Writing Prompt #13: What do you look forward to every week?

In 2015, I used to volunteer twice a week as a bus captain for my (then) church. We went around Perris and picked up kids and teenagers and took them to church for the youth ministry. I did that for a few years and ended up having a really good relationship with a lot of those kids. They reminded me of my own, and as time went by they got comfortable talking with me about whatever was going on at school or in their lives. Every week, I looked forward to Tuesday and Wednesday nights, and when the church eventually shut it all down I really felt like I had lost something important.

Writing Prompt #12: Has something you dreamed about ever happened in real (awake) life?

These days, most of my dreams seem to center around either work or whatever I’m reading or watching on TV. None of it ever comes true. I haven’t had that sense of déjà vu in years.

I do remember it happening from time to time when my kids were little, and I remember being really weirded out by it. At the time, the kids occupied most of my waking hours, so it was pretty natural for my dreams to be about them, but I don’t specifically remember what the dream was that ended up happening while I was awake.

One odd thing that comes to my mind right now, though, is that when I dream about my kids today they’re still perpetually 12, 10, and 6 years old. They’re all in their twenties now, but I never dream about them as adults. For some reason they’re frozen at those ages in my mind.

Writing Prompt #9: Write about a memory that makes you feel warm.

I like kids. I always have. When my oldest son was born, I was 19 years old and scared to death, but that feeling passed surprisingly quickly. In just a few weeks (as soon as we figured out how to mix his formula right and he stopped crying all the time), I realized babies are not nearly as fragile as I thought they were and that they’re actually a lot of fun. I mixed bottles, I changed diapers, I stayed up with him when he wouldn’t go to sleep and I learned to take naps when he did. I delighted in making him laugh, and I felt proud when he started to learn things I was trying to teach him. Even though I was young, becoming a father was the best thing I had ever experienced and I never felt like I gave anything up; from the time he was big enough to put in a carrier and take him with me, I just had a little partner with me wherever I went. I did everything and went everywhere exactly as I would have if he hadn’t been there, just with company. I loved every second of it.

Over the next few years, my (then) wife and I had two more boys, who I tried to treat exactly the same as my first. As of this writing, they are all in their twenties and they’ve all turned out to be good and kind young men. They’re generous, quick to offer help or empathy, and they all live reasonably happy and productive lives. I’m proud of them all.

But I do miss having little kids.

Pax et Justitia

Recently, I’ve been reading a lot of comics. I’m a Marvel guy—outside of Batman, DC has never held much interest for me—so I started with some relatively modern runs on The Amazing Spider-Man and Avengers and Thunderbolts. Eventually, I remembered how much I enjoyed some older stuff, too. Years ago, guys like Jim Starlin and Roy Thomas and Steve Englehart were among some of my favorite writers. I won’t go through the entire progression that led me there, but ultimately I went back as far as the Kree/Skrull War (1971) and the First Thanos War (1972).

These are comics from an entirely different age and social order than modern comics. I’ve read some of it before, but I had forgotten how deeply ingrained the anti-war and civil rights movements were in many of those stories. I think a lot of purported “fans” of that age either remember those stories through the lens of their current political beliefs or never really read or understood them in the first place. These were hardly conservative stories and they assumed their audience was sophisticated enough to understand real-world conflicts.

Until 1972, Stan Lee was the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. Starting sometime in the 60s, he wrote a monthly column called Stan’s Soapbox that appeared in all their publications. Usually, he talked about behind-the-scenes anecdotes and goings-on around the office. He sometimes celebrated and brought recognition to specific creators or titles, and he generally tried to form a personal connection with readers that went beyond the stuffy persona of being the boss.

In December of 1968, Stan wrote a Soapbox that made Marvel’s position on civil rights and equality absolutely crystal clear. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy had both been assassinated in the preceding year, and George Wallace was the vocal champion of racial segregation nation-wide. Race riots were everywhere on the news, and law enforcement was deploying tear gas against protestors with abandon. In the midst of this, Stan spoke about real-world issues to his mostly young audience. He didn’t hide behind fantasy or metaphors, and he didn’t pretend that his readers were too young to know about such things.

“Bigotry and racism are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today,” he wrote. “The only way to destroy them is to expose them — to reveal them for the insidious evils they really are.”

These were not words lightly written or published. Stan was risking a massive backlash in such a politically charged time. Like today, sides were polarized, anger was rampant, and there seemed no hope of compromise. Marvel could have easily faced financial catastrophe at the hands of angry parents and political figures who didn’t want their children indoctrinated into beliefs they didn’t share. But Stan felt it was too important an issue to stay on the sidelines. The stories he wrote in the 60s had spoken his mind loud and clear for anyone who paid attention, but now he spoke up in full print, not just handwritten word balloons.

“Although anyone has the right to dislike an individual, it’s totally irrational, patently insane to condemn an entire race — to despise an entire nation — to vilify an entire religion.”

That’s powerful stuff, not just for a kid to read in a comic book, but for anyone watching as American society seemed to be at war with itself in 1968. I think Stan needed to get his thoughts out there for his own mental health just as much as his readers needed to hear it. And lest anyone dismiss these as the ramblings of a naive fool, don’t forget that in 1968 Stan was a middle-aged man of 44 years. Stan was hardly a hippie, but he knew right from wrong and that was something that pervaded his comic book work his entire life.

So for anyone who thinks Marvel is too “woke” (a term I saw used to describe the Marvel Cinematic Universe just this morning), I’d like to say this: I don’t think you’ve been paying attention. I don’t think you truly understand the people who built that universe, from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby to Roy Thomas and Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin and on and on. I think you’re remembering those stories through the lens of the way you wish they had been, the way they fit comfortably into your modern, conservative opinions of today. I think you’re having trouble wrapping your brain around the idea that you’re the bad guys Stan was writing about back then.

“Pax et Justitia,” Stan signed off with. “Peace and justice.” I’m sorry to say that almost 60 years later, we’re still having those same arguments, and still fighting that same fight.

Writing Prompt #5: Do you prefer taking risks or having a safety net?

I have a set of rules. They’re rules for me, no one else. They started out as Gibbs’s rules from the television show NCIS, but over the years I’ve removed a lot of the ones that didn’t apply and I’ve added a lot that were more specific to me. This is one of them.

Rule #17: Risk is part of the game.

"Risk is part of the game [if] you want to sit in that chair."

It’s a quote from Star Trek: Generations, in which Captain James T. Kirk gently admonishes a young, rookie captain that if he wants to sit in the Big Chair, he needs to understand that his job is not to play it safe. A captain’s job is to risk.

That’s not to say that anyone should take undue risks. Kirk has often been known to advise caution, or to get his ship and his crew to safety, or to not make stupid decisions. Although often remembered as reckless, Kirk was never one to take unwarranted or unnecessary risks. He wasn’t a loose cannon. But when the situation called for risk, when lives were at stake or his ship was on the line, he wasn’t afraid to take risks in the name of a greater cause. He wasn’t afraid to take personal risks to achieve his goals or complete his mission. Jim Kirk was the epitome of taking measured, calculated risks, and that’s what he was trying to impress upon his younger counterpart.

In my life, I’ve often tended to play it safe. I don’t enjoy rejection or failure; no one really does. But I’ve often felt that I’ve been rejected or hurt or embarrassed so often in my life that I never wanted to experience that again. I especially wanted to play everything safe when my kids were little because they were the most important people in my life. I never wanted them to suffer for any risks I took.

The problem, I’ve only realized in the last few years, is that isn’t living. Life involves risk and failure. Life involves picking yourself up and trying again. Sometimes life involves taking a chance in the name of something that’s important. I’ve never been very good at that, but I’m trying. I’ve never been very good at going after what I want; I always prioritize other people or other needs or the rules or anything other than myself. Sometimes it’s really just an excuse to not put myself out there, to stay in my safe place and not to engage with the world on its terms. Sometimes I lie to myself.

I’m 47 years old; breaking out of that habit isn’t going to be easy, but I’m trying.

Writing Prompt #1: What person in your life knows you the best, and how did you meet?

Years ago, this would have been an easy question to answer: it was my kids. When they were little, I was the parent who mainly cared for them and we spent a lot of time together. I always tried to be honest and up front with them, and they knew me better than anyone, including their mother. As the years have gone by, though, we’ve drifted apart. I suppose that’s normal, but it bothers me. If I’m being honest, it breaks my heart every day. The fact of the matter is that they just live too far away for us to have a really close relationship. They’re all adults now, of course. Ben and James live in Sacramento, and William was living in New York until he decided to move overseas to London.

The reality is that I don’t have anyone in my life right now who knows me terribly well. I’m getting along better with my parents now than I have in years, but I don’t think they really know me that well. We don’t have a whole lot of deep conversations and we don’t have many shared interests, either. At one point, a couple of years ago, I would have said Rose Marie knew me best, but we haven’t been able to talk much for over a year and a half now. I don’t even have her phone number anymore. Until just recently, I was hoping this would just be a phase we’re going through, I’ve finally had to accept that it’s not going to change, so I stopped going to church (which was the only place I could even say hi to her at all) and I’m just going to stay away from her. I’m going to try to stay out of Perris altogether. It’s best for everyone involved, but it means I don’t have a best friend anymore and I don’t have anyone who knows me very well.

Obviously, I met my kids when they were born. I was in the operating room when all three of them were born, so I have literally known them their entire lives. Rose Marie was someone I met by accident at a Memorial Day barbeque. She came up to me while I was standing in line to get a hot dog and a hamburger and she asked me to watch the two little dogs she had on leashes while she used the bathroom. While she was gone, one of the dogs (the little troublemaker) turned around and yanked his head out of his collar and went running around the property. I had to leave the other dog with a friend of mine and go chase him down; I finally caught him after he was too exhausted to sprint anymore and I was able to return him to her, after which we started chatting and struck up a friendship that lasted almost ten years. She’s had two kids since then and I know both of them very well; whenever they see me, they want to tell me stuff and show me stuff and play, and they like to walk around with me and explore places while I watch to make sure they don’t get hurt. That ended a while back, though, and I don’t talk to any of them anymore.