Mama Kat Prompt: My Favorite Childhood Hero

     Time again for Mama Kat's Weekly Blog Writers Prompt! This week I've chosen suggestion #5: Write about one of your childhood heroes.

     Set your time machine once again for way back, back to the year 1966. I'm 10 years old and watching a brand new weekly television series called "Batman." Yes, that campy comic do-gooder played by Adam West and his faithful side-kick, Robin, played by Burt Ward.

I loved that show and watched it faithfully every week, same Bat time, same Bat channel, since the show always ended with my hero's caught in some hideous death trap. To re-watch an episode now, well, it's pretty cheesy---but back then, to my 10 year old mind, those dire situations were real and my hero's were actually in trouble!

     That sense of reality is probably one of the strongest things I recall about the show and how seriously I viewed the Dynamic Duo's cliff-hangers. I know the show appealed to me because I longed for a hero's protection. I was the oldest child, nearly 7 years older then my next sibling and we lived way, way out in the country.There were no neighbor kids to play with and I was used to communicating with 2 adults. So when I did go to school, relating to other kids really threw me for a loop. I just didn't know how to interact with them  and that was a problem, but the place I felt I really needed a super-hero was on the school bus. Unfortunately, I was among the last of the pick-ups, so every seat had least one person in it, if not two. I'd move down the aisle, seeking a place to sit, but any single occupant of a seat would throw their leg up as I approached to let me know I couldn't share their seat. Eventually, I'd end up at the rear of the bus, seat-less, with the bus driver yelling at me to sit down and no one willing to offer me a seat. It was terrible and humiliating. I suppose it I'd been put together tougher, I'd have just knocked those legs aside and sat down, but as it was, I was a sensitive and withdrawn child completely lacking such boldness. That was one issue. The other issue was, back then, every grade rode the same bus together and I was thrown in with everything from 1st to 12th grade. Some of those Juniors and Seniors were nasty power mongers, too, full of themselves and mean as snot. So, I and others suffered bullying, though was only getting shot with a few spit-wads or feeling your haired pulled or a little mocking raillery.

     I just wasn't cut out to deal with all that and that's why I felt like I needed a Batman. So I loved the show because it let me escape into an imaginary reality where Superheros live and fight for justice.