Superman

 

This morning on NPR’s “This American Life” (highly recommended) was a strange story about a guy who dressed up as Superman and it made me recall a time when…

I was not an avid graphic novel reader. I didn’t even follow the daily comics in the newspaper. I had no fantasy heroes, other than the cowboys on television.

There was a television show called ‘Superman’ but I never connected it with the comic book. I never knew the background story until much later. It stared some guy who was the brother of an actor in the Claymation Greek history movies, but he didn’t have a beard.

Now this was in the days of black and white television and special effects were basic. This Superman could break through papier-mâché walls and bend rubber bars. When the bad guys shot at him with their cap guns, the sound of bullets bouncing off his chest sounded fake and he ducked if anyone threw anything at him. When he wasn’t Superman, he dressed just like every other guy and had a pair of horn-rimmed glasses on as a hidden identify. He wore his tights under his suit and would change into a super hero in a phone booth. He would jump out a window to fly and to land would just jump back in. To fly, he’d lay on a stool with a fan blowing him in the face, then the special effects guys would mask out the stool and show a stock film of clouds in the background.

I wasn’t really a fan, but somewhere along the way I got a t-shirt with the big ‘S’ on it (as you can see). About this age I also had a Davey Crockett outfit with a racoon hat and a cowboy outfit mixed from Zorro, Gunsmoke, Have Gun Will Travel and the Gray Ghost.

It wasn’t until the early 60’s before advertisers caught on by wearing a t-shirt with an image on it was a walking billboard so today it is hard to find a piece of clothing that does not have a message or manufacturers label on it.

This wasn’t immediately I related the radio show and ‘Superman’ to. Instead, there was a valentine card years later.

A little backstory.

Valentines was always about cards. I was always drawing and cutting up construction paper and gluing original cards to give to everyone from classmates to cousins. The envelope usually had a piece of hard candy in it. This was the time when Christmas cards were mailed at the post office and displayed around the tree.

Then, as the age approached, the opposite gender became attractive and simple hand drawn cards were not as impressive as the ones at Hallmark. The messages were written by professional copywriters for at that age we didn’t have words for the hormones raging in us.

The habit grew old until I got re-married. This wife was big on romance so Valentine’s Day was as big as Christmas and wedding anniversary. The Hallmark shop at the mall was a regular spot to sneak in a card to hide under a pillow or just make a dull day special (like giving a rose).

Well, as the story goes, I got in contact with a girl I’d intimately known ages ago. A flood of memories filtered by time. My wife had become routine after a couple of decades and she knew nothing of this electronic communication with a stranger. I wasn’t trying to make a dirty secret, but she wouldn’t understand or approve of another flirting with me.

The girl came to town and we had a lunch or two. She told me how I broken her teenage heart (a story I seemed to have heard many times before) and once her mission was complete, she left.

I was smitten. I knew nothing about this person after so many years, but I was drawn into intrigue from a brief moment in time and a fantasy dream.

I sent gifts and flowers and tried to get her attention, but she wasn’t interested. I was on a quest.

Valentine’s Day was coming around, so my trip to Hallmark brought back two cards. I hid them both, but…

On the day of hearts, I gave my wife her card. Its message was I was her ‘Superman’. It wasn’t the most romantic message. Then she asked about the ‘other’ card that had some flirty mushy lovey-dovey message in it.

“Was I having an affair?” she asked.

Busted!

Through the years she made an effort to rid my life of memories of my first wife to the point where I had to lock up my previous wedding album. Any image of me and some other women were either ripped in half or thrown away.

My excuse (or alibi) was pretty much true, but I continued to be plagued by teenage hormones of puppy love and I knew it. I continued the secret rendezvous messaging, with fewer and fewer responses.

Then, out of the blue, my wife said “I was her Superman”.

When we first met, I heard tales to make any all-American lad want to protect her from this fate. She quit her job, left her ‘boyfriend’ and moved into my house and thus the die was cast.

So when I heard the radio show this morning, I did not think of walking around in tights with a cape, but remembered “I was her Superman”.