BY BRADY RHOADES: This story begins with my first Garden Grove Strawberry Festival and involves a brief encounter with the late, great Billy Barty.<\/p>\n

I was covering the festival for another media outlet in the 1990s. Barty, an actor famed for his work with Spike Jones musical comedy shows on TV and stage, and for a children’s show called Billy Barty’s Bigtop, was the celebrity grand marshal.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

BY BRADY RHOADES: This story begins with my first Garden Grove Strawberry Festival and involves a brief encounter with the late, great Billy Barty.<\/p>\n

I was covering the festival for another media outlet in the 1990s. Barty, an actor famed for his work with Spike Jones musical comedy shows on TV and stage, and for a children’s show called Billy Barty’s Bigtop, was the celebrity grand marshal.<\/p>\n

It was a different time. Folks were less enlightened and less sensitive. Mr. Barty, 3-feet-9, must have been pretty sick of the constant chuckles behind his back, and the inane questions to his face.<\/p>\n

He was a proud man. I got the feeling he just wanted to be treated like a man, nothing more, nothing less.<\/p>\n

He once said, “The general public thinks all little people are in circuses or sideshows. We have doctors, nurses, just about every field covered.”<\/p>\n

On that day, he was quick-tempered. Also, at times, witty and mischevious. He carried out his duties, endured some bullying and managed to make children smile.<\/p>\n

God bless Mr. Barty. May he rest in peace.<\/p>\n

That was my first brush with celebrity at the annual festival. My second came a short while later.<\/p>\n

Ed Arnold, most known as a sportscaster and newsman for KABC, KTLA and KOCE, was the celebrity grand marshal. I had the pleasure of speaking with him. I’ll describe him in five ways:<\/p>\n

1)Polite;<\/p>\n

2)Easygoing;<\/p>\n

3)Humble;<\/p>\n

4)Professional;<\/p>\n

5)Great voice, great cadence. It was like watching TV. I wanted to sit back with a cold glass of lemonade and listen to the broadcast.<\/p>\n

My third has not exactly happened, unless you count Facebook messages. But I expect to make it happen by phone this week.<\/p>\n

Burt Ward is this year’s celebrity grand marshal.<\/p>\n

Freaking Robin.<\/p>\n

The original! The one I watched as a kid!<\/p>\n

He couldn’t have been nicer via text. He spends a lot of time helping dogs through his organization, called Gentle Giants. He’s done a lot since “Batman,” but he’ll always be Robin to me.<\/p>\n

Am I starstruck?<\/p>\n

OOMPH!<\/p>\n

POW!<\/p>\n

SOCK!<\/p>\n

When I get him on the horn, let’s hope I don’t devolve into that 8-year-old boy in a batsuit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY BRADY RHOADES: This story begins with my first Garden Grove Strawberry Festival and involves a brief encounter with the late, great Billy Barty. I was covering the festival for another media outlet in the 1990s. Barty, an actor famed for his work with Spike Jones musical comedy shows on TV and stage, and for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":1839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5308],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1838"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4485,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838\/revisions\/4485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}