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1. The Mark of Superman

Like many my age, my first exposure to Superman came from the George Reeves TV show. The first episode of The Adventures of Superman I remember seeing was the one featuring Doctor Hardy. Not that the good doctor was ever a character on Superman's show, but John Beradino, the actor who went on to play Hardy on General Hospital, was in this episode. In this entry, which I later learned was titled "The Unlucky Number," Beradino played a sleaze who fooled a boy into thinking he was Superman.

I remember seeing the episode in Findlay, Ohio, where we lived during the late 1950s. I would've been no older than five, no younger than four. I remember the experience better than the episode: I was jazzed, man, jazzed. As I recall, I came fresh from my childish viewing to somebody's birthday party (there were lots of visits and parties in Findlay with my parents' siblings and their offspring). Excited by what I'd heard - or thought I'd heard - in this episode, I piped to any and everybody who'd listen, "That boy told Superman to take off his clothes!" I don't remember my aunts' and uncles' responses. I believe they must've been...bewildered. (Years later, I'd see "Unlucky Number" again. Afterwards, I remembered the dialogue better: "You can take off your disguise now.") Thus, in the flush of youthful excitement and the gape of adult confusion, began my lifelong love affair with the Man of Steel.

This was only the beginning, however. If viewing a screen begot a fan, then smashing a window marked his birth.

Press "Scene Selection." Punch on the picture of a little boy on a stick horse. We're a year or so further along now. I'm five or six years old. We're no longer living in a housing development in north-central Ohio, but alongside a narrow ribbon of road that runs along Rankin Creek in the southernmost part of the state. Yep, we're a'livin' in the country now and I'm lovin' it.

Having begun a social child, I'd suddenly become largely isolated. Northern flatland and housing developments had given way to southern hills and outhouses. Our backyard was pretty much a hill. The incline began practically at our back door and stretched far up to a rutted cow path before resuming its ascent. I loved those hills, the oh-so climbable rocks, the grapevines. In the woods above our house, a small boy could become anything - Tarzan, an interplanetary explorer, or, of course, Superman. I used to take baloney and pop up there. The sandwich fed my belly; solitude fed my imagination.

It was late on a Sunday afternoon. The Robinsons had gone skating, perhaps at Camden Park, an amusement park near Huntington, WV. Mom was frying hamburgers in the kitchen. Who knows what Daddy and my younger sister Patty were doing - maybe reading the Sunday funnies or napping: the calm before the storm.

I was up behind the house, riding that stick horse I mentioned. (Do any of you remember stick horses? At the time, virtual reality was the fluff-stuffed vinyl head of a horse stuck on what appeared to be a broomstick sawn in half. Romper Room was popular on TV then, though all I remember of it is a ring of kids romping around the room on stick horses.) Suddenly bored with riding the range, I threw the horse aside and turned to face the house. I don't know what job it was that beckoned, but it was surely a job for Superman. In true George Reeves fashion, I threw my arms straight ahead. I shot down the hill faster than the proverbial bullet. As we used to say down home, I was flyin' low - and straight toward a plate glass window.

In my memory, time slows to a crawl. It seems a simple enough task: Just stop, Gary. But I can't stop. I can't slow down. My legs seem to have a mind of their own and they're of a mind to take me down the grassy slope, right up to the glass and - CRASH! - through the window.

And now began the sad catalog of the differences between George Reeves and me:

1. George Reeves had sense enough to come through his windows feet first. 2. George Reeves usually made sure that the window was open. 3. George Reeves, who, as every AoS fan knows, loved his mother, would never, ever surprise her while she placidly fried hamburgers, sending glass flying into her kitchen and scaring the ho-lee water out of her. 4. George Reeves wouldn't have run away, intent on hiding from said mother.

But I did all those things and probably more my hero would never have done.

I felt no pain, just panic. My parents were raised at the end of a switch. Grateful as they were for the life lessons applied so swiftly to the seat of the problem, they were only too happy to teach their children in this manner. Like when a son of theirs breaks a perfectly good window playing Superman. (Actually, Mother liked the switch. Daddy enjoyed the smooth snap of a flying belt.) In panic, then, I instantly morphed from Superman into the Flash, becoming a streak of red around the house.

Wait a minute. What is that red stuff streaking down my arm, anyway?

You guessed it. I'd cut myself on the glass. Quicker than a penitent at a revival meeting, I made a turnaround. Fear pushed me on, though, this time it wasn't fear of Mother and Daddy. I believe I feared for my very life.

The scene is etched on my memory in early evening sunlight: My twenty-something mother is standing there with a hamburger between two slices of white bread in her hand. Her jaw lies in the grass beside the narrow sidewalk. In seconds, she's gone from startled to astonished to concerned to frightened.

Where's Daddy while all this is going on? Who knows? But he quickly makes an appearance. All but throwing my four-year-old sister in the Chevy, he runs her the mile or so to my Aunt Imogene's house. He's back in no time.

Mother had wrapped my arm in a towel. Daddy carried me to the car and away we all flew like, well, like the Super-Family from Krypton! Mother had brought along the white bread burger and a glass of milk. If she didn't believe freshly cooked food cured all ills, she certainly believed it couldn't hurt. So tried to get me to eat a greasy bite, drink a cold gulp. I can't recall whether I took nourishment or not. I do remember her asking - no, demanding, "Why did you do that?!" And my dragging reply (was I in shock?),"I was playin' Superman." Her response: "Ohh, I'm not gonna let you watch that old show anymore!"

How many moms have suffered through a similar experience with their kids? How many fans, looking back, mark the experience as the beginning of their moms' hatred of a certain caped character? It seems that, as my love for Superman grew, so did my Mother's fear and contempt for him. But that's another story.

We crossed the river to West Virginia. Ironically, Huntington was the site of the studios of Channel 13, from which the show that so worried Mother was broadcast. But we weren't going there. We were going for a doctor and, fortunately, we found one. They said he was Korean. I lay on a table while, murmuring in another language, he stitched up my arm. I remember gritting my teeth, but, fortunately, not much pain. Daddy and Mother praised their son's quiet bravery. They talked about it for days afterwards.

13 stitches. 48 years later, I glance down. They're still there on the underside of my left forearm midway between wrist and elbow. Surely there were other cuts and scrapes from the experience, but this scar is all that remains.

What's the line Fred MacMurray uses to describe himself at the beginning of Double Indemnity? "No visible scars." I'm not Fred MacMurray. There are three quite visible marks upon my body. It's a good thing I chose the path of Good. Otherwise, these blemishes would surely make me easy prey for police acting on an all points bulletin. The marks are these: a bald spot just above my right ear, a small birthmark on my forehead, and the scar I got from thrusting both arms through a plate glass window. For years, I thought of it as horseshoe-shaped. Actually, it looks more like an arrowhead.

But I know what it truly is: the mark of Superman.

Don't miss the next thrill-packed adventure...the Super-Family from Kentucky!

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Superman on Earth

1. The Mark of Superman

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