Finding Beauty After Being Lost

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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In response to a warm tide of readers expressing disappointment that my weekly column recently cut back to every other Friday, henceforth I will select one of my old columns – let’s call them vintage – from the archives to fill this space between new offerings. The one originally ran in October of 2010.

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Google Maps was of no assistance when I was recently lost for well over an hour inside a corn maze – a maize maze, if you will.

Exploration Acres in Lafayette is billed as “Indiana’s Largest Corn Maze” with more than 8 miles of paths. I’ll take their word for it, although to me it seemed no less than 20 winding miles of dead ends. When I finally escaped – from the Entrance, not the Exit, I must confess – I had a strong craving for cheese.

I also had a reminder that we often take things in our own backyard for granted. Most of the fellow mice I met in the maze were tourists and it struck me the locals were missing out on this Midwestern fun.

The bucolic beauty surrounding the maze drove this point home. Autumn’s change of colors was in full glory, the trees ablaze in rainbows of golds and oranges and reds. I spent my first 12 years of life in the Midwest – Ohio – but this honestly felt like the first time I had witnessed fall’s pageantry of watercolored leaves.

As the late British philosopher Bertrand Russell observed: “In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.”

The change of colors made me hang a question mark on my backyard that is Ventura County and the Gold Coast. How many things do I – and perhaps you, likewise – take for granted here, from the scenic sights to historical sites; from entertainment attractions to recreational adventures?

To list one local gem of a destination such as the San Buenaventura Mission or Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is to omit myriad more. And that doesn’t touch on natural wonders like our harbors and Lake Casitas and the Los Padres National Forest, to mention but three. Suffice to say, many of us too often take our backyard for granted unless we have out-of-state visitors to show around.

Perhaps the brightest Gold we ignore is our Coast itself. Because we can go to the beach in mere minutes, and with ease, we often put off doing so until tomorrow, next weekend, when summer arrives. Meanwhile, others drive for hours, even fly across the country or further, to vacation on our beaches and play in our surf; to take a boat to the Channel Islands; to marvel at our sunsets that would make Monet misty-eyed.

 Sometimes you need to get away from what is special to fully appreciate it. I recall last Thanksgiving when we joined my wife’s side of the family at a beach resort timeshare in Mexico they all go to annually. It was our first time, and over and over we kept hearing about the spectacular ocean sunsets we were going to be treated to.

“Ooh! Aah!” the others marveled each evening as the sun sank, sank, sank and disappeared over the horizon.

Ho-hum thought my wife and I, unimpressed because the sky didn’t change colors like a kaleidoscope, like a nautical version of autumn trees in the Midwest, as is the habit on our Gold Coast. Nor was there an island silhouetted in the background to add dimension and further beauty.

Even being lost in a corn maze was a more memorable.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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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.

Stung in the Heart by a Yellowjacket

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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Let me begin, despite eyes blurred by tears as I write this, with a laugh.

It was a hot summer day in my boyhood, in Ohio, in the late 1960s. My two older brothers and I, our younger sister too, had gone swimming in a pond.

Suddenly, on the short walk back to a weekend cabin, Jim, the eldest and five years my senior, started yelling and hopping wildly about as if dancing on red-hot coals. He was 13 or 14 years old and gangly, already his full adult height of 6-foot-3 but skinny as a brand-new No. 2 pencil with a shock of hair as red as its eraser.

The reason for the impromptu Irish jig was because, somehow, a yellowjacket had gotten inside his cutoff jeans swimsuit and was stinging and biting him, again and again, over and over, in the crotch while Jimmy frantically tried to unbutton and unzip and peel off his clingy wet shorts. For us three sibling spectators, it was side-stitch hilarious.

Today, my heart feels like it has been assaulted by a dozen angry yellowjackets: Jim died earlier this week, mid-morning Monday to be precise, a midsummer day with too much lovely sunshine for such searing sorrow. He was 14 months shy of the Biblical “threescore years and ten,” and oh, god, am I furious at cancer for stealing his wonderful life.

The heinous disease attacked relentlessly over the past seven years, but Jim valiantly kept extending the battle. He lost both his ears, literally, but never his bottomless sense of humor. At a wedding reception in a museum a few years back, Jim removed an ear prosthesis and positioned it on a tooth of a replica dinosaur skeleton that was not roped off. As he posed for a selfie, a docent materialized and gently commanded: “Sir, please remove your ear from the dinosaur’s mouth.” T-Rex-sized laughter was the norm whenever Jimmy was around.

A hundred columns would not suffice in telling all about my big brother, but this single sentence speaks volumes: Jim was more of a dad to me than my dad was. The latter was overly busy with his surgical career and so it was Jimmy who showed me how hit a baseball and throw a football spiral; taught me to play cribbage and euchre; helped with my homework.

Jim showing off his new “ear” prostheses!

When I was very young and would have a nightmare, it was Jimmy’s bed I climbed into—and he would let me stay until morning. When I was older, he gave me the sex talk and taught me to drive a stick shift with nary an angry word when I grinded the gears of his Pinto.

Throughout my adulthood, Jimmy remained a role model and was there for me in big ways and small. A small example: he would text me when one of my columns especially delighted him. How dearly I am going to miss those big-bro kudos.

A big example: during our forever-goodbye visit mere days ago, Jimbo reached for my hand and held it and squeezed it as he whispered, using a private nickname he gave me when I was maybe 5 and ever after always called me by: “Grog, you’ve been a great little brother.” Tears instantly overflooded my eyes, yet helium filled my heart.

Jim married his college sweetheart, was a Girl Dad three times over, and eventually had seven grandchildren—and his next greatest love was being a surgeon. I think his blood flowed Scrubs Green in color, not red. His patients absolutely adored him; nurses and fellow doctors, likewise.

Let me end with another summer memory, this one when Jim was in medical school, in New York, and I flew out to spend a couple weeks with him. At one point he shared that while learning to insert a catheter they each had to do so to their own self. I flinched empathetically and said something like, “Ouch! That must really sting.”

Not missing a beat, Jimmy replied: “It wasn’t nearly as bad as a yellowjacket in my shorts.”

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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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.

The More Mess, The Merrier

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here) and orderable at all bookshops.

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Imagine a river, much like a long-long-long run-on sentence with no periods or semicolons, only commas serving as bends in the banks slowing the flow, and you get an idea of the five days leading up to Memorial Day at Casa Woodburn, and I am most certain you have had your own wonderfully idyllic yet hectically chaotic activity-packed string of days as fast paced as water rapids where you felt like you didn’t have a chance to catch your breath, and so for the fun of it here is a Great Mississippi of a single sentence about the human floodwaters that swept through every room of our house, with toys and coloring books and crayons scattered like driftwood on the beach after heavy surf,

with baby monitors here and strollers there and diaper paraphernalia everywhere, and this was just in the family room suddenly decorated in a mix of Colonial Clutter and Modern Mayhem, yet one dares not wish, even the briefest of moments, for the messiness to miraculously vanish because you know all too well that all too soon it will all be picked up and packed up and put away out of sight, for as the philosopher Dr. Seuss, whose books were among the widespread debris, wisely said, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened,” and what happened was our daughter and her husband and their 5-year-old and toddler daughters, both with more energy than a rooftop of solar panels on a sunny summer’s day, invaded from the north and from the south came the troops of our son’s family with an 8-month-old daughter, and instantly the empty nest began chirping happily and loudly as the large canopy of a vibrant tree in springtime, but it should be noted that armies have marched on their stomachs with fewer provisions and possessions than the two SUVs that arrived filled bows to sterns with portable cribs and an inflatable mattress, with enough clothes seemingly for a month-long camping trip and still laundry needed to be washed, meanwhile food preparation similarly appeared to be a constant occurrence for despite Thanksgiving-worthy feasts that promised to have leftovers aplenty so that no cooking would be necessary the following evening, somehow by the time the sun streaked across the sky to early afternoon the overflowing cornucopia of Tupperware was soaking in the sink, and speaking further of food, sandwiched between breakfast and post-dinner bubble-bath tsunamis were daily excursions to play parks, the beach, the gorgeous-viewed Botanical Gardens atop Ventura’s hillside, if you haven’t gone there you must, and on top of the long holiday weekend it was a combination birthday celebration for my daughter and me, on top of this too there was our father-daughter book signing at Timbre Books as she and I both have new novels out, and speaking of books I would be greatly remiss not to mention a trip to the library to get the 5-year-old her first library card which deserves its own column shortly.

But now, as you read this, the kitchen island is deserted of chaos. Fresh laundry is not piled on the family room couch, waiting to be folded. The coffee table again has books and magazines neatly stacked upon it; and also the TV remote, for it no longer needs to be hidden from curious young hands.

Too, the coffee tabletop has lingering crayon marks and a few new permanent stains where coasters weren’t used for children’s water bottles. I look at these mars and scars and my reaction is no shade of annoyance, but rather to smile.

Because it all happened.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Hands of Time Stop, Tears Start

The photograph is of two hands, right hands both, one holding the other. More specifically, the hand on top is wrapped around the index and middle fingers of the bottom hand, with the top thumb resting upon – in truth, gently and tirelessly caressing – the metacarpophalangeal knuckles.

Look more closely and you will see that the embraced hand is more aged and that the younger wrist wears two similar bracelets: a sunny yellow “Livestrong” cancer silicon band and a green-and-yellow swirly one.

The joined hands are resting on a red fleece blanket mostly, partially on a blue bedsheet, and if the photo were not cropped so tightly you would see an oxygen breathing tube running across the mattress – and suddenly the yellow bracelet would take on added gravity.

Pop and me…

For 20 years I have worn this Livestrong bracelet in remembrance of friends and family and colleagues, a roll call that has tragically grown far too lengthy, who have died from cancer. The swirly bracelet, meanwhile, is in similar honor of cancer survivors, the green, like spring leaves on a tree, signifying lives still blooming.

Two days ago, on the last day of February if this were not a Leap Year, the bracelet honoring my 97-year-old dad who previously defeated an array of serious skin cancers, and most recently battled bone cancer, switched from green-and-yellow to all yellow. On John Steinbeck’s birthday, just as the Pacific sun was setting on the Channel Islands, a sight my dad dearly loved to watch but for the past few weeks could not, Dr. James Dallas Woodburn II – a formal mouthful of syllables but just “Pop” to me – left our earthly Eden.

The eyes may be windows to the soul – Pop’s were blue and clear until the very end – but it is his hands I wish to focus on here. Those hands had magic in them. I mean that truly. Those hands saved far too many lives to count, and restored the quality of life to endless more, for they were a surgeon’s hands.

During my final visit with my dad…

Amazingly, those hands, quite large and strong, kept their skill and dexterity well into their ninth decade, performing their magic in the Operating Room at Ventura’s Community Memorial Hospital, where he joined the staff in 1972, in mid-career, until three years ago. That’s right, Pop was operating until age 94, albeit in the latter decade only assisting. It may not be a record for surgical longevity, but surely it makes the hall of fame.

Those hands, belonging to the son of a country physician, had the proud joy of performing their magic alongside his two eldest sons, my older brothers, general surgeons both.

“Are Jim and Doug as good as you were?” I asked Pop during our daily evening visits the past few months. With Midwest modesty, for he was born and raised in Ohio, he answered, “You’ll have to ask them,” but his wry smile revealed his true feelings of mastery.

Those hands, as a boy tossed, footballs and baseballs and shot basketballs with his friends and later did so with his three sons.

Those hands, as father of the bride, guided his fourth-and-youngest child down the wedding aisle.

Those hands blessedly held nine grandchildren, “The Grands” he proudly called them, and even more blessedly held “a lucky 13 Greats.”

Those hands did crossword puzzles in a flash, always in ink, up until the final few days when his razor-sharp mind finally became foggy from increased painkillers.

While heinous cancer and toxic chemotherapy, four rounds of three sessions each, a medical torture for a nonagenarian, seemingly stole every ounce sans his skin and bones, those hands amazingly did not become skeletal and knobby. Indeed, caressing the hand in the photo, I marveled at its soft and smooth skin.

Long, long ago on a blind date in college, on a hayride, those hands of a Navy veteran, back home from World War II, bravely held the hand of a beautiful blonde college coed for the first time, and would eventually hold that woman, my mom, through 38 years of marriage before she died three decades ago.

 I like to imagine those hands now gently brushing away the happy tears from the cheeks of my mom upon their reunion.

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Woody’s debut novel “The Butterfly Tree: An Extraordinary Saga of Seven Generations” will be published in late March.

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.

Murderous Tale in a Lovely Book

Few things bring a newspaper newsroom to a total standstill, the common cacophony of keyboards and chatter suddenly swallowed by an eerie hush.

The Space Shuttle Challenger explosion did so when I was a young journalist; as did the two hijacked jetliners slamming into the Twin Towers 15 years later; as, most certainly, President Kennedy’s assassination did long before my writing career began.

When I tell you a similar pall blanketed the old Ventura Star-Free Press newsroom, back when it was on Ralston Street, back on an autumn day in 1987, that not only were voices hushed, but tears rolled, you will understand something truly dreadful had occurred.

Which is why, to be honest, when my colleagues began bemoaning with disbelief that Bob Hope had passed away, I was slightly puzzled. Granted, he was a Hollywood legend and this was sad news, yet the earth-shattering reaction seemed far beyond proportion.

The reason for my confusion was because I had joined the S-FP staff only a month earlier and, due to unfamiliarity, ignorantly misheard who died. The legend suffering a fatal heart attack, at age 69, was Bob Holt, a longtime reporter and columnist who was every bit as beloved as he was talented, a very remarkable twin feat.

In the ensuing days and weeks I perused back issues of the newspaper, kept in endless binders the size of couch cushions, only thicker, reading some of Holt’s columns. It was readily apparent why he was so admired by writers and readers alike.

For nearly four decades Holt wrote for the S-FP, beginning in Sports, later covering hard news, and also penning a slice-of-life column that frequently featured his two girls, Debby and Betsey, oftentimes to their chagrin.

I bring up Bob Holt today because his eldest daughter, Debby Holt Larkin, has written a new book titled “A Lovely Girl: The Tragedy of Olga Duncan and the Trial of One of California’s Most Notorious Killers.” It is part true-crime story, part memoir through the eyes of 10-year-old Debby in 1958, and fully a page-turner.

Debby will return to her hometown to talk about her book, and about her dad for he is interwoven throughout, at two events: Saturday, Nov. 4, at 10 a.m. inside Ventura City Hall, formerly the courthouse where the salacious trial took place, a trial Bob Holt covered; and Sunday, Nov. 5, at 2 p.m. in E.P. Foster Library.

The poet Robert Frost famously said, “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.” As surely as the account of Olga’s murder, she being a newlywed nurse who was seven-months pregnant, made my eyes spill over, so too did the lovely closing pages with young Debby and her father and two surprise tickets to a Dodgers game, thus proving Mr. Frost correct.

“When it finally came time for me to write that scene, I was very emotional,” Debby shared with me, “which surprised me a little because I’d been thinking about it for so long. I did the draft in one sitting. The words just flowed with tears streaming down my face. By the time I wrote that last sentence, I was sobbing. To this day, I can’t go to a professional baseball game without thinking about my dad at some point – bad call, terrific play. And when they sing ‘Take Me Out To The Ball Game,’ it still makes me tear up. He always sang it at the top of his lungs!”

Another song, despite the chronicled tragedy, comes to happily mind page after page: Bob Hope singing, “Thanks for the memory…”

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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.

X Marks The Spot of Paradise

The thorn in the Rose Bowl – parade and football game – is that the weather on New Year’s Day is invariably picture-postcard perfect, so sunny and warm it entices waves of people watching the telecasts in their Midwest igloos to pack up like “The Beverly Hillbillies” and move to Southern California.

Similarly, the downside of Ventura hosting the X Games last weekend is that the TV coverage with our gorgeous ocean backdrop and pastel sunsets that seemed painted by Monet were the equivalent of a skywriter spelling out: “Hey, world! Move here! The 805 is paradise!”

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Speaking of the X Games, the “Moto X Best Whip” competition – basically daredevil astronauts on motorcycles launching themselves into orbit off a giant ramp and doing dizzying spins and twists, and even front or back flips, before safe reentry back down on earth – makes Evel Knievel’s “death defying” jumps in the 1970s look like a kid riding a tricycle off a curb.

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Pulling into my driveway the other day, on four wheels not on an acrobatic motocross bike, it struck me that the instant gratification of today’s music platforms offering most every song on command have stolen the magic of hearing a favorite tune that makes you stay in the car after arriving at your destination and listening to the end.

Now you can just go inside and simply say, “Play it again, Sam/Siri/Alexa/etc.”

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Now in my 60s, but age 6 at heart, I still get a small thrill and a big smile when I’m out on a run near railroad tracks and a train comes rumbling along and I pump my fist up and down in the universal “honk!” gesture and the engineer, bless his soul, blows his LOUD! horn.

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I like the challenge of scraping, scraping, scraping an empty jar of peanut butter to get enough for one last sandwich. Even more, I love being the first to dig into a brand-new jar – and hate it when doing the former means someone beats me to the latter.

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Add gooey silliness. My wife and I have an unspoken challenge where we squeeze, squeeze, squeeze the life out of a tube of toothpaste in order not to be the one who opens a new one. For the record, I’m usually more stubborn.

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A note from a reader regarding my unromantic wedding proposal that I shared a short while back gave me a laugh. My recap…

College Girlfriend: “I’ll go wherever you go after graduation.”

Me: “I guess we might as well just get married then.”

She (Now-Wife-of-40-Years): “Okay!”

Wayne Saddler confesses he, too, popped his “inglorious proposal” in unacceptable “Jeopardy!” fashion of not being in the form of a question: “Well, I guess we should get married.”

To which his girlfriend responded: “Let’s do this right – go ask my father for permission.”

“I was nervous during my 45-minute drive to her parent’s home,” Wayne continued. “When I asked him he responded, ‘You’re asking the wrong person.’ That was almost 47 years ago.”

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Lastly, and bestly (not a word, but should be), thanks in no small part to so many of you dear and generous readers, Erick Aleman, a track and cross country athlete at Rio Mesa High School, will be getting a state-of-the-art $15,000 “blade” prosthetic and promises to be running faster than ever with it by summer’s end.

As Erick’s coach Garrett Reynolds relayed to me to relay to you: “A massive THANK YOU. Erick and I are at a loss of words for how grateful we are for everyone’s support.”

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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.

Hall-of-Fame Hat Trick for Derry

The esteemed poet John Greenleaf Whittier, in his poem “Maud Muller,” wrote this famous couplet: “For all sad words of tongue and pen, / the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’ ”

Equally sad, sometimes, is when something has been but no longer is. Consider, for example, Frank Sinatra singing “There Used To Be A Ballpark.”

More melancholic, to my mind, would be a similarly themed song titled “There Used To Be A Newspaper” which is something that two new communities experience each week, on average, across this nation.

And yet, selfishly, I am happy and thankful that one specific newspaper’s ink disappeared, back in 1997, back in Texas, when the The El Paso Herald-Post ceased operations. El Paso’s great loss was Ventura County’s great gain. You see, that’s how star sportswriter Derry Eads came to The Star. It was like the Los Angeles Lakers getting LeBron James from the Cleveland Cavaliers late in his career.

Hall-of-Fame sportswriter, and person, Derry Eads.

Deservedly, Derry will be inducted as a journalist into The Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame this Sunday along with Mike Enfield (soccer, Ventura High), Samantha Fischer (softball, Simi Valley High), Marlene Harmon Wilcox (track, Thousand Oaks High) and Rick Stewart (baseball, Fillmore High).

Here is how big a deal Derry is: this will be his third Hall of Fame induction, a hat trick that also includes the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame and El Paso Bowling Hall of Fame.

The thing is, Derry has never acted like a big shot. He was always as enthusiastic about taking phone calls to record the day’s local fish reports as he was covering a CIF championship event.

Derry has the droopy mustache of a gunslinger from the 1800s and, fittingly, his trigger finger (and nine companions) is lighting quick on the keyboard, yet he is as soft-spoken as an Old West schoolmarm. Moreover, he chooses his words with the same thoughtful care in speech as he does for print. As a result, when he talks – and writes – people pay attention. I don’t think there exists a sportswriter who has met Derry and not both liked and respected him.

Derry retired from The Star in 2011, in theory anyway. In truth, he continues to cover sporting events and also remains the guru of updating the Bible of local prep sports statistics that was originally created by fellow local sportswriting legend Jim Parker.

Of the various title games and championship track meets Derry and I covered together, I have no specific press-box memory. What I do recall clearly, and with great fondness, are the countless times he and I had desk shifts together and he would happen to answer the phone when my son and daughter, when they were young, called to say goodnight to me.

Instead of transferring the call right away, Derry would talk to them for a while, asking about school and their athletic endeavors and such, and finally he would playfully refuse to put me on until they gave him the password.

“Red Snapper,” they would answer with sing-song delight even though they had no idea what the password meant. All these years later, here is the secret revealed: that is the nickname Derry called me, inspired perhaps partly from taking a fish report call and also because my hair back then still had quite a bit of strawberry tint in it.

Former Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher is credited with saying, “Nice guys finish last,” but he missed the mark like a wild pitch. Derry Eads is proof they sometimes finish as first-rate Hall of Famers.

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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.

Fondly Missing ‘Mom’s Kitchen’

“What is a restaurant that’s not around any longer that you miss?” asked a post on social media, eliciting more than a million responses including, locally, Ferraro’s, The Gin Mill, Bobby McGee’s and Anacapa Brewing Company.

To that Fab Four I could add myriad more – Hudson’s Grill, Ventura Spaghetti Company, Top Hat and Cartwright’s Famous Hot Dogs leap quickly to mind – but the restaurant I miss the very most is “Mom’s Kitchen.”

Perhaps your own Mom’s franchise remains open and, if so, count your blessings. My Mom’s Kitchen closed unexpectedly, and permanently, 31 years ago come October.

In its heyday – Oh, boy! – it was something. I dare say no fancy restaurant, casual café, famous chef’s food truck or 24-hour diner could ever rival it because it was all of those stirred, blended and folded into one.

Mom’s Kitchen, like similar landmark eateries, changed location over the years. It originated as a tiny hole-in-the wall in Columbus, Ohio, on Ashmore Road; soon moved into a slightly larger venue a mile away on McCoy Road; then, necessitated by its daily clientele ordering the kids’ menu alone having grown to four, expanded again nearby on Alliston Court.

Eventually, Mom’s Kitchen relocated across the country to Ventura, high atop the foothills, its best table having an ocean view that rivaled the famous Pierpont Inn’s dining room.

No matter its location, no reservations were required at Mom’s Kitchen – just walk right in and make yourself at home. Moreover, extra dinner mouths were always welcome as were bed-and-breakfast guests, the latter most commonly on weekends and any day in summer. On holidays, it was lucky the Fire Marshal didn’t shut Mom’s Kitchen down for being overcrowded.

More than once, before taking a plate a guest of mine and I would actually phone his rival location of Mom’s Kitchen to see if by chance it had a better dinner special that evening than my Mom’s Kitchen, but that very rarely proved to be the case.

Indeed, night after night, my friends, and my two older brothers’ and younger sister’s friends as well, flocked to our Mom’s Kitchen as if there were two giant golden arches out front of our house.

To be sure, hamburgers were sometimes on the menu, although they were usually grilled up by Mom’s sous-chef who, if we are being honest, was infamous for cooking the burgers a tee shot’s distance beyond the point of well done. Upon slapping a hockey puck onto a bun, the sous-chef would proudly announce, “Here you go, charred like in a fine restaurant.”

Meanwhile, Mom was a cordon-bleu-chef/short-order-cook who could turn hamburger into fifty fares – from meatloaf and stroganoff to tacos and burritos to her world famous spaghetti sauce served on handmade pasta, naturally, that made even my Italian mother-in-law Irish green with envy – all worthy of Michelin stars.

Back to the original R.I.P. eatery question, I dearly miss Leonardo’s Pizzaria from my boyhood, The New York Hero House in college, and most recently Ferraro’s. But most of all, I would wish for one more meal at Mom’s Kitchen.

I have a strong hunch you feel likewise about your own Mom’s Kitchen…

…unless, thank your blessed stars, it remains open for business. Perhaps its peak hours are now limited to special occasions like holidays and birthdays and any time you are in town. If so, I urge you to make travel plans and dinner reservations as soon as possible.

Better yet, just drop in unannounced – I’m fairly certain your Mom’s Kitchen won’t mind the surprise at all, especially this Sunday for Mother’s 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.

Three Vignettes Worthy of Smiles

Sometimes we all need a smile. Here are three reasons to do so…

Earlier this week my granddaughter, age three – “almost four” she will tell you, even though her birthday is not until December – went to the dentist for the first time.

The milestone event was not anticipated to be like dragging a millstone up a hill. After all, Maya has not only received two COVID-19 vaccination shots without a fuss or fallen tear, out of curiosity she actually watched the needle go in both times. Yes, as Shakespeare wrote in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “Though she be but little, she is fierce.”

Alas, in the waiting room of the pediatric dentist, nervousness was getting the best of Maya and she began to tug on her mommy’s hand to escape home. Just then, an older patient, a boy aged 9 or 10, came out after his exam carrying a long, purple balloon sword…

…and seeing Maya’s distress, the boy became a knight in shining armor by gallantly offering over his sword. Instantly, like a wisp of smoke in a gust of wind, Maya’s fears disappeared and a smooth visit ensued with a full cleaning and fluoride treatment.

Oh yes, and a big smile with no cavities and a second balloon sword.

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With inflation up, and the need for help with food up even more, an experience by a dear friend of mine, who wishes to remain anonymous, seems well worth sharing. A frequent volunteer at a local food pantry, she recalled her first time doing so.

“I spent the morning stocking shelves, breaking down boxes, and helping to distribute food to clients,” she began. “Everyone I encountered was so friendly and genuinely grateful.

“I will remember one woman in particular who was beyond excited to get a package of ground turkey. She was nearly jumping up and down with excitement. The experience made me realize what a gift it is to be able to go to the grocery store and choose what I want to eat. The clients who come to the food pantry are entirely dependent on what the in-coming donations have been that week. I was especially surprised how in-demand canned beans and dried beans always are. Indeed, we often ran out of beans quickly.

“Ever since, I have always been sure include beans when I make donations!”

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With the Ventura County Fair in full swing through this Sunday after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, a cherished memory from my youth has given me a smile.

It was a smaller “Country Fair Without Ocean Air” in Ohio. I was 8 and my best friend Dan was 2 – he was born on Feb. 29 and stubbornly only counted his Leap Day birthdays. Dan’s mom gave us, and Dan’s older brother Tom, $3 each as I recall. That was a small fortune considering the games and rides cost a quarter and food treats were equally cheap.

Come afternoon’s end, Tom had miraculously not spent a single dime and his mom said he could keep the $3. Naturally, he taunted us, as big brothers will, bragging about the baseball cards and Matchbox cars he could now buy.

But Dan and I had no regrets. We had gotten dizzy on the rides, been conned shooting hoops and throwing darts at balloons and tossing rings at bottles without winning any prizes, but we still came out ahead and we knew it.

All these years later, I guarantee you Tom doesn’t remember what baseball cards he got, but I still remember the fun Dan and I had.

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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

Pier Bench Is My New Favorite

Do you have a favorite bench?

If so, as I reckon you do, where is it? A short walk from work where you escape for coffee breaks? In a park, perhaps, under a lovely shade tree in the company of songbirds? Or maybe in a cemetery where a bench becomes an outdoor pew?

I had a favorite bench in college, on the edge of campus at the University of Santa Barbara, high on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Its wooden seat slats sagged a little from age and were a lot weathered by the salty sea air, but the view was anything but ugly. Indeed, it was a beautiful spot to contemplate a poor test; brood a dating breakup; or simply rest and savor the panoramic scene after a run on the beach below.

Coincidentally, I found a bookend favorite bench on another college campus many years later. Specifically, the University of Southern California’s Founders Park which boasts one specific tree from all 50 states. In this idyllic setting, sitting on a shaded wrought-iron bench on a nearly weekly basis for nine years – my daughter’s and son’s four-year undergraduate enrollments overlapped one year, plus the latter’s two years of MBA study – I would wait with happy anticipation for classes to get out so we could have lunch together.

I now have a new favorite bench, one of 49 skirting the historic Ventura Pier. This one is perhaps a third of the way out on the right-hand side and affords a spectacular north-facing view towards Surfers Point. Importantly, it also has a brass plaque on the top wooden back slat dedicated to: Larry “Coach” Baratte.

Along with two of his “How To Live Rules” – Each Day Is A Blessing and Give Of Yourself And You Will Receive Ten Times In Return – the plaque bears a compass rose. The latter is truly fitting because Larry was a human North Star for countless people before brain cancer claimed his precious life two years ago come tomorrow – May 14, 2020 – at age 60.

The memorial bench was a gift this past Christmas from Larry’s widow, Beth, to their three adult sons, Chase, Collin and Cole. Making it all the more special is that Larry and Beth talked about it before he passed.

Sitting on “Larry’s Bench” quiets my soul. As the timbers below shudder pleasantly in rhythm with the waves, I like to watch the world spin by. I watch beach runners on shore and dog walkers on the promenade and fishermen on the pier.

And, of course, I watch the surfers. I watch them sitting astraddle their boards, rising and dipping as if sitting on an aquatic merry-go-round, and then doing their water-walking magic.

Too, I imagine Larry in the distance, in the cove, in the curl of a wave riding a surfboard. Better yet, I see him directly below, swimming around the pier for a workout. Best of all, I feel him sitting next to me, sharing his wisdom and his laugh and his friendship.

Inspired by the pile of pencils offered in homage by visitors at Henry David Thoreau’s gravestone in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Mass., on my most recent visit to “Larry’s Bench” I left behind a coach’s whistle hanging by its lanyard. Maybe this small gesture, or perhaps swim goggles, will catch on. It’s pretty to hope so.

Pretty, certainly, is the view. Indeed, “Larry’s Bench” is a most lovely place to take a break from the hustle and bustle of the world and reflect on why “Each Day Is A Blessing.”

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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