All hail the Fort

 It was George S. Patton, or maybe just George C. Scott at the end of the movie, who told the story about the Roman general enjoying his triumph while a slave whispered a sobering reminder in his ear.

"All glory," said the slave, according to one or both of the Georges, "is fleeting."

All glory is fleeting. 

Brothers and sisters, don't we know that here in the Fort. 

This after our fair city got a bit of fleeting national run the other day, but not for anything good, like Promenade Park or Zesto's. No, sir. It was because the local ABC affiliate, WPTA 21, screwed up and prematurely cut into Game 1 of the NBA Finals with a bump for its 11 p.m. newscast.

An Indiana TV station mistakenly jumping away from the Indiana Pacers' comeback against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the last minute of the game? How epic an "oops" was that?

And so 21's goof turned up on the website Awful Announcing, and Sports Illustrated ran a piece about it on its site, and some national sportsblab shows mentioned it. But just to show you how fleeting glory really is, SI's piece didn't even get the city's name right.

Called us "Fort Worth", for God's sake. Not "Fort Wayne."

Which means once again we get no respect, even when we're getting no respect. To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield.

Anyway, this gets the Blob's notoriously twisted imagination churning, a malady that unfortunately is both chronic and inoperable. What if, I'm thinking, some proud Fort Wayner called SI to complain about it getting the city's name wrong? How would that conversation go?

Something like this, perhaps ...

"Hello?"

"Yeah, uh, this is Harvey Schmuckengruber from Fort Wayne, Indiana, and I got a bone to pick with you guys. You did a real nice story about 21 flubbing up the end of the game the other night, but you got our name wrong. Dammit, we're not Fort Worth! We're Fort Wayne! When are you national clowns gonna get that right?"

"I apologize, sir. I understand, sort of, how galling it must be for the entire nation to be laughing at the wrong city. You've earned the right to your own laughingstock-ness. It shouldn't be appropriated by Fort Worth or any other Fort."

"Well ... thanks. I figured you'd understand. And, listen, I don't mean to get so upset, but, da- doggone it, Fort Wayne doesn't land on the national news very often, so when we do it means a lot to us. And even though we've got a lot of good stuff going for us, if it takes a moment of sheer gooberness to turn the nation's spotlight on us, it's OUR gooberness."

"Completely agree. And we'll be running a correction so you can claim your rightful due to that, um, gooberness, as you call it."

"Good. I mean, if Fort Worth wants credit for screwing something up, let Fort Worthers screw it up themselves. I mean, it's Texas, for God's sake. They pretty much hold the patent on screwing up down there. But do me a favor, will you?"

"What's that, Mr. Schmuckengruber?"

"When Fort Worth does screw up, please don't call it Fort Wayne. We do have our pride, ya know."