The Blob Loves Phoenixville

This column originally appeared on Sunday, March 7, 2010

I have heard them talk for quite some time now, these folks who love Phoenixville.

I have heard them rant about the great movies at The Colonial Theater, which they repeatedly tell me was featured in the Grade-D movie classic, “The Blob,” which I saw on commercial television when I was in high school and have never felt tempted to watch any part of again.

I have heard them rave about the great restaurant and night spots in downtown Phoenixville, and about the great shopping outlets there and the ubiquitous sighting of the Bacon Brothers, Michael and Kevin, whom I once saw act in the movie called “Footloose,” after I had graduated from college and have never felt tempted to watch again.

I have heard them ramble on about the famous folks who grew up in Phoenixville, including baseball stars Andre Thornton and Mike Piazza and famous outlaw Harry Longabaugh, alias “The Sundance Kid,” who was profiled by Robert Redford in a movie that I saw when I was in grade school and have never felt tempted to stop watching whenever I see it come on television, even if I’m in a department store looking for new cookware.

Whenever those folks start talking about Phoenixville, they ultimately ask me if I’ve been there lately because, you know, its got “The Blob” and The Bacon Brothers and The Baseball Players and I stare at them for a moment and ultimately answer, “Does Kimberton count?”

I don’t get to Phoenixville much, and it is not Phoenixville’s fault. My attitude towards Phoenixville has been colored by death and mishap, and you can’t blame either of those things on a geopolitical entity unless you are speaking about Coatesville and then, well, never mind.

My first thought whenever I think about Phoenixville is that I had a car crash there that put a literal dent in my first new car – a 1984 Renault Alliance, thank you very much – and a figurative one in my bank account. I was driving along Nutt Road one morning looking for a fire that I had been sent out to cover when the Chevy van that had been in front of me suddenly stopped while I was wondering whether I had to turn right or left off Nutt Road to get to the Colonial Theater.

The driver of the van got out, looked at my crumpled hood, then looked at his pristine rear bumper, and said, “Hummpf!” and drove away. It took me months to fix the car, during which anyone who came in the newsroom and wanted to know which car belonged to me was directed to the car with the accordion hood.

My second thought when I think about Phoenixville is of the morning I stood in a cold wind outside a church downtown, Sacred Heart I think it was, and approached people who were coming to pay their last respects to John T. “Jack” Jeffers, the district justice who had died in office and whose funeral I had been sent to write about.

It wasn’t the first funeral I’d attended with a reporter’s notebook and ball point pen in hand, and it likely won’t be the last, but I will always remember how overcast the sky seemed, and how sorry the people coming to the church were to have to say goodbye, and how disappointed I was that I hadn’t gotten to know Judge Jeffers a little better while he was around. He was a writer for newspapers and a courtroom aficionado and I probably could have learned a bit about both from him.

It’s not Phoenixville’s fault that I have bad memories of it, and perhaps I should try to erase them. It might actually be therapeutic for me to stop by the downtown scene some warm summer night when the music is good and the food is hot and the crowds are friendly. I could have a nice dinner and find some good dessert, then wander over to the Colonial Theater and catch whatever’s playing.

But if it’s “The Blob,” I’m leaving. I’ve seen that movie before, and I have no temptation to ever see it again. Not even if Kevin Bacon remakes it.