multiple items had broken. Without even seeing what had happened, that much was obvious.

“I went to investigate. It was a shopping cart accident. An older shopper had misjudged a corner and steered her cart into a tall display, which came crashing down. It was quite a mess. Many items were shattered.

“The older shopper who had caused all this was on her knees. She was extremely embarrassed. Frantically, she was trying to clean things up. It was all her fault. She would make it right. People were gathered around her, doing nothing but gawking.

“Since I heard the crash, I felt I had to do something. I knelt down beside this poor woman and told her not to worry. I helped her pick up the broken pieces.

“After about a minute, the store manager appeared. He got on his knees next to us and said, ‘Leave it all there. We will clean it up.’

“The woman who was responsible said, ‘I want to pay you for all the damage.’

“The store manager said, ‘No, we have insurance for this. You don’t have to pay a thing. These things happen. It’s really nothing. Please don’t let this ruin your day.”

*

“I’m not a garbage man, but my dad was before I was born.

“He’d found old fishing lures, a Bulova watch, but more importantly…

“My dad was the driver who had this one girl’s garbage route, and every time the girl would hear the truck she’d get all the last-minute garbage from the house and take it out so she could get a good look at all the garbage men.

“And she was interested in my dad. She even scheduled her radiography classes around trash collection day, just so she’d be home. When my dad noticed the trend, he’d often switch roles with one of the guys on the back of the truck so he could take the girl’s last-minute garbage from her and toss it in.

“This went on for months. One day, the girl’s father locked her out of the house and said he wouldn’t let her back in until she gave her phone number to one of the garbage men.

“Coincidentally, this was one day my dad was driving. She took the trash up to the guy on the back and asked him, ‘Hey, is your driver seeing anyone?’

“The guy yelled to my dad, ‘Hey, Keith, are you seeing anyone?!?!’

“And that is how my dad found his most valuable treasure, my mom, in the garbage. They’ve been happily married for almost 26 years.”

*

I like to think – no, in fact, I know – these sweet-as-cider love stories and Golden Rule kindnesses happen all around us, and to us, each day.

 *   *   *

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 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

 

 

Long List of Short Love Stories

by Woody

After two tearjerker columns in a row some laughter seems called for today.

“Even the gods love jokes,” Plato said and hopefully that includes puns for here are some – good and bad, but all fun – contributed by my friends who responded to the prompt: “She fell in love with an electrician and she got shocked. … Keep it going.”

“She fell in love with a nurse and that was a shot in arm.” – Mary Leu Pappas

“She fell in love with a fisherman and got hooked!” – Ed Wehan

“She fell in love with a fisherman, and he caught and released her.” – Susie Merry

“She fell in love with a firefighter and things got hot.” – Kathleen Koening

“She fell in love with a papermaker and was recycled.” – Pamela Joy Dransfeldt

“She married a tailor and life was sew-sew.” – Gary Bednorz

“She married the cable installer and the reception was amazing!” – Steve Grimm

“She fell in love with a prince and he turned into a frog.” – Rebecca Ann Caron

“She fell in love with an elevator operator and life was full of ups and downs.” – Mitch Gold

“She fell in love with a moonshiner, but I loved her still.” – David Heath

“She fell in love with 800 meter runner. He had a run track mind!” – Rick Torres

“She fell in love with a runner, but couldn’t catch her.” – Trudy Tuttle Arriaga

“She fell in love with a runner and he ran away (daily).” – Conni Miller

Scott Harris took the task to heart by submitting three and saved his best for last (wink-wink): “She fell in love with a gardener and life was a bed of roses. / She fell in love with a banker and was in the money. / She fell in love with Woody and lived a masterpiece life.”

“She fell in love with a cowboy and rode off into the sunset.” – Polly-Jo Gehr

“She fell in love with a gambler and lost.” – Sam Ce

“She fell in love with a recreation supervisor and has had fun ever since.” – Lanny Binney

“She fell in love with a poet and gave birth to a sonnet.” – Angela Dixon

“She fell in love with a teacher and learned her lesson!” – Jennifer Tipton

“She fell in love with a bartender, and she was shaken not stirred.” – Elektra Cohen

“She fell in love with a bartender and all too soon she’d had her fill.” – Dennis Jones

“She fell in love with a basketball player and had a ball.” Jeff Argend

“She fell in love with a pilot and her happiness soared to unimaginable heights!” – Chuck Blais

“She fell in love with a butcher and life was a grind.” – Gary Bednorz

“She fell in love with a sailor and it’s been smooth sailing since.” – Gail Tebbets

“She fell in love with a sailor and tied the knot.” – Susan Adamich

“She fell in love with a cobbler, but later discovered he was a heel, and soleless, and gave him the boot!” – Michael Weinberg-Lynn

“She fell in love with a vintner and got wined!” – Diana Boydstun

“She fell in love with a garbage man, but he dumped her.” – Todd Kane

“He fell in love with his yoga teacher. His friends told him to break it off but he said, ‘Namastay.’ ” – Toni Tuttle-Santana

“She fell in love with a guitarist and then felt picked on.” – Patrick Burke

And, from yours truly: “She fell in love with a writer and is enjoying the next chapter of her life.”

 *  *  *

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 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

 

Two Readers Put Tears In The Writer

by Woody

“No tears in the writer,” Robert Frost famously noted, “no tears in the reader.” The reverse is true as well, as two readers recently proved by making my eyes well up to overflowing.

The first email came from Susanne Hopkins, from Maine, in greatly belated response to a column I wrote back in October of 2018 about Audrey and David Mills and their enchanting lecture about lobsters at the tiny Mount Desert Oceanarium Lobster Hatchery in Bar Harbor.

More than crustaceans, however, my column was really about an octogenarian couple that had been married 62 years yet still came into focus like honeymooners. “The lobster couple,” I wrote in conclusion, “is actually a pair of lovebirds.”

“Lobster Couple” Audrey and David Mills were married 64 years.

Two and a half years later their love affair that had now celebrated 64 wedding anniversaries touched me again when Susanne wrote a few weeks ago: “Dear Woody, I am the granddaughter of David and Audrey Mills – my grandfather went to be with his Heavenly Father last Tuesday. My daughter and I stumbled across your column during a Google search and I read your words to my grieving grandmother this morning and it brought happy smiles to our faces.

“I’m so grateful that you visited the Oceanarium and that you could see the beauty in not just their museum, but also in my very special grandparents. As their granddaughter, I am so proud of the lives they touched in the 46 years they ran their aquarium. Your column was a beautiful testament to who my grandfather was. He always let us know how much he loved us, and I think in this world that can be quite unusual.”

Tissue, please. I felt like I had tossed a bottle with a message corked inside into the ocean and after more than two years it came bobbing back in the waves and washed up onto the beach with the loveliest reply imaginable.

Shortly later, a second bottle washed ashore and I needed another tissue. This time the message came from much nearer, from Ventura, from Joyce Rieske. She also emailed belated in reply to a column, this one from more than a year ago, headlined “The Beauty of Sunsets.” In short, I marveled over our local coastal sundowns that often seem to have been painted by Monet using a palette of flames; mixed oils of reds, golds and oranges.

Wrote Joyce: “Dear Woody, My husband Cornelius – Connie – and I have always looked forward with anticipation to our Saturday Star. As long as his vision was good enough, Connie read your column himself each week. However, when his eyesight began failing, I read the Star and especially Woody to him.

“Last year, on February 9, 2020, I reread him your lovely column of February 8 about our wonderful Ventura County sunsets as Connie was experiencing his final sunset. That final sunset was a ‘pyrotechnic display’ as you wrote about and I was actually reading your words at his passing. You gave us the perfect ending to a perfect life of 62 years of marriage. Thank you for being a part of our life together.”

The misty-eyed thanks truly is mine to Joyce. Learning that one of my columns provided new widow Audrey Mills a moment’s reprieve from her ocean-deep grief was one of the most touching compliments I have ever received, but to imagine my written words being the final thing Connie Rieske heard, and in his beloved wife’s sweet voice, I will never receive a higher honor.

Nor will I ever take a Monet-like sunset even the least bit for granted.

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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 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

Forecast: 92-Percent Chance Of Love

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Forecast: 92-Percent

Chance Of Love

If the weather app on you phone says there’s 92-percent chance of rain, you’d best take your umbrella or wear a raincoat.

If Netflix ranks a movie title a 92-pecent match with your viewing history, it’s a coin toss if you’ll actually like it.

And if an online dating site claims you are a 92-percent match with another person, I would suggest you go meet someone the old-fashioned way at a party, park, bookstore or grocery store aisle.

To begin with, if “opposites attract” shouldn’t you want more like a 12-percent match? Perhaps dating algorithms take this into account, but I’m still a naysayer.

Without ever having used one, my complaint with dating apps is not that they aren’t good matchmakers but rather that they are raining on one of my favorite things to do when I’m introduced to a couple. Be they engaged or newlyweds or married for decades, I like to ask: “How did you meet?”

Almost without fail, their faces light up and I’m treated to a story they love to tell. Quite often it’s more entertaining than a rom-com. Alas, how does a meet-cute happen in cyberspace?

Let me tell you how. Actually, I shall let my daughter Dallas tell you. First, as a teaser trailer, imagine “You’ve Got Mail” with Meg Ryan’s book-loving “Shopgirl” character played by an equally adorable girl who loves books and sunflowers. Meanwhile, cantankerous Joe Fox with the email username “NY152” is played by a good-looking young man as likeable as the real-life Tom Hanks.

Spoiler alert: The sunflower-loving girl, a Dodgers fan by the way, and the young man who has loved the Oakland A’s since boyhood have now been married four years and have a precious 2-year-old daughter.

And so, with February being the month of “Love and Romance” and Cupid and Valentine’s Day, I now turn the column over to Dallas:

Lovebirds Allyn and Dallas — Hollywood name, Dallyn!

“One night in late January 2014, ‘Sunflowergirl87’ was browsing OkCupid when she came across a photo of a handsome guy with a bird on his shoulder, ‘OaktownA’sFan,’ who the dating-site algorithm declared was a 92% match. She decided to reach out with a message.

“ ‘Hi! I was really drawn to your profile – you seem like such a genuine, adventurous, glass-half-full person, and I just wanted to reach out and say hello . . .’

“OaktownA’sFan read this sincere, heart-on-her-sleeve message and immediately knew this girl had not been online dating for long, because she sounded way too optimistic and friendly. ‘I better swoop her up fast,’ he thought.

“ ‘Hi there! Thank you for such a sweet and thoughtful message. I would love to meet up for coffee or tea sometime!’

“They messaged back and forth a little bit – about Dallas’s writing, Allyn’s sustainable business MBA, dogs, random acts of kindness – before OaktownA’sFan (‘my name is Allyn, pronounced Alan’) asked sunflowergirl87 (‘my name is Dallas, like the city’) out for ice cream at Lottie’s Ice Cream Parlor in Walnut Creek.

“Their first date, on February 1, was a rainy evening – not the best weather for ice cream, but neither of them minded. Allyn ordered the adventurous flavor with cayenne pepper in it. Dallas ordered something chocolate. Allyn was so attentive asking Dallas questions that she talked and talked and talked and her ice cream all melted. They walked down the street to Starbucks to talk longer because neither felt ready to say goodbye yet.

“The next day, Allyn asked Dallas out on a second date.

“Soon after that, they both disabled their OkCupid accounts.”

I love a cute love story, don’t you?

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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 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