Well, gentle reader...when last we left our intrepid adventurers, they were headed out of southern Indiana after a rousing week of small town America, and into Illinois. I can’t speak for Spanky, Mrs. Spanky, and Java FooFoo, but there was only one thing on my mind...
Metropolis.
We had discovered on the way up to Newburgh that Metropolis was actually only about an hour or so out of our way. It turned out to be less than that, (Props to Mrs. Spanky’s Dad for the 411 on the alternate route.) but in any case, there was no way I was gonna miss the opportunity to visit the hometown of my hero, Superman.
Yes, Superman is indeed a fictional character, but this still meant a lot to me. You see, there is an old Chinese cruse that says, “May you live in interesting times”. Well, my childhood was certainly... “interesting”. It’s not like Mom and Dad were never there for me or anything mind you, or that my childhood was that terrible... Staten Island, NY, in the seventies and eighties was a great place to grow up. It’s just that life in our home presented certain challenges and struggles that more often than not left Mom and Dad with their hands full. I very seldom bothered them with the problems of my young life, and felt guilty somehow whenever I had to. To this day, the events in my parents lives that shaped the young Rob influence many of my decisions, particularly when it comes to my soon to be ex-wife. Anyway, the one thing I always knew I could count on, regardless of the emotional storms around me, was being able to lose myself in the fictional world of Superman. Over the years, Superman was always there when I needed him... his friends were my friends, his triumphs and failures echoed themselves in my life... and above all else Superman, like me, always tried to do the right thing. Superman was someone I could count on. Superman was my friend.
I had heard about the real-life Metropolis for years. The town truly embraces it’s comic book heritage, as evidenced by the twenty foot tall statue of the man of steel in the town square, the Super Museum on main street, and the Superman festival they hold every summer. There is a billboard as you enter the town that proudly proclaims “Welcome to Metropolis, Home of Superman”, and the town paper is even the “Metropolis Planet”! (Yes, I bought a copy) As we rode into Metropolis, I was positively giddy, and posed for a picture or two in front of the Superman Statue, before I headed faster than a speeding bullet to the Super Museum. (Only twenty feet away)
The Super Museum is accessed through its gift shop, which had a very impressive array of Superman merchandise for a Super fan to choose from. The funniest were the green painted rocks they were selling as “Kryptonite”. If they had had the silk Superman bathrobes in my size, I probably would have bought one... Instead, I got a key chain. Admission to the Museum itself was only three dollars. The Museum is the most impressive display of Super stuff I have ever laid eyes on. Every toy, statue, watch, clock, poster, or collectable I can ever remember seeing with the “S” shield on it was there, and many I had never seen before. There were also many props and costumes from the various Superman shows and movies. “WOW!” I said to Spanky at one point, “General Zod’s Boots! Cool!” Mrs. Spanky was downright bored, but muddled through as she could see how happy I was to be there. As we were leaving, I asked the guy behind the counter who the collector was, and he explained that it was his brother. We chatted for a bit (Once you got this guy started, it was difficult to get him to stop! If you tried to walk away he would just get louder!) and one thing that surprised me was that many of the more impressive pieces of his collection (A copy of Action comics #1, George Reeves original brown Superman costume...) were not on display due to insurance costs. (A copy of Action #1 recently sold for a cool quarter of a million dollars) After stopping at the drug store to pick up a copy of the Planet, all too soon we were back on the road again, bound for home.
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