Tag Archives: Thanks

Thanksgiving Tale From Childhood

by Woody

Serendipity smiled, winked as well, and made me laugh earlier this week by bringing one of my favorite Thanksgiving memories to mind.

To begin, my two-weeks-shy-of-three-year-old granddaughter told me, with a grin and a giggle, all about “Pete The Blue Cat” who is a character in one of her books. It is actually from the award-winning “Pete the Cat” series by James and Kimberly Dean, but dear Maya calls him “Pete The Blue Cat” for obvious reasons.

I, in turn, shared with Maya a story about my grandparents’ cat, Pete, an orangey-blonde tabby who I obviously renamed “Pete The Orange Cat” in my retelling.

Before proceeding with that tale, let me share some further literary serendipity. The very day before Maya’s conversation about “Pete The Blue Cat,” I had read her a new book via video chat, as I often do, since she lives in the Bay Area.

Titled “I Want My Hat Back” by Jon Klassen, it won the Theodore Seuss Geisel Honor and is about a bear who, as you can guess, has lost his cap. Throughout the pages he asks a series of animals he encounters, “Have you seen my hat?”

The fox, frog, rabbit, turtle, snake and armadillo are of no help and eventually the bear laments: “Nobody has seen my hat. What if I never see it again? What if nobody ever finds it? My poor hat. I miss it so much.”

At long last, a deer asks the bear what his hat looks like.

“It is red and pointy and…” the bear answers.

Which brings me back to my Thanksgiving memory. We had enjoyed a full feast, complete with a variety of at least six home-baked pies because my Grandma Mabel loved to make everyone’s favorite, and were getting ready for the 45-mile drive home.

“I can’t find my hat,” six-year-old me announced with emergency in my voice.

I asked everyone – my two older brothers, younger sister, mom and dad, Mabel and Grandpa Ansel – if they had seen my hat, but no one had. No one needed to ask what my hat looked like because I wore the Davy Crockett coonskin cap, complete with ringed tail,  everywhere except in the shower.

A search party was organized and the entire family looked low and high, upstairs and downstairs, with no luck. Pop, anxious to get on the road before the holiday traffic, and Ohio’s winter weather, got too bad, finally said we had to go.

Nobody has seen my hat, I surely sniveled. What if I never see it again? What if nobody ever finds it?

Grandpa soothed my woes by promising he would keep looking until he found it and would bring it when he and Mable came to our house for Christmas dinner. Trailing the rest of my family like a sad little caboose, I trudged towards the front door.

My poor hat. I miss it so much.

Suddenly, Mabel sang out excitedly, “Here it is! I found it!” She had spotted the tip of the tail of my coonskin cap poking out from beneath the dining room table’s formal tablecloth that draped all the way to the floor.

Mabel reached down to retrieve the Davy Crockett hat and . . .

. . . MEOWWW-HOWWWL!

She had yanked Pete The Orange Cat’s striped tail!

My pouty lower lip instantly gave way to laughter.

I won’t spoil the ending of the book “I Want My Hat Back” for you, but my tale of that long-ago Thanksgiving evening concluded with all of us giving belated thanks we weren’t Pete The Sore-Tailed Cat.

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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

 

Thank a Teacher

by Woody

STRAW_CoverWoody’s new book STRAWBERRIES IN WINTERTIME: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter is available for Pre-Order HERE NOW! In time for the holidays!

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Never Too Late to Thank a Teacher

Some things never change. I have been out of school for three decades, but once more I am turning in an assignment late. California’s 17th annual Retired Teachers Week was last week.

Um, my dog deleted my laptop doc.

Seriously, even belatedly is a good time to reach out by letter, email, phone or Facebook to let your own favorite teachers – retired or not – know the impact they had on you.1teach

If, sadly, they have passed away, then honor them by mentoring someone else – for, as John Wooden said: “Mentoring is your true legacy. It is the greatest inheritance you can give to others.”

Like most of us, I was blessed with some terrific teachers including a select few true life-changers. One such benefactor was my sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Hutchings, who challenged me to be a leader with my voice not just my actions.

“I would like to see Woody be less of an independent entity in the classroom and more inclined to lead his fellow man,” she wrote on my report card in 1972. Part of my difficulty was that for the first time ever neither of my two best friends, Jim Hendrix and Dan Means, was in my class.

Kindly, Mrs. Hutchings also offered written praise: “Woody has a delightful sense of humor and a sense of fair play that is very unusual for his age.”

According to that report card, math was my strong suit while English was my shortcoming: “Woody does an outstanding job on reports but his vocabulary words and spelling limit his grades.”

Despite these deficiencies, Mrs. Hutchings encouraged me to be the editor of the “newspaper” she helped our class publish that spring. Perhaps this was also her way of nurturing my leadership growth.

Perhaps, too, her mentorship is responsible for you reading these words today.

Long after I last left her classroom, I received a letter out of the blue from Mrs. Hutchings, by then retired. She had seen my long-form feature “The Toughest Miler Ever” about American Olympian, World War II hero and POW survivor, Louie Zamperini, that appeared in The Best American Sports Writing 2001. She complimented the piece and said she was pleased and proud to learn I had become a writer.

I wrote back and told her, much too belatedly, that she had been a special teacher in my life. I also shared the words Coach Wooden had sent to me in response to the first of many columns I would write about him: “Although it is often used without true feeling, when it is used with sincerity, no collection or words can be more expressive or meaningful than the very simple word – Thanks!”

In middle school, Harold McFadden was another life-changing teacher. I had “Coach Mac” for Physical Education in five of my six semesters at Balboa Junior High. More than sports, he taught me about goal setting, believing and achieving.

12teachAs often happens, even with our dearest mentors, we fall out of touch and such was the case with Coach Mac. It saddens me that I did not stop by my old school to see him during my visits home to Ventura after I went off to college and beyond. Now, curses to cancer, it is too late.

For the most part, the names of my teachers at Balboa, Buena High and UC Santa Barbara have faded from memory. Three – one from each school – who remain indelible for their lasting impact are Mr. Howell, an inspiring metal shop teacher; Joe Vaughan, a role model in all ways; and John Ridland, an English professor who broke down the poetry of Robert Frost and more importantly built up my confidence as a writer.

My Favorite Teacher Ever, however, the one who in the words of Frost truly “made all the difference,” was in my post-graduate studies “Life 101” class taught by Professor John Robert Wooden.

Wooden preferred to be thought of as a “teacher” not a “coach.” By either title, none taught me more – or more-important things – than he. I am thankful I told him so before it was too late.

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Wooden&Me_cover_PRWoody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Check 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: A Kind Word Lifts Spirits

by Woody

A Kind Word Can Lift Low Spirits

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“We have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they ought to be used.”

                                                                                     – Blaise Pascal, French philosopher

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Given a quarter-full glass, or three-quarters empty depending on one’s perspective, my mindset is usually, “That’s a lot to drink because that’s a big glass.”

The other day, however, I saw that glass as 75 percent empty – and dirty and cracked. Some cranky e-mails about a column had me feeling low. Then a note from another reader lifted my fallen spirits and brought to mind the poem “On Friendship” by my hero Coach John Wooden:

At times when I am feeling low, / I hear from a friend and then

My worries start to go away / And I am on the mend

No matter what the doctors say – / And their studies never end

The best cure of all, when spirits fall, / Is a kind word from a friend

My cure came from a friend I have never met. Jon Gold, a Los Angeles sportswriter who grew up in Thousand Oaks, wrote me succinctly but with kindness in abundance: “I became a writer because I got to read you write like this when I was 10.”

His words were penicillin for what ailed me. That I somehow inspired someone even a small fraction of the way Jim Murray made me want to become a writer is as nice a compliment as I have ever received.

Jon’s note did something more – it reminded me of this wisdom from Russian screenwriter Sonya Levien: “Good intentions are not enough; they’ve never put an onion in the soup yet.”

How many times have I failed to put an onion in the soup; thought about sending a kind note but not followed up in deed? Thankfully, I have not faltered completely in letting those who have changed my life know it. I wrote to my first newspaper boss last year; my sixth-grade teacher before that; Jim Murray and Coach Wooden before their deaths.

My two adult kids, on the other hand, are chef-like at putting onions in the soup. This very week my daughter wrote a two-page letter to one of her favorite university professors, thanking him for his past and present mentorship. She has similarly written notes of gratitude to numerous other teachers, colleagues, friends.

My son also regularly puts pen to paper to express thanks to professors, mentors, coaches and friends who have influenced his life’s journey. Just recently he mailed a card, albeit three years belatedly, to someone he met only once.

Unfortunately it was returned as undeliverable. However, he was able to locate the person on-line at her new place of employment and resent it. It began: “Dear Liz Williams, I don’t know if you remember me, but I want to thank you for changing my life. . . .”

He proceeded to explain how she had been instrumental in his taking his first humanitarian trip to Africa – Mali – a momentous event that opened his eyes and heart, opened doors, and inspired him to return to Africa – Ghana – as well as make a four-week goodwill visit to Sri Lanka.

My son concluded: “I apologize for getting caught up in other things and not telling you all this sooner – it is one of the lessons from Mali that I have had to re-learn looking back. This long-overdue thanks is to let you know that you have taught me the greatest lesson of all: that we can profoundly change the lives of anyone we come in contact with, and while we may not always know if we do, I wanted you to know that in this case you have made a world of difference.”

Not surprisingly, his thoughtful words were as welcomed as Jon Gold’s were to me. “Thank you for reaching out!” Liz wrote back. “Wow, I am truly overwhelmed by the kindness of your words. It made my day (maybe even my year) . . .”

Now if you will excuse me, I am going to put an onion in the soup and write a long-overdue note of gratitude to my favorite college professor, Mr. Ridland.

— Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star. You can contact him at WoodyWriter@gmail.com or through his website at www.WoodyWoodburn.com