Weekly View » Words with Woods

Impossible Dreams (Two)

CJ Woods III — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 05:08:56 +0000

In May 1969, the R & B group “The Temptations” appeared on the Ed Sullivan show and sang a song that became a theme for me and the woman I would marry in July of that same year. “The Impossible Dream” was composed by Mitch Leah, with lyrics written by Joe Darion, for performance in the 1965 Broadway musical, “Man of La Mancha.” The song came to be featured prominently in my own life when my friend’s brother-in-law told me to go pursue my love: “Get a horse and a sword,” he told me. (My column by that name was published in the Weekly View in July 2009.) I pledged my troth to my friend, and we married. In 1970, we quit our jobs, bought a tent, and spent 6 weeks camping across the country from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Los Angeles California, where I was going to pursue my dream of being an artist. Her family called us “The Dreamers” and we named our 1963 Volkswagen Bug, “The Dreamer.” Whenever we would return to Pittsburgh to visit, my mother-in-law would ask me to sing to her, and always chose “The Impossible Dream.”
The television pregame publicity for the United States’ soccer team’s competition in the 2026 FIFA World Cup shows two men in conversation at a bar, discussing the upcoming matches. In the background of the commercial, Elvis Presley is crooning “The Impossible Dream.” One man is enthusiastic about the United States’ possibilities, but the other man asks, “Do you really think the U.S. can win?” At the other end of the bar, a man chews nuts and says to the two men: “You don’t believe in miracles?” He stands up and walks away, showing the back of his jacket, emblazoned with crossed hockey sticks, a reminder of the “Miracle On Ice,” the US hockey team’s defeat of a powerful Soviet team in the 1980 Winter Olympics.
I watched the U.S. vs Paraguay game on Friday, June 12th. I understand very little of the game, though I remember my two youngest children running up and down the field in Mooresville Indiana, and their cousin, my first granddaughter, in goal in Cedar Knolls, New Jersey. I understood — somewhat — the object of the goalie: Keep the ball out of the net. The rest of the game is a mystery to me, but I shouted out “BOOM!” when the U.S. drew first blood against Paraguay. Soon that first score was augmented, when “striker” Folarin Jerry Balogun scored two more, becoming the first player to score multiple goals in a World Cup game since 1930, the last time that the games were played in the United States.
The U.S. won the game against Paraguay 4-1. My lack of knowledge about the technical aspects of the game — “offside,” yellow cards and red cards — did not keep me from rooting for the home team: The U.S. got four boisterous “booms” from me. My shallow dive into the research pool showed that now, we (what do you mean “we” writer-man?) must win 7 more games to achieve that impossible dream. The U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) plays Australia next, and though I have a very good friend who lives in Australia — I sang in her wedding — my “booming” will be reserved exclusively for the U.S. team.
It is not too much to hope that when the 2026 World Cup ends — perhaps with a 30-second-long cry of “Gooooaaalllll! — “Elvis The Pelvis” and the “Tempting Temptations” will be singing, having done what they could to encourage the USMNT to dream the impossible dream and to reach the unreachable “Starrrr!”

cjon3acd@att.net

Impossible Dreams

CJ Woods III — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 05:08:49 +0000

In 2003, I was living in St. Louis Missouri; I’d relocated there after my job in the L.S. Ayres’ advertising department was eliminated when the store closed. My new job with Famous Barr, the St. Louis department store, was also in the advertising department. My apartment was 8 blocks from the store, so I often walked to work. One day, I found that the bar I passed on my way home from work had pool tables and Rolling Rock beer. It became my bar of choice. While on the way home from work one weary workday, I encountered a lot of excitement. Someone barred my passage, saying that “the set was closed.” I challenged that person: “Hey: This is a public street, and you’re impeding my progress to my home!” Then, I ducked into the bar to have a Rolling Rock.
The street had been blocked off to vehicle traffic because director David Anspaugh was filming a movie. I did not know who Anspaugh was, nor did I know the name of his film, but I saw vintage cars from the 1940s and 50s had been trucked in and distributed about the closed street, and some of the businesses were transformed to resemble 1950s establishments. Since the filming site was on my way home, I spent quite a bit of time on the set. I took pictures of the people filming and the sets, and of the actors, some of whom would step into the bar for an occasional libation. I have a picture of Gerard Butler, one of the stars of the film, and lots of pictures of the old cars, which were as shiny as if they were new. Two years later, in 2005, “The Game Of Their Lives” was released.
The 1950 FIFA (International Federation of Association Football) World Cup was held in the city of Belo Horizonte, in southeastern Brazil; The United States’ World Cup soccer team was an underdog entry into the competition. The filming of many parts of “The Game Of Their Lives” was in St. Louis ostensibly because five of the team members were from St. Louis, four of whom were from “The Hill,” an area in St. Louis where the inhabitants were primarily Italian. Many of the actors were chosen for their ability to play soccer. Gerard Butler, a Scotsman who grew up playing soccer, played goalkeeper Frank Borghi in the film. Borghi’s goalkeeping helped to seal the United States’ “1-nil” (one goal to none) victory over “soccer powerhouse” England.
David Anspaugh’s direction of the film was based on a screenplay written by a friend he had met when the two were students at Indiana University in Bloomington. Angelo Pizzo’s screenplay was based on the book, “The Game Of Their Lives,” written by Geoffrey Douglas. Pizzo also wrote the Indiana favorite “Hoosiers,” as well as “Rudy.”
On Friday, June 12th, the United States will go into soccer-battle against Paraguay, in a group D first round match for the 2026 World Cup. The game will be held at Los Angeles Stadium in Inglewood California. (I’ve lived there, too.) The U.S. is not favored in this match, but then: miracles, happen, right? In 1980, during the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid New York, the underdog United States’ hockey team defeated the powerful Soviet team. That game came to be called “The Miracle on Ice.”
I don’t know if my shenanigans at the filming site of “The Game Of Their Lives” affected the film; it was not well-received. But the story is uplifting, nonetheless; we can hope that it will be repeated in 2026.

cjon3acd@att.net

Something About Pittsburgh

CJ Woods III — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 05:08:54 +0000

Someone with whom I was having a conversation said that they did not know that Pittsburgh had such a foundation in music, especially, jazz. I mentioned that jazz-guitar player George Benson was from Pittsburgh, and that my uncle Donald had a jazz band, with a piano player named “Fritz” Jones. (We know “Fritz” as Ahmad Jamal, now.) I’m not sure if I told the person the story of my father introducing his 8-year-old son (me) to a grown man named “Dizzy.” I thought at the time that it was a strange name for an adult man; it would be years before I realized that I had met jazz trumpeter John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie. An episode of the TV show “Watson” opens with a graphic saying “Lower Hill,” and a woman playing saxophone in a jazz club. Watson is played by Morris Chestnut; Watson’s father has a jazz club in Pittsburgh. The “Lower Hill” is where I used to watch “Georgie” play guitar.
Recent unfortunate circumstances took me back to the city of my birth. My two nieces picked me up at the bus station and took me to their home in Beechview, outside of the Pittsburgh city limits. As we wended our way along highway 376, I asked one of them which river we were driving beside. The natives fumbled for a moment before they remembered the Monongahela, one of the two rivers at whose confluence the mighty Ohio is formed. We climbed hills and turned onto other hills until we reached Beechview, and the hill on which they live. I imagined that I could hear Bill Henderson singing “The Folks Who Live On The Hill.” And oh, those hills.
In the town of Beechview there is a commemorative sign at the foot of Canton Street that boasts that it is the “steepest … in the Continental United States,” and proclaims that the street has “an ankle-straining 37% grade.” Looking up that grade is an imposing view, almost straight into the sky. My first bride taught me to drive on hills such as this, and I had to learn to hold my 4-speed manual VW on a hill without using the handbrake: clutch and gas, only. (Try that, you speed-minions of May.) Right next to the “ankle-straining” street, there is another sign: “Graymore Ave.” To those unfamiliar with the Pittsburgh area’s history, this sign would appear to point toward a series of steps. But as author Bob Regan pointed out in his book, “The Steps of Pittsburgh: Portrait of a City,” this may be one of the “712 sets of steps, 44,645 treads, 24,208 vertical feet” that are legal streets. I travelled those steps long before I ever drove on a paved (and cobbled) city street.
That is something about Pittsburgh. Hills and rivers and steps and music, music that includes jazz guitarist George Benson, jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal, and singer and actress Phyllis Hyman, whom I met when she lived in St. Clair Village, in the South Hills section of Pittsburgh. Phyllis and I danced together, eye to eye: She was 6 feet tall. We also sang together, long before she performed in the musical revue “Sophisticated Ladies” on Broadway, where she earned a Theater World Award and a Tony Award nomination.
Oh: And football. I remember when my friend Steve Nicewanger was excited to hear that my old classmate, Francis Peay, was going to be an assistant coach with the Indianapolis Colts. I wrote of my “Fear Of Franny” (The Weekly View May 2009; reprinted Sept. 9th, 2021,) but was glad to see the ‘Burgh represented in Indy.

cjon3acd@att.net

11 Labs A’ Licking

CJ Woods III — Thu, 21 May 2026 05:08:25 +0000

My yellow lab had 11 puppies, one night. I was there for the birth of all of them.
“Allie Dog Woods,” as my youngest daughter called her, was sweet and gentle, and loved to chew the rubber on the gas grill. (Wait- that last one wasn’t a good thing.) But Allie refused to eat my son when he had his arm down her throat. She just gagged, gave me a piteous look: “Can you take this kids’ arm out of my throat?” (Eighteen years later, my son tried that trick with an American Bulldog, with disastrous results.)
Allie was not spayed, and I took great care to keep her inside when she was most attractive to the neighborhood thug-dogs. I failed, once.
A four-foot fence ringed our back yard. It kept out little dogs, but no cats, squirrels, nor that big black brute of a canine from down the alley. I’m not a dog-fearing man, but when I would come out of the back door to find this dude sniffing Allie’s spots in the yard, I would hesitate.
“Shoo,” I would whisper, positioned to leap into the house. The brute would raise his head, look at me, and saunter to the fence, which he cleared in one muscular bound. I’d bounce into the back yard and strut, whispering, “Yeah! You want some of this?”
Allie grew, swelled and blew up, until it was obvious: she was pregnant.
One evening, Lauryn said to me, “Daddy, something’s wrong with Allie.” Fat Allie, swollen with pups, was taking what I thought was a potty break in the back yard. I peeked into the dark, and could see a white bag bulging beneath her. I stepped out, came closer, and “Defcon 4! We’re in delivery!”
I coaxed Allie back into house, and she delivered her pup on the back porch. Lauryn and Chris peeked at the pup over the child-gate. There was licking and other dog-things, and when Allie wanted to go outside again, I didn’t let her. She rewarded my refusal with the delivery of — another pup! I realized that “litter” described dog’s deliveries, and I was in for a long night. I papered the back porch, and sat down to wait. Sometime around 5 a.m., Allie delivered the 11th pup. (I had fallen asleep, so the time is approximate. This pup did not live.)
I learned some animal husbandry that night, and about the defecatory habits of newborn pups. The cruds were crap machines, superb newsprint slimers. Allie also stressed my mathematical capabilities. She had fewer, ahem, spigots, than pups. I devised a routine. Wake up in the morning, put ten pups in a box and let Allie out, clean up the papers and the porch, let Allie in, put five pups in a box and five on the mom, flip Allie and plop 5 new pups on her. Puppy parenting is hard work.
We had lots of dogs. I have pictures: my eldest daughter sitting on the couch with a puppy peeking out of her sweatshirt; puppies crawling over two giggling kids on the floor. We named them. We even had a “Roly,” in honor of the 101 Dalmations.
We did not keep those 10 pups and Allie never commented on her loss. But I remember the births, and paper-sliming, the whimpers and suckling, the baths and the day when the dog family spread across the back yard, yapping and crapping.
The brute stood at the corner of the fence, looked in, and sauntered back down the alley. “Yeah. That’s what I’m talkin’ about!”

This column first appeared in June 2009.

cjon3acd@att.net

The Howl of May

CJ Woods III — Thu, 14 May 2026 05:08:32 +0000

Three motorcycles roared Eastward on 10th Street, passing me with blatting pipes; one was a “tri-ped,” and someone had installed speakers that put out multi-decibel aural insults. As I walked down E. 10th Street, I added the sounds of those motorcycles to the roar of glasspack muffler-equipped muscle cars, their drivers arrogantly demonstrating a blatant disregard for the eardrums of pedestrians. But hey: it’s May. The 500 is next up.
When I lived in St. Louis Missouri in the early 90s, I still maintained a relationship with two friends that I had made before I left Indianapolis Indiana. The “Three Amigos” — Lisa, Nancy, and CJ — had formed after I met Lisa Clarkson at Indiana University Southeast, where we were both students. Lisa insisted that I meet her best friend, Nancy, and the three of us bonded. I attended one of Nancy’s weddings, and after Lisa moved to Florida, I visited her as often as I could. Nancy’s husband, Bill Davis, was a car-race enthusiast, and regularly acquired tickets to the Indianapolis 500. Bill and Nancy still lived in Southern Indiana, and regularly attended the race. One year, Bill invited Nancy’s two best buds — CJ and Lisa — to attend the race with them. I flew in from St. Louis and Lisa flew in from Florida.
Quiet as it’s kept (to use a phrase from Toni Morrison’s novel, “The Bluest Eye,”) I was not a big fan of the “vroom-vroom,” nor was Lisa. But we wanted to be with our friends, and there was a big race, and we went. I cannot remember the date, but it was sometime in the early 90s; I moved to St. Louis in 1993, so it was after that. Sharp journalist that I am, I also cannot remember who ran in the race, nor who won. I do recall that the tickets that Lisa and I had were not in the same area with Bill and Nancy and their other friends, so the two of us were alone at an event that we were interested in only because of the people we adored. And we were frying in the hot sun, asking each other, “Are we having fun yet?” But we survived that race, and when the next year’s invitation came around, we again, got tickets. This time, we were with the in-crowd, and I was able to aim my camera at whatever turn that was near us. Even with my new Nikon camera, (with which I loved to take photographs, Momma) I managed only to get the rear spoilers of the roaring cars.
When I lived in Los Angeles California in the early 1970s, there were automobile laws and ordinances at which Hoosiers would have cackled. A driver could be ticketed for demonstrating an “unnecessary display of speed” — screeching away from a stop — or having mufflers that were too loud. (I’m not sure how the noise was measured, but hey…) When I was young, in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, my first bride’s sister had a friend who owned a Lotus Ford. He took me for a spin, one that topped one-hundred-ten miles per hour. (I deny the rumor that I wet myself.) But that was then, and this is now, and it is May in Indianapolis.
I no longer live close enough to the Speedrome on S. Kitley Avenue to hear the howl of the cars in the evening, but there are plenty of cars hammering down E. 10th Street to remind me that it is May, and “the greatest spectacle in racing” is coming, and street racers are practicing for the howl into the third turn.

cjon3acd@att.net

Ink

CJ Woods III — Thu, 07 May 2026 05:08:55 +0000

A friend posted a rant on a social media site that set free the hounds that had been dogging me for some time. The post indicated that he could not understand the proliferation of tattoos on men in the St. Louis Missouri area. He wrote that men were working out in the gym, shirtless, and covered in unreadable script. A former advertising department employee, the poster noted that the script used by one tattooed man was an “unreadable font,” principally designed for headers.
I’ve been curious about the proliferation of tattoos for some time. When I was young in the 1950s and 1960s, there were few people brandishing tats, and those who did were former service-people or prison and jailhouse graduates. In my four years in high school, I saw not one person with a tattoo, and the boys in gym class swam naked when it was pool time. (I was on the swim team, so I was allowed to wear my trunks.) There was a trend, sometime in the 70s or 80s, when women would get what my sister called a “tramp stamp,” which was a tattoo on the back, just above the buttocks. This tattoo was visible when the inked one wore low-riding pants and high-riding tank tops and (gasp!) bent over.
In every bar and restaurant that I visit, there are tattooed people. Servers slide drinks to me, extending arms that have graphics climbing from beneath the sleeves and across those arms, as well as the wrists and hands. Of course, these are not the graphics of the thug life: No one has a teardrop beneath the eye, indicating a murderous moment. But in my observance of the tattooed world, I am always curious about the glorious graphics spread across the backs of people. Do those tatted not want to see the wondrous works inscribed on their bodies? Or do they all have “surround body” mirrors that they can use to admire the work?
When I was an Art Director in the advertising department for Indianapolis’ L.S. Ayres department store, we would contract for models to wear the clothing we photographed to put into the catalogs that we sent to the homes of our customers. When the images from the photo-shoots were processed, we were instructed to remove any tattoos that the models might have had.
My youngest daughter has 6 instances of buzz-work (“bzzzz” being the sound of the tattoo thingy). Among them, on her foot, she has her grandmother’s name (my mother,) date of birth, date of death and a lily; she has her own daughter’s name and footprint on an arm, and her thigh is festooned with daffodils, poppies, water lilies and lily of valley. A swallow flies on her shoulder. (She does not know if it is a barn swallow or tree swallow.) The actor Robert LaSordo played Memmo Fierro, an archenemy of Horatio Caine, played by David Caruso. Caine is a Lieutenant in the Miami-Dade Police department’s crime lab; LaSordo is a bandit, and is tattooed from his neck to his… nethers?
Whenever I see ink climbing into and out of the clothing of the people around me, I try to imagine what kind of will power it must take to allow someone to drill ink onto your skin. I also hear the voice of Jimmy Durante, singing his 1933 song: “Ink a dink a dink, a dink a doo…” Perhaps, with so many young people getting buzz-work, I should be hearing the children’s song: “Skidamarink.” As noted in that ditty, the process of getting some ink could mean, “I love you.”

cjon3acd@att.net

Boom

CJ Woods III — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 05:08:10 +0000

“It’s a bomb!”
When the man on the “cops and robbers” TV show I was watching said that it reminded me of one of the jobs my father held when I was young. He was an automobile mechanic in a garage, and I remember being in the building where the work was being done. The garage was on the top floor of a parking facility with a circular ramp that led up to it. In the 1950s, men called cars that were in less than pristine condition, “bombs,” and when a mechanic brought his own car into the garage, the others would bellow, “BOOM!” This would signal that the car was a “bomb.” It would be many years before I had the opportunity to own a “bomb.”
It was uncommon on the Hill District of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania in the 1950s and 1960s for teenagers to possess or have access to cars. When I graduated from high school, I don’t think that many of my fellow graduates had a car to take a date to the prom. I took public transportation to every event that I attended, even to the wedding of a good friend and co-worker. My cousin’s friend was a salesperson for a shoe store (he sold me my first pair of Bally shoes) and he had a red, 1963 Oldsmobile Starfire convertible; the car had a great slab of chrome from the front to the rear. This car was most definitely, not a “bomb.” We walking young men were envious of him, but continued to take buses, streetcars, and jitneys (illegal taxis) to where we had to go.
My first car did not go “boom:” it was a 1963 Volkswagen Bug. My first bride and I purchased it from a friend of her family, and she taught me how to drive in it. (I had no license; she did.) I do not know how many millions of miles it had on it, but we called it “The Dreamer,” since we two were going to set out to seek our dreams in California. The car took us from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles via Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado, and only broke down once. When we got to Los Angeles, I put some unapproved fluid into its aluminum engine and killed it. We sold it to someone who converted it into a dune buggy. Since we had become VW enthusiasts, the next car we bought was a 1972 VW Super Beetle; this was not a bomb, and we drove it until we retired it and purchased a Triumph TR6, which was also not a bomb. It did have a bad habit of accelerating on its own, though. When the dealership could not correct that condition, we got rid of the TR6, and got some 4-door, boring Dad-car. No bomb, this. Nor was it a “hooptie,” or a “bucket,” which are two other slang terms for the 1950s “bomb.”
With the tension in the world these days, we must be careful about the terms we sling about. An adage notes that “freedom of speech” does not allow us to falsely yell “fire” in a crowded theater. When someone drives their “bucket” past a public assembly, no careful and cautious person is likely to bellow, “bomb!” This is likely to cause a riotous response, replete with a police presence, and an embarrassing visit to the local station. But we can compliment someone’s cooking by saying, “This pie is the BOMB,” or something else is “the bomb-diggity!”
It is safer to note that the passing “hooptie” is a “bucket.”
Definitely: Not a bomb.

cjon3acd@att.net

That Guy

CJ Woods III — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 05:08:10 +0000

The car pulled into the crosswalk just as I stepped into the street; the driver glanced to their left, looking for oncoming cars, as they were trying to safely make a right turn at a red light. I’m sure that the driver saw me: I was in their direct line of sight as I crossed the street. I’m also sure that the driver did not expect to experience “That Guy” in the crosswalk.
As a member of the “Frequent Walker Club,” I have a lot of experience with cars and crosswalks. When I was the daytime caregiver for my youngest granddaughter, we used to pram about Irvington, often to the Bonna Avenue location of the Coal Yard Coffee Company. I remember starting to cross a street and seeing a car in the crosswalk. The woman looked to her left, saw me, Myah, and the pram, and slowly reversed her car out of the crosswalk. I raised my hand in thanks, and she lowered her window. “Tell the baby I’m sorry,” she called out.
People often pull into the crosswalk without checking for pedestrians, to execute that right turn on red; I am often one of the people who are blocked by that maneuver. And those of you who have blocked my passage may remember the way I address your presence: I place my hands on the hood of your car and lean on it. I slowly move around your car, making sure to leave as many of my handprints on it as I can. I do not make eye contact with the driver.
I am aware that in Indiana, one need merely be alive to qualify for ownership of a firearm, and that the possibility that someone may be angered enough by my violation of their property to open fire on me. But I am far more irritated by the incursion into the pedestrian crosswalk than concerned about what the driver may do to me. Foolish, I know, but I am “that guy.” In July of 2023, I wrote of “The Hot Corner,” (The Weekly View, July 20th and 27th, 2023.) I live on a corner that has a 4-way stop, and few drivers actually stop. Some will slow down and glide through the intersection, but a lot of people just hammer on through without so much as a pause. My youngest granddaughter has heard me grumble about the lack of observance of the stop sign and will sometimes call out to me: “Clop! That driver came to a full and complete stop!”
I don’t know if I am changing anyone’s behavior by touching their cars as I make my way around them. When I was actively monitoring the “stop runners” on my street, I would walk to the corner with my camera and aim at the oncoming car. One driver took exception to my recording of his behavior, and stopped (past the actual stop sign, of course) and opened his door.
“Are you taking pictures of me?” he barked. “Yes: I am,” I flexed back. He muttered something, re-entered his car, and drove off. A few days later, I heard his engine roaring, and walked outside to record his passage. He made a full and complete stop at the sign, drove past the intersection, and paused. He opened his car door, stepped out and said to me, “I meant no disrespect.” I saluted him, and he drove away. One person’s behavior changed, and no one died, but if you block an intersection in the Irvington area of Indianapolis, I am that guy who will put handprints on your hood.

cjon3acd@att.net

Bird Song

CJ Woods III — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 05:08:58 +0000

This Spring has been a wild ride, so far; the temperatures have varied from a low of 30º to a high of 80º, all in one week. I have covered and uncovered the little plants in the planters at the side of the property I rent, responding to the “too cold for plants” call of the weather reporters. But one of the constants of this time of year are the cries of the birds.
My youngest daughter can identify the call of a Carolina Wren; she admits that the reason she can, is because I sang it for her. My first granddaughter, who lives in New Jersey, had an encounter with Carolina Wrens that I recounted in a column (“Imani and the Carolina Wrens,” The Weekly View, Jan. 4th, 2018.) When I sit on the glider (old folks know what a “glider” is) the house sparrows gather in the bush in front of the porch railing and chastise me for being in their space. Or perhaps, for not stocking my feeder with the seeds they enjoy.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has developed an application that allows users to identify the calls of birds. (On a cool note: The Cornell website has a Carolina Wren as its photo representative.) I have the Merlin app on my phone, and I will frequently pause and think, “Excuse me while I whip this out,” (thanks, “Blazing Saddles”) and will whip out my phone to set Merlin to the task of identifying the multitude of bird calls. In the year 2013 (I heard the 1969 song “In The Year 2525” by Zager and Evans as I wrote that) I was living in what I called my loft, at the corner of Julian Street and Bolton Avenue. My land-person gave me permission to put up a bird feeder that was visited by a startling number of bird species. One day while I was standing in the back yard, I heard an unfamiliar cry. I looked up to see a small bird; its uplifted tail signified “wren” to me, but that was the first time that I had seen and heard the cry of a Winter Wren. I’m not sure how I managed to track down the bird’s call, as I had yet to meet Wes Homoya, the ornithologist who would become my friend. (See “Hummingbird Down,” The Weekly View, July 3rd, 2019.) But the birds in the bushes and the trees around my house — which is two blocks North of Ellenberger Park — are twittering up a spring storm.
When I am ambling through the neighborhood, I can hear the birds in the trees, and I know the Robin, the Northern Cardinal and of course, the House Sparrows. At the corner of East 10th Street and North Emerson Avenue, the trees are alive with the sounds of bird music. At this time of the year, with the birds vocalizing, I think of a little poem called “Spring Birds” that I wrote three years ago: “Busy birds bringing / Small bits of trash and tiny / Twigs. Boot-knocking, soon?”
And yes: Soon, in the trees and bushes and under the eaves of the houses, nests will grow and those busy birds, singing and winging and fluttering together in the act of procreation, will be tending to eggs, which will hatch and then I will hear the higher-pitched cries of baby birds as they struggle to exit their shells and beg for sustenance. And I will walk the two blocks south on Hawthorne Lane to Ellenberger Park, where I will listen to the bird songs of our lives.

cjon3acd@att.net

I Am Not Who I Think I Am

CJ Woods III — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 05:08:16 +0000

In the tasting room of my favorite cidery, I like to sit in a particular place. When I enter the room, I immediately head for a corner where the L-shaped bar meets a wall. I think of this corner as “my place,” and I am greeted and treated well by all of the staff of Ash & Elm. Most of the staff members know that I have a particular preference in cider but, will come to verify that I am going to maintain my custom, or if I’m bolting the corral and heading for the range. I have a vision of myself as a customer: I am quiet and undemanding and reserved with others unless engaged. That notion was dispelled when the tasting room manger said to me, “You’re actually quite chatty.”
When Melissa said that to me, I was only briefly surprised to hear it; I remembered when a co-worker in the advertising department of a St. Louis department store dryly commented, “You are a fan of your own voice.” That long-ago comment temporarily interrupted the stream of yap to which I had been subjecting the co-worker, but I thought about it again when told that I was “chatty.” I realized that my private description of myself does not match my public persona.
I sent to my first bride a copy of a column I wrote about the “Ws,” the lights atop the Westinghouse Supply Company’s building on the North side of the Allegheny river in Pittsburgh, as she figures prominently in my reminiscences of visiting the river. She read it and told me that when I wrote of my inability to counsel and comfort a grieving person, it was a show of self-awareness and acknowledgement of something about me that she had known for a long time. Comedian Flip Wilson’s character, “Geraldine” used to say, “What you see is what you get,” and in an Indiana firefight that passed for a midterm election, a candidate told his audience, “I am who I say I am.” “Geraldine” was Flip Wilson in drag, so what you saw was not what you got, and when I say that I am quiet and shy, hands in the audience fly up, waving for attention, eager to say: “No way!”
When some people learn that I write a column for this newspaper, they ask, “What do you write about?” I used to struggle with that, and “uhh..” was my best answer. I briefly considered, “Whatever I want,” but that tells you nothing. But I am, after all, an artist, and every artist should have some bloviation describing her work (see what I did there?) and I have settled on, “I write about my collisions with life, and my observations of the human condition.” Has a smell of erudition, don’t you think? But after dropping that knowledge, I think, jeez, man: Nobody knows what that (stuff) means! The creative director of this publication once described me as a “humorist” in an early bio, a description that was apt for the time, since my first columns were rife with hilarious takes on my life: my diligent avoidance of combat (“Fight Club,”) or my disastrous childhood experiments mixing dangerous chemicals (“Invisible, Invisible Ink.”)
I cannot describe myself, except in physical terms: 6’ 1”, gray hair, brown eyes, 172 pounds. The rest of who I might be, I’ll just have to write on the walls of memory and let historians decipher the hieroglyphics, for it is clear to me that, when I think of myself as taciturn and another sees me as chatty, I am not who I think I am.

This column was first published in August 2018.

cjon3acd@att.net