Tag Archives: UCSB

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.

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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

Friendship Turns Back Calendar

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Familiar Laugh is

a Time Machine

H. G. Wells knocked on my front door Sunday morning and when I opened it the pages of the calendar flipped backward, months, years, four decades in all, in an instant.

Greeting me was my college roommate from freshman year. In 2019, I was 18 again.

Fingerprint analysis could not have been more accurate in identifying Matt than the proof provided by his smile. Father Time may have stolen his bushy, dark curls and added lines of wisdom to his countenance, but his grin was as broad and radiant and familiar as ever.

In the only photograph I have of Matt, for there were no ubiquitous cell phone cameras always at the ready in 1978, he is flashing his trademark electric grin as sun-bleached-mop-haired me goofily flashes a peace sign of rabbit ears behind his head.

Goofing it up as UCSB freshmen with my roommate Matt Bell.

In my mind’s eye – rather, mind’s ear – there is something even more identifying than Matt’s smile: his laugh. DNA profiling could not be more precise for identification. It is a hall-of-fame laugh, part cackle, part music.

Matt freely played that music again Sunday morning and it was more wonderful than Cheap Trick and Tom Petty and Pink Floyd making our dorm widows rattle on a Friday night.

Words of hello being insufficient after so long apart, we promptly embraced on the front doorstep – perhaps for the first time ever because college roommates in the ’70s didn’t generally hug.

The next two hours passed like two minutes as we played catch-up on our lives, our long marriages, his three children and my two plus a granddaughter, our jobs – he’s a high school principal in Northern California – and on and on. The eggs and pancakes and coffee grew cold half-untouched because the air was so warm with conversation and memories and laughter.

It’s funny sometimes what memories pop to mind. Matt was on UC Santa Barbara’s gymnastic team and while I recall him being dizzying good on the rings and pommel horse, my favorite feat of his was when he walked the entire length of our dorm hallway on his hands while the rest of us cheered as though it was the Olympics.

Matt remembered stories I had forgotten and vice-versa. Most of them I dare not share in this space, but here’s one more that I will. I had sophomorically sabotaged his toothbrush with soap and Matt retaliated ingeniously by somehow putting a small measure of sunscreen inside my tube of Crest.

As I spit and rinsed, rinsed, rinsed, Matt guffawed. I squeezed away a third of the tube to get rid of the contaminated portion and started brushing again. Again, I gagged. This happened a third time as well.

By now Matty sounded like Muttley the cartoon dog. I believe it was the only time either of us got even halfway upset at the other – in truth, I think I was mad at myself for falling for the well-played prank over and over.

Now I’m mad at myself for falling out of touch with Matt after graduation. More so, however, I’m thankful for the miracle of social media that allowed us to reconnect after 37 years.

To give you one more snapshot of what a masterpiece reunion we had, and to further encourage you to reach out to a friend you may have lost contact with, Matt and I were so busy enjoying ourselves that we forgot to take a picture together. We plan to remedy that soon.

It has been said that it takes a long time to grow an old friend, but it can also happen over breakfast.

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FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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: Off Court He’s Still Magical

by Woody

My new memoir WOODEN & ME is also available here at Amazon

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Backboard to Boardroom, He’s Magic

It was the littlest of things, yet it remains an indelible memory more than a quarter century later. A small gesture of gracefulness telling a bigger story.

I was in the Los Angeles Lakers’ locker room as a rookie writer. It was after the game and reporters were boxing one another out around Magic Johnson’s locker stall like players battling for rebound position.

My kids Dallas and Greg enjoying a "Magic" moment at Cal Lutheran College two decades ago.

My kids Dallas and Greg enjoying a “Magic” moment at Cal Lutheran College two decades ago.

As the scrum of scribes and TV cameras thinned, I moved forward and finally asked a question to which Magic prefaced his answer: “Well, Woody… ”

Understand, I was not a familiar beat writer. Rather, this was my first time covering a Lakers game. But Magic had the grace to slyly spy the name on my media credential and made me feel welcomed.

Truth is, Magic made every media member feel welcomed – and made our working lives much easier.

Unlike Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who would escape to the showers without talking, or Shaq O’Neal, who seemed to delight in mumbling so we couldn’t hear what he was saying, Magic would sit at his locker and thoughtfully answer each and every question until the very last reporter had what he or she needed.

I had the good fortune to interview Magic many more times during the final few years of his playing career and also enjoyed a couple lengthy one-on-one conversations with him at his youth basketball camps at Cal Lutheran University after he retired. Every encounter was a pleasure.

For good reason when people ask me who my favorite person to interview has been, the first name I mention after John Wooden is Magic Johnson.

So when the basketball legend-turned-mogul entrepreneur was a guest speaker not long ago as part of UC Santa Barbara’s Arts & Lectures series at the Arlington Theatre, I had to be there.

I’m glad I was. I have seen many wonderful speakers on stage – including Maya Angelou, Malcolm Gladwell and the Dalai Lama – and Magic was second to none.

He also did something unique – he ignored the lectern, eschewed a chair, and in fact shunned the stage entirely. Instead, in theatric terms he “broke the fourth wall” and gave his nearly two-hour-long talk from the floor in front of the stage as well as intimately walking up and down the aisles.

After recounting how he and his strapped college dorm mates would clip coupons and pool their money to buy one large pizza and sodas to share, Magic thoughtfully walked to the back of the auditorium to address the UCSB students who suddenly went from being in the cheap seats to having a front-row view.

Along the way, Magic’s extra dose of “charisma” DNA was evident as he stopped and talked – and posed for snapshots – with a handful of audience members. An hour later – reminiscent of my long-ago locker room encounter – he addressed a couple of these same strangers by first name.

Magic has treated F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous declaration, “There are no second acts in American lives,” like a backpedaling defender. He faked it out and scored. Impossibly, Magic has been as successful in the business boardroom as fast-breaking between the backboards.

A tweet-length post-NBA summary in 140 characters: Part owner of the Dodgers; owner of movie theaters, Starbucks, 24 Hour Fitness and Burger King franchises serving urban areas; philanthropist; HIV/AIDS activist.

Directing his wisdom directly to the “young people” in the Santa Barbara audience, Magic, now 55, encouraged them get an education, find mentors, and dream big.

“I was a student-athlete who went to class,” he shared.

“People helped me along the way so I need to help others.”

“I was poor, but I didn’t dream poor.”

Further advice for success in the business world, and life, included: “Respect people’s time”; “always be early”; and “over-deliver.”

“I want you to over-deliver to everybody; your parents; your professor,” Magic concluded. “That’s what we all have to do now. It’s not enough just to deliver anymore. You have to over-deliver.”

It was not lip service: Magic was scheduled to speak for an hour and a half but graciously over-delivered by 20 minutes.

Happily, some things never change.

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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: Isla Vista, Anytown USA

by Woody

Idyllic Isla Vista could be Anytown USA

 

Had someone asked me a week ago which university I thought would be least likely to suffer a mass shooting, I believe I would have answered, “UC Santa Barbara.”

 

I mean, how could such terror happen at my alma mater? How could laid-back Isla Vista, where I lived for two idyllic years, be the latest grieving site?

 

Which is exactly the point, I think. The next such rampage – and sadly there will be a next one and a next – can happen Anywhere USA.

The Faces We Should Remember: Top row from left to right: Weihan Wang, George Chen, Cheng Yuan Hong. Bottom row from left to right: Christopher Michaels-Martinez, Katie Cooper, Veronika Weiss.

The Faces To Remember:
Top row from left to right: Weihan Wang, George Chen, Cheng Yuan Hong. Bottom row from left to right: Christopher Michaels-Martinez, Katie Cooper, Veronika Weiss.

 

Virginia Tech students and alumni didn’t think it could happen there. Columbine High. Sandy Hook Elementary. Themovie theater in Colorado. The supermarket parking lot in Tucson. Fill-in-the-blank where mass shootings have happened in America. Throw a dart at a map where the next one might.

 

Three decades removed from my days at UCSB, but with sons and daughters of friends attending there now, the shooting (and three fatal stabbings) has resonated with me more deeply than others. Such is the power of familiarity, I suppose. Places in Isla Vista where I laughed with friends and courted my wife now come in to my focus as among the 10 crime scenes.

 

I cannot imagine the lasting heartache and mental scars for those who were there that tragic night.

 

Nor can I imagine the courage shown by one male UCSB student I saw interviewed on TV the day after. I want to call him a boy, but in truth he is a young man who had just witnessed war at the front line.

 

He saw three young women get shot, raced to their fallen bodies, and instantly knew two were dead. He turned his attention to the third woman, bleeding as she phoned her mom to say “I love you” in fear they might be her last words, and stayed by her side until paramedics arrived. She survived.

 

The young hero’s calm but graphic retelling turned the unfathomable horror into knowable faces – those of the two young women lost, the one who survived, and his own face filled with grief.

 

Faces. Veronika Weiss, a 19-year-old from Westlake High School in Thousand Oaks, was one of the two women murdered. Hers was a face of girl-next-door prettiness; a face of straight-A’s and athletic accomplishment; a face of kindness according to all who knew her.

 

            Faces. Christopher Martinez, the gray-bearded father of 19-year-old victim Christopher, who at the war scene afterward delivered a Gettysburg Address for its brevity and impassioned emotion:

 

“I talked to him about 45 minutes before he died. Our family has a message for every parent out there: You don’t think it’ll happen to your child until it does. Chris was a really great kid. Ask anyone who knew him. His death has left our family lost and broken.

 

“Why did Chris die? Chris died because of craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA. They talk about gun rights. What about Chris’ right to live? When will this insanity stop?

 

“When will enough people say, ‘Stop this madness!’ We do not have to live like this. Too many people have died. We should say to ourselves, ‘not one more!’ ”

 

Faces. An overlooked tragedy is that “the madman” – as one witness called the shooter – has become The Face of this rampage. I will not mention his name for it is best forgotten. It is the victims who should be remembered – Weiss, Martinez, Katie Cooper, George Chen, James Cheng, David Wang.

 

It angers me that the videos “the madman” posted online before his killing spree are played over and over and over on TV. This is exactly what he wanted, to become famous – or infamous. Hence in death he achieves his life’s twisted goal.

 

            There is great debate on the influence of violence and misogyny in video games, advertising and movies, and rightly so. But what about the influence on mentally ill minds that watch a lunatic’s evil rants elevate him to worldwide TV celebrity, so to speak?

 

            It is impossibly lofty, but I wish henceforth the media would give only 1 percent of its focus on the perpetrators and 99 percent to the faces worth remembering.

 

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Woody 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”