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After Paradise: Honea Is My Homie

There’s nothing like a total disaster, once the smoke clears, to completely refocus the mind, if not one’s entire life. But for me at least, it’s almost like reverse-focus. Instead of homing in like a laser on a particular aim, peripheral awareness is somehow sharper. Events that would barely catch my attention, normally, in the busy-ness of daily life, now seem so significant and stunning, so magnificent, that I hardly notice anything else.

Number one in that category is the crazy love affair Butte County residents are carrying on, right out in public, day after day, with Sheriff Kory Honea. It’s a romance, a bromance, an ongoing best-pals play-day. All that, rolled into one otherwise straight-arrow relationship. It’s funny, sweet, and so extremely unlikely, especially in such dark times, that you marvel at the odd magic of humanity.

Through two immense and rare disasters—the recent Oroville Dam spillway failure and full-scale evacuation, and the monstrous Camp Fire, a catastrophe we’re still just beginning to live with—we have come to believe that Sheriff Honea is on our side, in a fearless yet fully human way. Day after endless day, in the wake of this last disaster. And our gratitude knows no bounds. We trust him, because he’s a stand-up guy. And he’s standing up, right beside us, when it would be just as easy—much easier, let’s face it—to sit down and hide behind some desk.

In gratitude, and maybe a little awe, people started crafting superhero-sheriff love notes and sending them around on social media. Tongue-in-cheek Chuck Norris tough-guy stuff, on steroids. Honea is my Homie. My personal favorite is the black-and-white one where a stone-faced Sheriff Honea glances sternly over his shoulder, intoning the threat: Say Pleasure … One More Time.

But mostly, it’s non-partisan hero worship: His calendar skips April 1, because nobody fools Sheriff Honea. He sleeps with a pillow under his gun. When asked how many pushups he can do, Sheriff Honea says: “All of them.” His 10-gallon hat holds 20 gallons. His two cents add up to 37 dollars.

And on it goes, with more and more of them all the time. People can’t seem to stop. Sheriff Honea doesn’t dial a wrong number: You answered the wrong phone. He once hit 11 out of 10 targets with 9 bullets.

Rumor has it that the sheriff’s own staff is as bad as the rest of us, with new memes posted daily on the bulletin board at the dispatch center.

Go ahead, make his day. Photo courtesy the Instagram page Honea is my Homie

Honea was appointed to the position of Butte County Sheriff, in 2014. But he was a superstar early on, starting out in the sheriff’s department as a jail guard in 1993 and becoming a detective in just three years. His communication skills were always stellar, which caught the attention of the local D.A. District Attorney Mike Ramsey hired him as an investigator in 2005, and appointed him chief investigator after just a few years. Honea even studied law, online, and passed the California bar exam on his first try—another heroic feat, as other lawyers will tell you.

But none of that is why we love our sheriff. We love him because he shows up when we need him—and even shows up when we don’t need him, but just enjoy having him around, like the downtown Christmas Tree Lighting in Chico. When he’s not chasing bad guys and rescuing people, he poses for selfies and public snaps, and reaches out with a reassuring hug to anyone and everyone.

According to one meme, Santa Claus is worried about landing on Sheriff Honea’s naughty list. Funny, that Santa reference. On NPR’s StoryCorps recently, a guy who runs a Santa school pointed out that teaching people to be Santa actually shows them how to be better people. Santa respects people: “He looks them in the eyes and listens. And he treats them all the same, whether they are 4 or 94.”

Now we know who Sheriff Kory Honea really is. You heard it here first, folks. He’s Santa.

Kim Weir is the founder of Up the Road, a nonprofit public-interest journalism project. She researches, writes, and hosts Up the Road, a radio show and mini-podcast about California co-produced by North State Public Radio. Kim got her start as a travel journalist in 1990 with the publication of the first and original Moon Handbooks Northern California, a surprise best-seller. Six other Moon books on California soon followed. She is a member, by invitation, of the venerable Society of American Travel Writers (SATW). Kim earned a BA in environmental studies and analysis, with an emphasis on botany and ecology, and also holds an MFA in creative writing. She lives in Paradise.