Tag Archives: Tom Hanks

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

 

Highlights During Low Times

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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High Moments During

These Low Times

With facemasks the new normal during these coronavirus times, seeing a smile can seem as rare as a bluebird sighting. Here are some bluebirds…

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Josh, a young man I know who faces food and shelter insecurity, recently went to the grocery store for a friend and received a tiny tap on his shoulder.

“Behind me was a sweet middle-aged woman with a gentle voice,” Josh retells. “She mumbled, ‘Can… can … you help me with some food?’

“My heart sank because I could tell she was in great need, but then my spirit reminded me that in this moment I could do something. We walked over to the deli and I was able to buy her lunch. I don’t have much; I often don’t know where my meals may come from; but this shared experience gives me great compassion and understanding for those less fortunate and in need.

“Her heart and words flowed with gratitude. I was able to put some of my own worries aside and focus on where I could give some love. It was a beautiful experience to be a part of!”

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The owner of a small commercial building in downtown Santa Rosa phoned his 60-year-old son, who manages the property, and instructed him to cut the tenants’ rents in half for April.

Shortly thereafter, according to The Santa Rosa Democrat newspaper, he called his son back: “No, tell them there will be no rent for April.”

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A longtime customer at a donut shop in Upper Arlington, Ohio – where, coincidentally, I grew up – purchased a single custard donut for a whopping $1,000.

The generous Samaritan, who has been going to Tremont Goodie Shop for nearly half a century, explained he wanted to help the store stay in business.

The kind act proved contagious after word spread, including a $100 tip by another customer.

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“Look For The Helpers” began a post on social media along with a photograph of a girl inside her home, paper and pencil in hand, looking outside at a man kneeling on the front walkway.

“A 12-year-old girl was having difficulty with her math homework during the lockdown. So she emailed her teacher for help. He came over, brought his whiteboard, and taught her through the window.”

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Another helper is Nemat Azizi, who came to America as a refugee from Afghanistan.

“He got married, had a family, and started a business,” read a Facebook post. “When COVID-19 hit, he knew he wanted to help. He’s now paid for the groceries of more than 300-plus families in Nebraska.”

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An 8-year-old boy in Australia has been bullied because of his name: Corona De Vries.

The boy wrote a letter to actor Tom Hanks, who spent two weeks in quarantine Down Under after testing positive for COVID-19, saying: “I heard on the news you and your wife had caught the coronavirus. Are you OK?”

He further mentioned that kids at school called him “Coronavirus” which makes him “sad and angry.”

Hanks, who collects typewriters, composed a reply on a Corona portable model and then mailed both the letter and the pristine machine to the boy.

“Your letter made my wife and I feel so wonderful!” Hanks typed. “You know, you are the only person I’ve ever known to have the name Corona – like the ring around the sun, a crown. I thought this typewriter would suit you. Ask a grown up how it works. And use it to write me back.”

In his own writing hand the two-time Academy Award winner added: “P.S. You got a friend in ME!”

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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” …

 

Mister Rogers and Mr. Wooden

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Matching bookends:

Mister Rogers and Mr. Wooden

The recent release of the movie “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” starring Tom Hanks, made me wish I had met Mister Rogers.

After a moment’s mild envy I realized, in a manner, I did for I was blessed to know Mister Wooden. Indeed, John Wooden and Fred Rogers were in many ways matching human bookends.

Mister Rogers famously used puppets for teaching.

Both famous men humbly considered themselves teachers at heart; were kind to their core; and felt “love” was the most important word in the English language. Daily, Rogers swam 20 minutes and Wooden walked four miles. Both personally answered every fan letter they received. Both made being “old-fashioned” cool.

While I never visited “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” I dropped by Mister Wooden’s neighborhood in Encino many times. One visit, when I took my two young children to meet Wooden, reminds me especially of Mister Rogers. After all, one of the highlights featured a stuffed animal.

After leading my then-8-year-old son, 10-year-old daughter and me into the living room, the first thing Wooden did was excuse himself to retrieve something off a shelf in his study. One of his ten NCAA national championship trophies? A Coach of the Year or Hall of Fame plaque? Or perhaps he was getting down one of the many humanitarian awards that had him sharing august company with such notables as Mother Teresa, Jimmy Carter, and Melinda Gates?

“Heavens sakes, no!” to borrow one of Wooden’s favorite phrases of exasperation. Instead, the acclaimed “Wizard of Westwood” returned carrying a small, stuffed gorilla about the size of a teddy bear. It was wearing a red vest with a matching bowtie. And the fancy anthropoid could talk.

“You’re a genius!!!” the talking stuffed ape in the fancy red vest said enthusiastically, his words of praise meriting three exclamation marks at the least.

My son and daughter visiting with Coach John Wooden.

“Excellent thinking!!!” it continued.

“You’re brilliant!!!”

“Grrreat idea!!!”

“That’s fabuuulous!!!”

“That’s awesome!!!”

“Outstanding!!!”

My son and daughter laughed, as did I. Wooden smiled at them before giving me a knowing wink. What appeared to be a child’s toy to others, The Greatest Basketball Coach Who Ever Lived saw as a teaching tool.

“This is The Self-Esteem Ape,” Coach explained softly and warmly – in a Mister Rogers-like voice I now realize – as he cradled the stuffed animal given to him by his daughter Nan. “When our self-esteem is a little low, we all need to be picked up a little.”

John Wooden, like Fred Rogers, was a Self-Esteem Wizard.

A photograph of my kids sitting on Coach’s lap reveals how completely comfortable they felt in his company from the start. Both kids have taken a framed print with them to every college dorm room, apartment and house they have lived in since. Indeed, both cite that as one of the most magical days in their lives.

During our two-hour visit, Coach talked to my kids about basketball for about five minutes and spent the rest of the time sharing stories about his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. About Nellie. About his idols Abraham Lincoln (“There is nothing stronger than gentleness”) and Mother Teresa (“If you can’t feed a hundred people, feed just one”). About his famous Pyramid of Success.

And about his father Joshua’s “Two Sets of Threes: Don’t whine. Don’t complain. Don’t make excuses. / Never lie. Never cheat. Never steal.”

Escorting his three visitors outside to the front gate at the conclusion of the rose-petal-pressed-in-a-scrapbook-like afternoon, Coach Wooden added a fourth Never:

“Never forget,” The Wizard of Self-Esteem told my kids, a hand on each of their shoulders, “how special you are.”

Sounds like Mister Rogers, doesn’t it?

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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” …

Column: No More Mr. Nice Guy

by Woody

No More Mr. Nice Guy Today

 

If you were expecting 700 words of nice this morning, read no further because I’m in a Stuck-In-Gridlock-On-The-George-Washington-Bridge kind of mood and I don’t care who is responsible for the closed lanes or why. Honk! Honkkkk!

 

You want nice? Watch an old Tom Hanks movie. Speaking of which, I’m steamed that Hanks was not nominated for an Oscar for either his lead role in “Captain Phillips” or his supporting performance in “Saving Mr. Banks.”Beiber

 

It has now been 13 years since “Cast Away” when Hanks – a back-to-back Academy Award winner in 1994 and 1995 for “Philadelphia” and “Forrest Gump” – was last nominated for the gold statue.

 

Suddenly Hollywood’s Nice Guy seems like an Oscar castoff.

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            You want nice? Curl up with a warm chocolate chip cookie. I’m as steamed as a chef who has just cracked a rotten egg into the soufflé batter.

 

            Speaking of rotten eggs, do we really need to spend valuable Los Angeles County sheriff resources sending deputies with a felony search warrant to raid Bieber’s mansion and seize his cell phone and home security camera system looking for clues about who egged the next-door house (albeit causing an estimated $20,000 in damage)?

 

            How about this for quick justice: let the neighbor throw eggs until his arm grows tired at Bieber’s home.

 

            And speaking of swift justice and throwing, how about if a judge finally throws the book at Bieber after Miami police charged the 19-year-old foul-mouthed pop star with drunken driving, resisting arrest and driving without a valid license at 4 a.m. Thursday morning?

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            You want nice? Put on a Bieber love song. I’m in a Bieber-cursing-out-the-police kind of rage.

 

            The L.A. Dodgers just signed pitcher Clayton Kershaw to a $215 million, seven-year contract, which works out to $30.7 million per season or roughly $1 million per game he pitches (if he remains healthy); or about $1.5 million per victory in a 20-win season; or $1.9 million if he wins 16 games as he did last season.

 

             But what has me Dodger Blue-in-the-face mad is that on top of an annual salary of about 90 teachers combined, Kershaw will receive a $1 million bonus for winning the Cy Young Award and $500,000 for any second- or third-place finish.

 

            For $30 million annually, shouldn’t he have to GIVE BACK $1 million if he doesn’t win the Cy Young Award?

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            Speaking of wasted money, I am HOT under the collar about the Ventura County Transportation Commission recently approving the expenditure of $111,000 to hire a consultant to do a feasibility study for adding 31 miles of HOT – High Occupancy Toll – lanes in both directions on Highway 101 from the Los Angeles County line to Highway 33 in Ventura.

 

            Kudos, and good rush-hour karma, to Linda Parks who was the only commissioner to see the value in putting $111,000 to better use.

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            You want nice? Go watch a Southern California sunset.

 

            Which is another thing I am ticked off about – locals posting photographs of our spectacular Gold Coast beach sunsets on Facebook and Instagram for everyone in the country suffering through the Arctic vortex to see and get jealous and angry at us about.

 

            Heck, Monet would have gazed at our recent evening skies and set down his paintbrush in resignation, knowing full well he could not do the scene justice.

 

            I am reminded of a winter trip we took with my wife’s family to a beautiful resort in Mexico. Each evening at Happy Hour everyone would sit on the beach and marvel as the sun gently dipped into the ocean’s horizon.

 

            “Ooooh!” and “aaaah!” the others said, while my much-better-half and I had a reaction of “ho-hum.” There were no clouds to become ablaze; no distant islands to frame the vision.

 

            We felt like Norma Desmond, the faded silent movie star in “Sunset Boulevard” who dreams of making a triumphant return to the screen, when she says: “We didn’t need dialogue. We had faces. There just aren’t any faces like that anymore.”

 

            There just aren’t sunsets anywhere like here. Suddenly, I’m in a nice mood again.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME is available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.