Tag Archives: Woog’s World

A “Woog’s World” Farewell

Posted on January 16, 2024 | 41 comments

From time to time, I hear longtime residents lament: “What a shame the Westport News went out of business.”

It didn’t.

Our “hometown newspaper” still publishes a print edition, every Friday.

It’s hard to find. I don’t think it’s sold anywhere in town. It gets delivered (often 4 days late) by mail, to some (but definitely not all) Westporters.

Westport News, complete with ad sticker on page 1.

It’s online too. It’s been rebranded as “CT Insider,” though it still says “Westport News” there as well.

Yet many older readers think the paper is defunct. And most new ones have never heard of it.

They don’t know that, beginning in 1986, I wrote a weekly column for the Westport News called “Woog’s World.”

And they — including many old-timers — don’t know that until last Friday, I kept writing it.

My second-to-last “Woog’s World.”

Once a week, for 36 years, I offered my thoughts on Westport. For the past 10 or so years, I wasn’t sure anyone read them.

Feedback was non-existent. More common was: “I miss ‘Woog’s World,'”

My final newspaper column ran this past Friday.

The timing is right. “06880” is demanding more and more of my time. I know my audience, and I know their eyeballs are here.

For those who had no idea I wrote a regular newspaper column — and those who either remember the old Westport News, or never heard of its heyday and are curious to know more — I’m posting that final “Woog’s World” below.

Enjoy. And — if you’re interested — here’s a link to the Westport News website.

I mean, “CT Insider.”

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The final “Woog’s World”:

My first Westport News byline came in 1969.

My last will be in 2024. It’s this one.

I’ve had a great run. From those first days as a Staples High School sophomore covering the baseball team, to today’s farewell “Woog’s World,” I’ve had the honor of reporting, recording and ruminating on more than 50 years of Westport life.

I’ve been the “Up at Staples” columnist, a two-year gig I inherited from a senior when Vietnam, drugs, student power and more rocked our town. I wrote about Staples soccer, football, basketball, wrestling and baseball too, for the sports pages. I’d type it all up, drop my “copy” in a box outside the Brooks Corner office, then head off to school.

As a Staples High School senior, I praised Players’ production of “The Time of Your Life” — and slammed the choice of the play.

As sports editor from 1976-79 – my first real job after college – I wrote, edited, laid out and filled up to six pages, twice a week, about everything from the Wreckers and Little League to Olympic and professional hopefuls.

It’s hard to imagine now, but for much of the second half of the 20th century, the Westport News was how Westporters got their news. From its downtown office, the News covered everything and anything that happened in town.

Reporters had specific beats. One handled Town Hall; another, education. Jeanne Davis was the flamboyant arts editor. Still, the most popular feature was the all-inclusive Police Reports. No matter who you were, if you got nabbed you could not keep your name out of the paper.

The perfect story presented itself when the furniture store across the street burned to the ground. It was right in front of us – and a Tuesday afternoon, perfect for our Wednesday edition deadline.

A Congressional race, Gorham Island, and school bus schedules were front-page news in 1978.

I kept writing after becoming a full-time freelancer. In 1986, editor Lise Connell offered me this “Woog’s World” space. Every Friday since – for 36 years, which is about 1,800 columns – I’ve contributed 800 words about whatever went on in Westport that week. Or had gone on in the past. Or was coming ‘round the bend.

Subjects ranged widely. I wrote about a Staples student who won both the Siemens Westinghouse and Intel science contests in the same year; teenagers who overdosed on angel dust, and a high school alcoholic.

I wrote about controversies, like the Compo Beach playground that was built only after a court injunction. (Spoiler alert: Now one of the most popular spots in Westport, it will soon be renovated as a townwide project.) I covered the Y’s long, torturous move from downtown; the closing, opening, remodeling and other ups and downs of our schools, and the everlasting debate about the future of Baron’s South. (If I wrote for another 36 years, until 2060, I’d still be reporting on that topic.)

Every Christmas, I offered a poem. Every January, I imagined headlines for the coming year. Once, decades ago, I came out as gay in my “Woog’s World” column.

A few headlines, out of 1,800.

Lise Connell – a demanding, decisive and thoroughly wonderful boss – was one of several memorable editors. Larry Fellows had been a foreign correspondent for the New York Times. Woody Klein was previously the editor of IBM’s “Think” magazine. The Westport News – the flagship of what became the Brooks Community Newspapers – punched far above its weight.

Those days are well known to anyone who lived in Westport between about 1965 and 2000. If you were a Westporter, you read the Westport News.

But the world of journalism has changed seismically since then. The Brooks family sold their chain of papers to Hearst Media. Print circulation declined, while online options surged. Readers could access the Westport News – and sister publications – any time, from anywhere. Stories were posted any time too. A new century ushered in a new era.

I’ve aged a bit, from the early days.

Through all the changes, I’ve enjoyed chronicling all things Westport. No, that’s not right; I’ve loved it. I appreciate beyond measure the chance to share my thoughts and insights, week after week (year after year) (decad after decade), about what is happening (and has happened, and may one day happen) in this historic, ever-changing, passionate, quarrelsome, weird and wonderful community.

I’ve been privileged, for 36 years, to have had my say. I’ll continue to say it on the “pages” of my “06880” blog (www.06880.org).

And now – 55 years after my byline first appeared in the Westport News – I’ll sign off the way I was taught, my first day on the job as a high school sophomore.

For decades – in a throwback to the days of telegraph transmission — “-30-“ meant the end of a story. The writer had done his job; now it went to the editor and (how’s this for a memory?) typesetter.

“Woog’s World” is done. I give hearty, loving thanks to decades’ worth of colleagues, friends, and most importantly, readers. It’s been a true honor, and a great privilege. -30-.

41 Comments

Posted in Looking back, Media, Sports, Staples HS

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9/11, 10/5

Posted on September 11, 2011 | 30 comments

Yesterday’s “06880” looked back on September 11, 2001 from the perspective of 3 days later.  

Three weeks after that horrific day —  on October 5, 2011 — my “Woog’s World” column in the Westport News looked back on the lessons of that day, and the ways we’d changed.

It seems incredible, even obscene, that something good could rise out of last month’s terrorist attacks.

But this much seems true:  Americans have come together in ways impossible to imagine in the days before September 11.

The signs are everywhere — flags flap from the antennas of Porsches and pickups alike; George W. Bush’s approval ratings are higher than any politician’s except Rudy Giuliani’s, and the hottest Halloween costumes this year honor our nation’s new heroes, firefighters and police and EMTs — but there has been a subtler shift as well.

Across America, cities and suburbs that less than 4 weeks ago were simply places to live, are now communities.

The changes are obvious in New York City, of course, where subway riders now solicitously usher others onto trains, give up seats and even engage in conversations with strangers; in stores, where sales clerks ask customers if they can be of help, then actually try to do exactly that, and in business offices, where cutthroat competitors have gone out of their way to help rival companies and colleagues in need.

But the changes are obvious in Westport too, and in some ways they are as remarkable as those in the big city 50 miles west.

There was always an excuse for New Yorkers’ rudeness, pushiness and isolation:  In a city so vast and dense you could not interact with everyone, so why bother making any human contact at all?

Westporters’ incivility, by contrast, was more willful, less understandable.  We chose to live in a supposedly friendly town, most of us, but we often acted in the most unfriendly ways.

Don’t get me wrong; Westport has always been a wonderful place to live.  We have nodded to our neighbors, socialized with friends, participated in civic affairs and enjoyed the good life this town offers in such abundance.

But we have tended to do so on our own terms, whenever and wherever we wanted to.  And if we did not care to be particularly neighborly, no one could make us.

After September 11, all that is different.

I notice the changes everywhere.  I see it in the way Westporters greet the FedEx and UPS delivery persons, the men and women so important to our business lives.  A month ago we waited for them with stopwatches; every moment they were late was a catastrophe of epic proportions.

Now we are grateful the overnight delivery arrives overnight, whenever it comes.  We understand that planes can be grounded, for good reason.  We know too that from time to time the people sending us crucial documents and packages must face even more crucial events in their lives that prevent them from getting those items out on time.

I see it at Staples football games, home and away.  Crowds seem larger than usual; in addition to students and parents, the stands are filled with random townspeople.  People seem to be enjoying the fall air, watching a bunch of kids trying their best, and gathering together with other human beings in a united group.

I see it in the offers being made, neighbor to neighbor, to look out for one another.  Parents appear willing, even eager, to pick up other parents’ children from after-school activities, dance lessons and soccer practice.

They check on elderly or infirm neighbors.  They stop one another on walks down the road, and ask how families are doing.

For a long time we believed everyone’s life was his own.  That remains true, but we now also know that all those lives are precious — and each of us has an obligation to support and sustain those other lives.

I see it in the checkout lines at the supermarket.  Not long ago the woman scanning the tomatoes, taco shells and toothpaste was faceless, anonymous and — if she had to call the manager for help — incompetent.

Today we look into her tired eyes and recognize she is just a hard-working woman trying to do her job.  We understand with sudden clarity that the reason she does not talk to us is because she cannot speak English.  We wonder, for the first time, if she has a family somewhere far from Westport, and if she sends them money whenever she can.

I see it in the Westport Fire Department’s annual open house.  Usually a low-key affair, with a few dads toting young children for a look at the big red engines, last weekend’s event was SRO.

Residents of all ages spent more time staring at the firefighters than at their trucks.  They engaged the firefighters in conversation, asking about their jobs, their lives, even intensely personal subjects like the loss of their New York City colleagues.  And the Westport men, women and children asking those questions listened closely to the responses.

It would be incredible, even obscene, to pretend that the changes we have seen over the past 3 1/2 weeks are worth the losses our nation has suffered.  No one would wish last month’s terrorist attack on our worst enemy.  But at the same time, it would be silly to ignore those changes, or pretend they are not welcome and good.

Today, as we move into the next phase of our post-terror attack world, we face tremendous challenges.  Turning Westport’s temporary changes into permanent ones my seem a tangential goal.

But if, in the difficult days ahead, we are to be a true community — and not just a town — it is certainly worth a try.

30 Comments

Posted in Looking back, People

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9/11, And Riding A Bicycle

Posted on September 10, 2011 | 24 comments

No matter what else goes on this weekend, the shadow of a Tuesday weekday 10 years ago — September 11, 2001 — hangs over us all. 

That horrible day changed our lives together.  We know it now — and we sensed it then.

Here’s what I wrote 3 days later — September 14, 2001 — in my Westport News “Woog’s World” column.

It was a bit past noon on Tuesday, the Tuesday that will change all of our lives forever.

Fifty miles from Westport smoke billowed from what, just hours before, was the World Trade Center.

A number of Westporters once worked there.  The twin towers were never particularly beautiful, but in their own way they were majestic.  Whether driving past them on the New Jersey Turnpike, flying near them coming in to the airport, or taking out-of-town friends or relatives to the top, we took a certain amount of pride in them.

We’re Westporters, but in a way we’re also New Yorkers.  The World Trade Center symbolized that, though we live in suburban Connecticut, we all feel in some way connected to the most exciting, glamorous, powerful city in the world.

And now that same city was under attack.  From the largest McMansion to the most modest Westport home, men and women frantically tried to make contact with spouses, relatives and friends who work in downtown Manhattan.

Staples High School, teenagers who grew up thinking the worst thing that can happen is wearing the wrong shirt or shoes, were engaged in a similar quest.

Many of their fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers work in New York.  Many others knew loved ones who were flying that morning, or in Washington, or somewhere else that might possibly become the next city under siege.

Meanwhile, on Whitney Street, a pretty young woman dressed in her best late-summer clothes rode a bicycle down the road.

It was, after all, a beautiful day.  Along the East Coast there was not a cloud n the sky — not, that is, unless you count the clouds filled with flames, dust and debris erupting from the collapse of the World Trade Center.

It was a perfect day to ride a bicycle, unless of course you were terrified you had lost a loved one, were glued to a television set wherever you could find one, or were so overwhelmed by grief and rage and fright and confusion because you had no idea what was next for America that riding a bicycle was absolutely the furthest thing from your mind.

On the other hand, perhaps riding a bicycle was exactly the right reaction.  Perhaps doing something so innocent, so routine, so life-affirming, was just was some of us should have been doing.

If tragedy teaches us anything, it is that human beings react to stress in a variety of ways.  Who is to say that riding a bicycle is not the perfect way to tell Osama bin Laden, or whoever turns out to be responsible for these dastardly deeds, that America’s spirit will not be broken?

But I could not have ridden a bicycle down the road on Tuesday.  I sat, transfixed, devouring the television coverage of events that, in their own way, may turn out to be as transforming for this world as Pearl Harbor was nearly 60 years earlier.

I could not bear to watch what I was seeing, but neither could I tear myself away.  Each time I saw the gaping holes in those two towers, every time I saw those enormous symbols of strength and power and (even in these economically shaky times) American prosperity crumble in upon themselves like a silly disaster movie, the scene was more surreal than the previous time.

Life will be equally surreal for all of us for a long time to come.

I wondered, as I watched the video shots of the jet planes slam into the World Trade Center over and over and over again, what must have been going through each passenger’s mind.

Like many Westporters, I fly often.  Like most I grumble about the delays and crowded planes, but like them too I feel a secret, unspoken thrill every time the sky is clear, the air is blue and the scenery terrific.  Tuesday was that kind of day.

For the rest of my life, I suspect, flying will never be the same.  And the increased security we will face at every airport, on each plane, is only part of what I fear.

So much remains to be sorted out.  We will hear, in the days to come, of Westporters who have lost family members and friends in the World Trade Center.  We will hear too of those who have lost their jobs when their companies collapsed, either directly or indirectly, as a result of the terrorism.

We will drive along the New Jersey Turnpike, or stand on a particular street in Manhattan, perhaps even take out-of-town guests to gaze at the landmark we will come to call “the place the twin towers used to be.”

Our casual grocery store and soccer sideline conversations will be filled with stories:  who was where when the terror first hit, and what happened in the hours after.

Our newspapers and airwaves will be clogged with experts trying to explain — though that will never be possible — what it all means for us, in the short term and long term, as individuals and a society.

Our world has already changed, in ways that will take years, if not decades, to understand.  We are nowhere close to comprehending the meaning of all this.

The world will go on, of course.  Our planet will continue to spin; men and women will continue to commute to New York, and pretty women in Westport will continue to ride bicycles down Whitney Street.

At the same time, sadly, none of that will ever be the same.

24 Comments

Posted in Looking back, Places

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Yeah, yeah, I know…

Posted on March 6, 2009 | 2 comments

In the early 1980s, when the first personal computers crashed on the scene, I could not imagine why any actual person would want one.  Within a year or so, I bought a Kaypro.

In the 1990s, when folks first started developing personal websites, I vowed never to follow the crowd.  It did not take long to cave.  For over a decade, I have been the proud owner/operator of danwoog.com.

So of course, after resisting blogging for several years — many generations, in tech-talk — I have now unleashed “06880” on the world.

What’s it all about? Beats me.

My vague idea is an adjunct to “Woog’s World” – my column that first appeared in the Westport News in 1986, on my way-cool Kaypro. I expect to write briefer, pithier, but no less scintillating, thoughts on what’s going on in my universe, and related galaxies. I expect every post to have some kind of Westport angle, but then again expectations are seldom reality. We expected George W. Bush to live up to his promise of “compassionate conservatism,” not that I am comparing myself to the man who James Buchanan is fighting to relinquish his spot as “Worst President Ever” to.

I will scour the town, from the Shores of Saugatuck to the Farms of Green’s, looking for interesting (or at least short) tidbits to comment on. But, like the judges on “American Idol,” I don’t expect to do all the work. This is your blog as much as mine. I welcome encourage plead for feedback from you, my soon-to-be-loyal readers. Kind words are cool, but so are disagreements. This is Westport, where every opinion is welcome  (even if it’s wrong).

So subscribe. Send ideas. Post comments. Give me some dirt to work with. And please pass the word about “06880” along to everyone you know.

Is this a great town or what?

2 Comments

Posted in Media

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