Tag Archives: New York Public Library

A Book A Tree, A Tree And A Book

by Woody

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A Book And A Tree,

A Tree And A Book

“When we try to pick out anything by itself,” John Muir wrote, “we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”

So it is that a book in New York City is hitched to a tree in Central California; and that tree is hitched to a tree in Camarillo; which in turn is hitched to a book in Ventura. This circle of life, so to speak – trees becoming books and books leading to trees – includes a death, but begins with a birthday.

As birthday gift a couple years past, my son gave me a book. Rather, knowing my passion for books and literacy and libraries, he donated a new volume in my honor to the New York Public Library.

A commemorative nameplate on the first page inside its front cover reads: “In honor of my Dad – Thank you for teaching me to make each day a masterpiece, drink deeply from good books, and make friendship a fine art.”

Those are my top three of John Wooden’s “Seven-Point Creed.” To be told that these lessons from my beloved mentor have successfully been passed down like a priceless heirloom to my son put birdsong in my heart.

You may be curious as to the title of the gifted pages. I certainly was and specifically wondered which of my all-time favorites my son chose: “The Old Man and the Sea”? Perhaps “The Grapes of Wrath” or “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”? Or maybe my childhood treasure “Where The Wild Things Are”?

Alas, my son had no say in the selection and was not informed which book was purchased. When I contacted the NYPL and asked I was told no specific records are kept.

“You’ll have to find it yourself,” the employee joked.

Here’s the punch line: If placed end to end, there are 63.3 miles of shelves in the NYPL’s main branch at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan. Indeed, one would need endless “Patience” and unlimited “Fortitude” – the names of the two iconic marble lions proudly standing guard at the front entrance – to find my honorary nameplate in one of the 3 million volumes within. Finding a needle in a vast hayfield would be less impossible.

In truth, not knowing which title bears my nameplate in no way diminishes the specialness of the gift because now I can imagine it to be any book at all. With this insight, I gave a dear friend of mine a similar gift she will never find – a memorial tree planted in Sierra National Forest after her sister passed away.

Upon the death of another of her loved ones, my friend thought of the faraway tree she has seen only in her imagination.

“Your gift deeply moved my soul,” she told me kindly, “and inspired me to purchase a Chinese Elm – ‘Tree of Harmony’ – for my family to put in the Friendship Garden at our church in honor of my sister and brother-in-law.”

Together, she and her husband and their three children personally planted the skinny eight-foot-tall elm and surrounded it with a circular perimeter of large stones. She expressed comfort in knowing their Tree of Harmony will always be there to visit.

Inspiration seeds inspiration. To be able to see a specific tree through the forest, as it were, inspired me to donate a book – of my choosing, this time – to a local library. I won’t give away its title, but I will tell you the handwritten inscription inside reads:

“Make each day a masterpiece, drink deeply from good books like this one, and make friendship a fine art.”

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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

 

A Trip to Patience and Fortitude

by Woody

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A Trip to Patience and Fortitude

Second in a series of columns chronicling my recent travels from Paul Revere’s gravesite in Boston to John Steinbeck’s writing cabin in Long Island, and more.

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Patience and Fortitude are the nicknames of the two grand marble lions regally standing guard before the New York Public Library’s entrance on Fifth Avenue.

Fortitude and patience, lower case, were also part of my maiden visit to our nation’s largest public library. I had intended to go the previous spring, but en route on the subway my right index finger was filleted by the train’s doors. An urgent detour for 16 stitches derailed my plans.

Eleven months later, my patience was rewarded. Again visiting my son in Manhattan, I again headed to the lion sentries. This time, I avoided mishap on the subway.

Exiting the station, however, was a different matter. In the shadows of skyscrapers, I had no idea which direction was my intended west. The fourth person I asked for help, a young woman, pointed me off with the assuredness of a compass.

Moments later, I flinched at a tapping on my shoulder. It was the young woman. Realizing she had erred, and defying the rude New Yorker stereotype, she had hustled two blocks out of her way – in heels! – to catch up and turn me around.1lionsNYPL.com

Days earlier, the Boston Athenaeum, that city’s original library dating back to 1805, had taken my breath away. The New York Public Library, founded in 1895, knocked me out. It is not a library so much as a museum.

Patience and Fortitude out front are complimented inside by a collection of masterful bronze statues and marble busts. Too, priceless paintings and monumental murals abound.

Even the ceilings are artworks. The dome of the McGraw Rotunda, for example, brings to mind the Sistine Chapel. The Rose Main Reading Room, meanwhile, surpasses the rotunda roof. Nearly the length of a football field, its ceiling features exquisite wood carving and gilded tiling forming an elegant frame around a painted blue sky filled with clouds.

It is my experience that travels take on themes and have common threads, some intentional and others serendipitous. Occasionally these threads weave together past trips with present ones. So it was this time.

Just as the Boston Athenaeum has on prominent display a statue of George Washington, the New York Public Library features two oil-on-canvas portraits of our first president by Rembrandt Peale. This shared thread appeared front and center in the Salomon Room: to the left, Washington in his general’s uniform; beside it on the right, in dress attire.1GWasington

Another interwoven strand surprisingly appeared: Henry David Thoreau. Two summers past, I visited the writer’s revered cabin site in Concord, Mass. Now, on exhibit in the New York Public Library, I saw an 1854 first edition of “Walden; or, Life In the Woods.”

Other artifacts on display from Thoreau’s life included two pages from his voluminous journal that became the manuscript of his most famous book; a letter to his friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson; a daguerreotype portrait, taken in 1856, of a bearded Thoreau in a suit jacket and bowtie.

Many of these items – plus a pencil actually made by Thoreau – I had not seen on my previous pilgrimage to Walden Pond. The best travels have such surprises.

Around the corner from Thoreau’s pencil was a temporary exhibit titled “Peace, Love, and Revolution” about the 1960s. Among the memorabilia was novelist and screenwriter Terry Southern’s typewriter.

The bulky Olympia unexpectedly proved to be a sentence that connected past pages of my travels with the next paragraph on this road trip.

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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” …