The Immortal Elders

“I can imagine no heroism greater than motherhood.” —Lance Conrad

Back in the Seventies my mother had a parttime job teaching ceramics to learning disabled adults at a local facility.

She loved all kinds of arts and crafts and really enjoyed working with these kids.

Unfortunately, she butted heads with the buttheads who ran the operation and eventually she had to leave.

I forget why the managers had such a problem with my mother’s teaching style, but one thing does stand out even all these years: they were idiots.

Okay, obviously, I’m a little prejudiced here as she was my mother and I’m even more sensitive since today is Mother’s Day.

It must have really hurt her to lose her class, but she did stay in touch with one of the kids, Willy, and she arranged for him to visit our house once a week to work on various pottery projects.

And bear in mind that she wasn’t getting paid for what amounted to private tutoring sessions. Working with Willy was all the payment she needed.

In fact, I still have Willy's ceramic elephant and alligator that I took with me after we cleared out our parents’ house.

Willy was very shy when he first started coming over, but he quickly became more confident and pretty soon his visits became the highlight out our week. My sister and I would play around with him, and we’d be laughing for days afterward.

Sometimes he had trouble making himself understood and one night my mother asked for my help in figuring out what he was saying.

He was talking about a TV show that he liked to watch, but we didn’t know which one.

What's the Good Word?

It sounded like he was saying “Alice and Cabo Mabo”, only there was no such program by that name. Everybody was getting a little frustrated until Willy said the magic word.

“Shazam!”

And I realized he was talking about a kids’ program about the characters Isis and Captain Marvel called “The Shazam! /Isis Hour.”

For the record, Shazam was originally known as Captain Marvel and first appeared in Whiz Comics in 1940.

He was the alter ego of Billy Batson, a 12-year-old boy who turned into the superhero by saying “Shazam!”

The word is an acronym of six immortal elders--Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury—and it transforms Billy Batson into a customed superhero with all kinds of superpowers.

The character was the basis of a 2019 film, and it is one of the few superhero movies I actually enjoyed, largely due to the fabulous young actors in the cast. The sequel tanked, however, and the ads suggest it was top-heavy with computer-generated mayhem.

Isis, by the way, is the alter ego of Andrea Thomas, a seemingly normal schoolteacher, who could transform into the Egyptian goddess when the need arises.

We were all feeling pretty good about nailing down that show’s title when Willy looked at my mother and dropped a real heartbreaker.

“I want to be Captain Marvel when I grow up,” he said.

Of course, Willy wasn’t going to grow up, at least not in the usual sense. Chronologically, he was an adult, but he had the mind of a child. It was such a poignant moment and I’ve never forgotten it.

My father once said Willy's parents "have a child for life," but then all parents have children for life, don't they? They may be adults with jobs, homes and kids of their own, but they're still somebody's children.

Willy’s visits grew more infrequent and eventually stopped. I don’t what know became of him, but we're grateful for our time with Willy and my sister and I still tell stories about him.

And we would never have these wonderful memories if my mother hadn’t been so caring, so kind and so selfless.

That’s what I call a real superhero.

Comments

Bijoux said…
Beautiful post, Rob. Many lessons here. You’re right; they are always your children when you’re the parent. I’m glad you have such great memories of your mom.
Rob Lenihan said…


Oh, thank you so much, Bijoux! I see what a lucky man I am.

Take care and Happy Birthday!

Popular posts from this blog

The Bystander Effect

‘Permanently Closed’

Renew Year