Superhero at Large

Early one Tuesday morning this past fall I was driving along about two miles from my house.

I stopped for a red light just before entering a school zone.

I was sitting there, minding my own business, singing along loudly [and badly] with the radio.

My attention left the song I was singing when the floorboard of my car started to vibrate.

It tickled my feet.

What I saw tickled my whole body.

Coming toward me, still in the school zone, was BATMAN.

Batman, in full Super Hero regalia, driving sedately through the school zone at 20mph.

He was riding a huge black motorcycle. He rode toward me, cape billowing behind him, the sun glinting off of his shiny handlebars.

The ground rumbled beneath the bike.

I couldn’t have been more delighted. My mouth fell open and I started laughing.

As he came level with my car, I goggled at his Batman mask, his Batman tights, his Batman utility belt, his Batman boots, his Batman gloves.

The only deviation to his workaday crime fighting clothes was fringe hanging all along his gloves. The fringe dangled from wrist to elbow. I say deviation from his usual clothes because I’m of the generation that grew up with Adam West embodying Batman on tv, and Adam didn’t have fringe on his gloves.

I started wishing that everyone I knew was in the car with me to see Batman riding around in my neighborhood. As he passed me, I scrambled in my purse for my camera phone. I got the window open and my arm out, but by then he was too far away to get any kind of picture.

He did give me a tiny two fingered salute.

And I gotta tell you…..it made me all butterflyee in my tummy.

About a week later I saw a headline on yahoo that a guy dressed as Batman had been ARRESTED in Florida for wearing a mask in public. Apparently as part of the homeland security guidelines wearing a mask in public is a no no.

This law makes me wonder how the good guys will be able to protect their secret identities.

Will we force all of our crime fighting heroes to abandon their posts?

Will they all be unmasked?

Will the evil doers know who they are and where they live and thereby be free to come to their house to kick their dogs and pull up their shrubs?

I hope not, because I love the idea of Batman casually tooling around early on a Tuesday morning.

I wondered if he was coming from or traveling toward something official, like opening an electronics super store, or a child’s birthday party, or disarming a nuclear warhead.

Or maybe he was just on his way to pick up Robin to go shopping for some brie and a nice chardonnay.

Whatever he was doing, I hope that Ohio never opts to arrest Batman for being Batman.

Superheroes need to remain at large. To delight young and old. To do what they do best. To make grown ups into kids again.

And if anyone knows how to mount a video camera to the hood of a car, please send me an email.

I want to be ready for the next time.