The Popcorn Stand: Stay classy, Porterville
How many punches to the gut can Porterville and the surrounding area take? As many as fate can hand out.
Saying 2020 has been a difficult year is an understatement, of course. We’ve dealt with the fire that destroyed the Porterville Public Library on February 18 that killed Porterville Firefighters Raymond Figueroa and Patrick Jones.
Then came the COVID-19 pandemic which we are still dealing with. That was followed by the whole state seemingly catching on fire, including the Sequoia Complex fires in the Sequoia National Forest. That fire rages on and is threatening all of our local mountain communities as far down as Springville.
And this week we had to deal with the loss of another Porterville institution to fire, Charlie’s Bar and Grill.
But to say Porterville can take a punch — and a punch after punch — would also be an understatement.
What’s going on reminds me of a column written by my favorite sports columnist, the Pulitzer Prizewinning Red Smith. As I’ve written before many times, Smith once dubbed one of his columns a Popcorn Stand and this column is named in his honor.
In one column he used the analogy of a kid, battered and bruised after getting into a fight, having to come home to tell his parents what happened. When his parents comment on how bad he looks, the kid replies, “Yeah, but you should see the other guy.”
In 2020, yes, Porterville has been battered and bruised. But fate is the other guy.
Again the people of Porterville have shown how resilient they are. We keep fighting and fighting. That’s why I love this community.
And the class the people have shown in Porterville makes me think of Ron Burgundy’s sign off to his newscast in the movie “Anchorman” when he says “Stay Classy San Diego.”
So of course now I’ve given myself the excuse to write about how I met Will Ferrell. We were both students at USC.
As it happens we both had the same major, Sports Information, which is now a defunct major at USC. I tend to embellish the story a bit, like saying Ferrell and I were college roommates.
In truth, I just shook Ferrell’s hand and said hello and that was it. Ferrell was working as student intern at the time in USC’S Sports Information Department when myself and a few of my friends from USC’S student newspaper, the Daily Trojan, came by to thank longtime Sports Information Director Tim Tessalone for all his help shortly before we graduated.
Ferrell was a shy guy back then. After I shook his hand and said hello, Ferrell went back to where he was sitting in a corner to continue the project he was working on, not saying a word. Obviously to say he has since gotten over his shyness would be an understatement.
Anyway when it comes to everything we’re dealing with, my message to the people in Porterville is to continue to show the resilience and class you’ve been showing.
In other words, stay classy Porterville.