Article Archives: Words with Woods

I Run into Music

May 12, 2016 | by CJ Woods III

When I was 8, my father introduced me to a man named “Dizzy,” which I thought was a funny name for an adult. Fourteen years later, I knew who jazz trumpeter John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie was, and when I was strolling through downtown Pittsburgh with my new bride, we came … Read More

More Love Bombs

May 5, 2016 | by CJ Woods III

In late November, 1995, I sent a package to my eldest child in Miami, Florida; I was living in St. Louis, Missouri. The package was returned to me in January, 1996, with a post office stamp indicating that it could not be delivered because “the box was closed.” A recent … Read More

Vote

April 28, 2016 | by CJ Woods III

My grandchildren were somewhere in the overhead tubes at the Great Wolf Water Park in the Poconos of Pennsylvania when I took advantage of an opportunity to have a beer. My first bride was shepherding our grandbeauties through a gushing, twisting thrill-ride, one that I had opted out of: too … Read More

Showers, Flowers and Poetry

April 21, 2016 | by CJ Woods III

There is a rhyme with which most of us are familiar: “April showers bring May flowers.” In a cursory search for the origins of this rhyme, I found a website called “Feelings and Flowers” that discussed the origin; the author, Ken Bolt, made a case for Thomas Tusser’s collection of … Read More

Talking to the Young Trying to Understand

April 14, 2016 | by CJ Woods III

“Mother, mother/ there’s too many of you crying…” —Marvin Gaye, “What’s Going On.” On a young day in April, I spoke to a young lady, who asked me to tell her of my experience as a family member of someone in the Armed Forces. She is a student, studying Fine … Read More