Putting Away Childish Things

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." --I Corinthians 13:11

This is one of my favorite comic books. Superman #338 came out in late May 1979. I was 14 years old, and just finishing eighth grade in Mesick, Michigan. I didn't know it then, but it was a golden time to be a Superman fan. While Batman was my first and favorite hero, Superman was a natural pairing for me. They had had the Batman-Superman Hour as a cartoon in 1969, they had a team-up book (World's Finest) which was one of my favorites, and they were both in the Justice League of America.

Superman's mythology was still completely intact at the time. The bottle city of Kandor, The Fortress of Solitude at the North Pole with the giant yellow key disguised as an aircraft marker, the works. There were all kinds of Kryptonite that had different effects on Kryptonians, there were Bizarros that had their own world, Superman could fly into space without a space suit, travel through time, and the wonders of his universe knew no bounds. And Supergirl was wearing what is still my favorite of her costumes, the one with the billowy sleeves and hot pants. I was 14, okay? In the story, Superman finally succeeds in developing a way to enlarge the bottle city on another planet, so that the surviving Kryptonians from Kandor would have a home outside his Fortress of Solitude. But sadly, the entire city crumbles to dust, as the enlarging ray only worked on "animate objects," leaving the people alive but without their city. More on that in a bit.

Just as Star Wars had a major impact on me at age 12, Superman The Movie brought me right back to my comic book roots. At the time this comic book came out, Superman was just leaving theaters after a very successful first run. And I was already buying everything to do with it before the movie even came out. There was the score on vinyl, trading cards, magazines, Limited Collectors Edition reprints, and of course, the comic books. With great financial need came my first job.

There was an opening for delivering newspapers for the Traverse City Record-Eagle, and I jumped at the chance to take it. Just one problem: I needed a bike to get around. While we lived close to town, walking to school and Little League practices was getting old. Add a paper route to that, and it was time to move up. I owned a single-speed Columbia that was a good bike, but a bit small for me. So, I sold that, and my grandparents gave me a loan of $85 to buy a new Huffy 10-speed. In return, I would pay them back half of my newspaper route money each week. I thought that a perfectly fair deal, and I had my bike the next day.

The Record-Eagle only printed six days a week. There was no Sunday paper, which made Monday's paper the thickest. It had all the weekly ads. The papers were delivered to my house in the afternoon, right about 3:40 PM. The newspapers were delivered flat, and I would cut them loose and put them in my bag. Also in my bag was my battery-powered cassette recorder, which blared the Superman soundtrack wherever I went. I had painstakingly recorded the Superman score from vinyl to a blank tape in my tape recorder. My bike was stable enough that you would have often seen me riding with both my arms outstretched in front of me. I could finish the whole three-mile route in about 25 minutes unless it was collection day. That's when I had to go around and collect $1.05 per week from each subscriber. They would pay the money, and I would punch the dates paid from a card that I kept on a ring. The problem was that I had to shell out the money for the newspaper subscriptions in advance. And if they didn't pay, I didn't have the money to pay for my papers. Yes, even back then, subcontracting was the way to go for businesses. I never liked having to explain that to people, but they needed to know that if they didn't pay, I was the one on the hook for their newspaper costs.

The rest of the summer days were left to me. I deliberately took a photo of Superman #338 with the shadows of tree leaves on it. Because that was the best way to spend time in the summer, reading comics outdoors in the shade. Air conditioning was available at my grandparents' house, just across a small field, but time alone with my imagination, comic books, and drawing paper was really all that I needed. With the Copemish Flea Market being held every weekend nearby, my grandma and I would be off to pick up fresh produce for the week, while I would always find the guy with cheap comic books.

As summer went on, though, things changed. I suddenly realized that I would be starting high school in September. And the story in Superman #338 kept coming back to me. After the destruction of all the inanimate matter in Kandor (except clothing, apparently) Superman felt so guilty about the tragedy that he was going to stay to help the Kandorians rebuild. His friend Van-Zee, however sucker punched him, knocking Superman unconscious, telling Supergirl that they needed to leave because the Kandorians had chosen a world that would only occasionally be in the same dimension as Earth. They had chosen it so that they could sever all ties with Superman and be independent. I didn't understand the term patriarchy at the time, but I got the idea. The Kandorians wanted to stand on their own and tame a new world without Superman's fatherly protective gaze looking over them all the time. I was starting to feel the same way. I didn't need people telling me what to do all the time, either. I had my first job and was earning my own money for the first time.

The comic book guy at the flea market didn't just sell comics. He traded them two-for-one. I never spent any more money there. I started trading my existing comics for the ones he had that I hadn't read yet. And over the next several weeks, my collection, started only two and a half years previously, dwindled. I would buy only one more Superman comic, Action Comics #500, before the end of summer, but in the end, that too, would be gone. I was saying goodbye to my childhood, not just to my newly-discovered free childhood, but to my stolen childhood as well.

In the fall, I started playing varsity football as a freshman. And then basketball in the winter, and baseball in the spring into summer. My focus was decidedly different, and more grown up, or so I imagined. But what I learned over the four years of high school was that the social structures of high school relationships could be just as fragile as a house of cards. Most of the friendships I made through sports did not survive the four years. I was simply too different in what I believed and in what I enjoyed. I refused to get drunk every weekend like all of my peers, and my gravitation toward nerdy things remained, even though I resisted comic books. I would still read science fiction novels, movie tie-ins, and the like. In my mind, I had finally put away "childish things."

Thank goodness I came to my senses.

Old Dogs and New Tricks

I learned a valuable lesson this past weekend: I can't work for anyone.

Okay, that may be overstating it a bit. Clearly, I can teach under a principal and such. But I went to a portfolio review given by a well-known editor of graphic novels this weekend, handed over my Solution Squad book, and they thumbed through it for about 20 seconds before telling me that I'd be better served by making a nonfiction math graphic novel. I visibly flinched. I know I did. And before I could stop myself, I told this person very plainly that as a math teacher with three decades of experience, that respectfully, there was nothing worse I could imagine than a nonfiction math graphic novel.

I was told that kids would want character-driven stories in which math was used. I responded curtly with, "That's exactly what this is." Then came the final straw. They condescendingly said, "Have you ever heard of Gene Luen Yang and Nathan Hale?" I almost laughed out loud. I turned the book over and pointed to the two blurbs on the back cover of my book by...Gene Luen Yang and Nathan Hale.

"You mean these guys?"

 I ended up walking away after standing in line for an hour with a new perspective. I may not be the best-selling author in the world, but just because someone works and is known in the industry, it doesn't make them an authority on everything in it. On the other hand, they may be completely right and I'm wrong. But I'm not going to spend the rest of my life making books I don't want to make. I won't be working on comics for this person, and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to work for anyone else, either. I've spent enough years listening to people who know less about what I do than I do, and having to do what they say. If I fail, I will fail because of my own actions, not because someone wants me to be the next Gene Luen Yang or Nathan Hale. I love those guys and everything they do, but I'm never going to be them.

I'm going to be the best Jim McClain there is.

"The Big Boy"

"We're going to the Big Boy for dinner."

Just after I graduated from high school, I lived with my dad in his one-bedroom apartment in Cadillac, Michigan. I slept on a futon in the living room, so you can probably figure out what the expectation was for my future living arrangements. The writing was kind of on the wall, wasn't it? He had left my hometown of Mesick after his fourth divorce, and moved 20 miles away to where he had gotten a new job. I stayed behind to finish my senior year of high school, living with my friend, Ken LaFountain. Ken's mom was a foster mother, and had a big farmhouse west of Mesick. I paid $40 a week to stay there, which I earned by working at Crystal Mountain ski resort on weekends. I wanted to be truly independent from my father, and I was. He still came to my sporting events, so I'd still get to see him a couple of times a week.

Right after I graduated, I got a job working at my dad's place of employment, Four Winns Boats in Cadillac. They're everywhere now, but this was fairly early in their history, because my employee number was 150. I worked the night shift while he worked the day shift that summer,  But on weekends, it was the same every time. He'd call my grandma, who lived in the building next to his, and ask almost rhetorically, "You want to go down to the Big Boy?" Like there was another option. Big Boy was down at the end of the street, and Grandma loved the broccoli cheese soup, which they almost always had. We ate there virtually every night we were home at the same time. There were other restaurants, but that one got all of our business.

When my parents first divorced five days before my seventh birthday, my dad struggled with visitation. He had a new family and so it was awkward for us to spend quality time with him and his new wife. After she left him high and dry, though, it was easier for him to take my brother and me out to do things. One of my happiest memories of childhood was being taken to see The Apple Dumpling Gang at the movies. And following that, a trip to the Big Boy for dinner. Each booth had its own jukebox back then, and we would get to choose three songs to listen to, Every moment felt special because even though my dad had monthly visitation rights, he seldom saw us. That was a constant source of consternation for my mother, who had no compunction against roasting my dad in front of us. But I can't really say that I blame her. When you live only two and a half hours away, and you don't even go to see your kids once a month, what does that say about you as a father? This was on a summer trip, when we would stay with him and my grandparents for two weeks of glorious relief from our abusive home. So to say that Big Boy was a fond memory may not be worded strongly enough. Every time we ate at the Big Boy was a fond treat for us because it was a rare meal that we got to share with our father. 

There were decent sandwiches and such at Big Boy back then, but I tired of the hamburger that was essentially a Big Mac before there was a Big Mac. So I started to explore the menu, and it wasn't long before I found "my jam," as the kids say. I loved the Mexican omelet. Now, the Mexican omelet was about as Mexican as I am, but it was a different time. It was eggs wrapped around chili and American cheese, topped with fresh diced onion and tomato. It was love at first bite (George Hamilton lives!). From that point on, I only ordered that omelet unless there was New England clam chowder, on the soup and salad bar, which was usually only Friday. When I got to college and was a short order egg cook in the dorm cafeteria, I spent weeks trying to perfect the omelet. I finally did it, and when Magi and I first met, I made it for her. So, yeah, the Big Boy has a lot of great memories.

One thing that I always associate with my dad was the hot fudge ice cream cake. He always ordered it. It sort of became my thing after a while, too, especially after he died, 10 years ago next week, on Father's Day. I have to tell you, to lose your dad on Father's Day can be pretty rough. The first several Father's Days after that, I didn't even want to celebrate, but that wouldn't have been fair to my daughter.

So where were we going to eat last night on our way home from Ann Arbor? There was only one choice. We don't have Big Boy restaurants near us anymore, but there are still several in Michigan. This time, though, I didn't eat the Mexican omelet. It isn't even on the menu anymore, but you can still make one using their custom omelet options. And I didn't order the hot fudge ice cream cake, either. Because for the first time in 10 years, Father's Day was about me and the wonderful kid who calls me "Dad," and not just about my own dad and the happier memories that I have of him. My dad was there with me, but this time he wasn't the star of the show.