The Popcorn Stand: There won’t be a normal life in 2017

With 2017 upon us, I think about one of my all-time favorite movies, “Tombstone,” the sort-of-true, admittedly glamorized telling of Wyatt Earp’s life spent in the infamous Western town.

One of the many scenes I love in the movie (and again it takes great license with the actual facts) is toward the end when Wyatt tells Doc Holiday all he ever wanted was a normal life. “There’s no such thing as a normal life, Wyatt,” Doc says. “There’s just life.”

So as much as I want just a “normal” life in 2017, I know that’s not going to be the case. But I obviously want to laugh a lot in 2017. I want to continue to share what I think, anyway, are funny stories in this Popcorn Stand.

It doesn’t take much to crack me up. Just the other day, Tuf-Tuf (you know Sir Tuffington something or other), my Jack Russell was trying to eat a small piece of a Sunkist chewy, liquorice-type candy that’s pretty popular during this time of year and watching Tuf-Tuf try to eat that small piece of candy while continuing to smack his lips was hilarious. I just busted out laughing.

I could use three or four moments like that to cause me to laugh during each day in 2017. So if I had like 1,500 moments such as that in 2015, I would be content.

One quote I think of constantly, but especially during this time of year, comes from the Rev. Bob Richards, the Olympic pole vault champion, who once said, “ordinary people can do extraordinary things.”

As an ordinary person, God willing, I hope to do a lot of extraordinary things in 2017. Like coming up with something to write about for this simple Popcorn stand three of four times a week. Believe me, that’s an extraordinary thing.

So for all of us ordinary people, I hope we accept life is never normal, we laugh several times a day for no particular reason, and we realize when we accomplish extraordinary things (and we will accomplish extraordinary things) that don’t seem to be all that extraordinary in 2017.

— Charles Whisnand