{"id":7953,"date":"2025-06-08T14:08:39","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T21:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/?p=7953"},"modified":"2025-06-08T14:08:41","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T21:08:41","slug":"clubius-contained-part-43-crime-society-august-1966","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/08\/clubius-contained-part-43-crime-society-august-1966\/","title":{"rendered":"Clubius Contained Part 43 – Crime Society (August 1966)"},"content":{"rendered":"
The DC Comics Justice League<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

David REALLY liked the Justice League, which was Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and the Martian Manhunter. He was really into DC comics. I mean I still liked Batman and Flash, mostly because they had some really neat villains, specially Flash. Two of Flash\u2019s villains, Mirror Master and Doctor Alchemy, were my favorites. I seemed to be more into the badguy characters these days than the goodguy ones, though I wasn\u2019t sure whyM. Maybe just because David was so into the goodguy ones.<\/p>\n

I was also starting to get into the MARVEL comic superheroes more, specially Spiderman, and Doctor Strange. Sure they were goodguys, but they weren\u2019t so \u201cgoodie two shoes\u201d as the DC superheroes were. They had their own problems, like I did. Spiderman was still really just like an older kid, more like me, who had a difficult life because his mom and dad had died in a plane crash and he had to live with his aunt and uncle. MY mom and dad hadn\u2019t died, but they had gotten divorced, and it felt like we weren\u2019t a regular family anymore. And Doctor Strange had been in a car accident that messed up his hands so he couldn\u2019t be a surgeon anymore, so he got into all this cool magic and mystical stuff instead. I couldn\u2019t be a regular kid from a regular family anymore, so maybe that was kind of the same.<\/p>\n

David was always drawing pictures of the Justice League guys and talking about how neat they were, which was kind of annoying, I guess because they were all so \u201cgoodie two shoes\u201d. So when I got annoyed I would imagine a group of super VILLAINS that could be against the Justice League, like be the other team. There was already the \u201cCrime Syndicate\u201d in the DC comics that was on \u201cEarth Three\u201d, which was kind of like our Earth, \u201cEarth One\u201d, but evil, because badguys were in charge on that Earth instead of goodguys. But that was basically just badguy versions of the Justice League goodguy characters. I wanted to make my OWN supervillains with their OWN group that I decided to call the \u201cCrime Society\u201d.<\/p>\n

So I told David about my \u201cCrime Society\u201d idea, and he liked it. I told him it would include my two favorite DC supervillains, Mirror Master and Doctor Alchemy from the Flash comics, but I was going to think up the rest of the guys in it.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally?\u201d he asked, like maybe he didn\u2019t think that I could do something like that, make up good badguys, good supervillains, that weren\u2019t kind of lame. But I thought I could do it, and I wanted to do it to show him what a big kid I really was.<\/p>\n

The first supervillain I had thought up was kind of like Batman\u2019s villain Catman, who I thought was really neat. Mine was \u201cRatman\u201d. He was kind of scrawny and thin, and didn\u2019t have that many superpowers, but he was really really smart. And he wasn\u2019t school smart, but he could figure out how to do things in ways that nobody else could. His one special power was that he could turn himself into a tiny rat so he could get through small pipes and sneak into any houses or buildings from underground, and also escape the same way. Nobody thought he would be a bigtime supervillain, but he had managed to find other supervillains and create this group, this badguy team, called the \u201cCrime Society\u201d.<\/p>\n

So I told David about Ratman, and how he had managed to recruit all these amazing supervillains into his group. He flipped a piece of paper on his drawing pad against his knees and then turned it sideways.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay\u201d, David said, but making a face like he wasn\u2019t sure that WAS okay, as he started to draw with just a regular pencil on the new piece of paper, \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t think about a rat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, exactly\u201d, I said, \u201cThat\u2019s what makes him so cool. And he\u2019s the one who thinks up the Crime Society to get revenge on all the people who think he\u2019s just a weakling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes he have a uniform like Batman and Catman?\u201d he asked, still drawing on the new piece of paper, \u201cI could try to draw him for you.\u201d David continued to draw as we continued to talk and I thought about that, trying to imagine what Ratman might look like, and finally nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what color?\u201d he asked. I don\u2019t think I had ever really seen a real rat, just a couple on TV, but our TV was black and white.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe gray\u201d, I said. He wrinkled his nose.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe\u201d, he said, looking up in the air, thinking, \u201cBut Batman is gray\u2026 gray and dark blue. Maybe Ratman\u2019s suit should be light brown.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah\u201d, I said, \u201cI guess. His costume shouldn\u2019t be super flashy, but probably like Batman and Catman with the whole suit and that whole mask thing over the nose and eyes and head\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean a cowl\u201d, David said, \u201cBut with pretend rat ears instead of bat or cat ears.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah\u201d, I said, \u201cBut no cape. Not for Ratman. Too flashy!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, but maybe a tail?\u201d he asked. I hadn\u2019t pictured that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d, I said, \u201cCatman doesn\u2019t have a tail even though cats do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTrue\u201d, David said, which was a word that I hadn\u2019t heard the other kids his age use, but he was used to talking to older kids like Maryjane\u2019s kids Zeke and Gordon, and my friend Mike when he came over, \u201cBut I think he\u2019d look good with a tail. Kind of one that curls up in a spiral.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d, I said, \u201cMight look kind of stupid. I don\u2019t want him to look stupid. Just kind of plain maybe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, okay\u201d, he said, \u201cBut who else?\u201d<\/p>\n

I liked the idea of time travel. Going back in the past or ahead in the future. Even though it would be cool to go back in the past and see World War Two or the Civil War or the ancient Romans, I think it would be even cooler to go into the future to see what it was going to be like. I mean you could read lots of books or even see movies about the past and what it was like, but you couldn\u2019t read about the future. Maybe some science fiction books were about the future, but only what the person writing it THOUGHT would be the future, with flying cars maybe and going to other planets or even other star systems in spaceships. A pretend future that was made up, but who knows if it would be like the REAL future. It would be so cool to go into the REAL future and see how things would be different when all us kids were old enough to be in charge of things instead of all these grownups. I was sure it would be REALLY different.<\/p>\n

And comic books did a lot of time travel stuff. Some characters in comics were from the future like that \u201cLegion of Superheroes\u201d in DC or some badguy characters too like Kang or Immortus in Marvel comics. And some superheroes, like Superman or Flash, could move so fast that they could go back in time. So I told David I wanted to create a badguy character that could go back or forward in time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure what to call him yet\u201d, I said, \u201cI was thinking maybe \u2018Timeman\u2019, but that\u2019s kind of stupid.\u201d He nodded, like he agreed that name was stupid.<\/p>\n

I continued, \u201cThen I remembered dad had that thing that was a clock AND a stopwatch called a \u2018chronograph\u2019, so I figured I\u2019d call him \u2018Chronoman\u2019. What do you think?\u201d He nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a lot better than \u2018Timeman\u2019\u201d, he said, \u201cSo like if he\u2019s trying to rob a bank and he gets caught, he can go back in time and try it again in a different way so he doesn\u2019t get caught?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah\u201d, I said, \u201cMaybe stuff like that. Or he can go into the future and find stuff out after it happens in the future, but then go back in the past and know about it before anybody else does. Or maybe he can slow time down or speed it up like in that Wild Wild West show where they drank that stuff that made time speed up for them so they could sneak around everybody else without people being able to see them because they were moving too fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah that one was REALLY neat\u201d, he said, \u201cAll the other people were like frozen in the room and they could walk around them without the people being able to see them. So what would this Chronoman look like?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot sure what colors his suit should be\u201d, I said, \u201cBut he should have a mask and like this clock thing on his chest where he could move the clock hands around to change time\u2026 something like that.\u201d David was nodding and drawing now.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo cape, right?\u201d he asked. I shook my head.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo cape\u201d, I said, \u201cI don\u2019t like supervillains with capes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDoctor Alchemy has a cape\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah well\u201d, I said, \u201cI guess cuz he has a hood he should have a cape too, but I\u2019m not big on capes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, good\u201d, David said, nodding and continuing to draw, \u201cWho else?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next guy\u201d, I said, \u201cActually two guys, I call the \u2018Brute Brothers\u2019. They\u2019re super strong like the Hulk, or the Thing from the Fantastic Four, but the two of them only have ONE BRAIN, which makes them really good when they\u2019re fighting together, and the two of them always talk at the same time and say the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay\u201d, he said, \u201cBut which one has the brain?\u201d I hadn\u2019t thought of that.<\/p>\n

I stroked my chin slowly like I was one of those evil wizard guys stroking his pointy beard and thinking. \u201cNobody knows\u201d, I said, trying to sound like an evil wizard. David smiled and nodded and laughed through his nose like a grownup or a big kid. I hadn\u2019t seen him do THAT before.<\/p>\n

Then his eyes twinkled and he said, \u201cMaybe each one has half a brain, and the two halves work together when they\u2019re close to each other, but they\u2019re really stupid when they\u2019re far apart.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah\u201d, I said laughing, \u201cThat\u2019s a good one.\u201d David seemed way more fun to talk to now than he used to.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what color is their skin?\u201d he asked, still drawing as he talked, \u201cAnd do they have giant muscles like Hulk or rock skin like the Thing?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d, I said back to him, \u201cI hadn\u2019t thought about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI like giant muscles better\u201d, he said, \u201cFun to draw. Maybe make them purple so people don\u2019t think they\u2019re two Hulks. And do they just wear trunks like Hulk or Thing?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTrunks?\u201d I asked, surprised he used that word.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know\u201d, he said, \u201cTrunks, like swim trunks. Most superheroes and supervillains wear them, except maybe the guy you like, Doctor Strange.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t like Doctor Strange?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s okay\u201d, David said, making kind of a silly face. I couldn\u2019t believe he didn\u2019t like Doctor Strange. He was one of my favorites!<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t like Doctor Strange?\u201d I asked him again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said he\u2019s okay\u201d, he said, still drawing, \u201cBut who else?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen there\u2019s this android guy, \u2018Equizler\u2019\u201d, I said, kind of thinking him up as I talked about him, \u201cIf you try to punch him, or shoot him or blow him up, he has this force field around him that just captures the energy of your attack and then he can send it back at you or even at someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, okay\u201d, he said, still drawing, \u201cDoes he wear a costume or is he just metal all over?\u201d<\/p>\n

I remembered that \u201cVisible Man\u201d model that our sixth-grade teacher, Mrs Herman, brought to class with the clear plastic skin to show us where all the bones, muscles and organs went inside the human body. It looked pretty weird, but I thought it would be cool for an android to look like that, specially an evil android.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t have any color\u201d, I said, figuring that would shock him, \u201cIts skin is clear and you can see through to all the motors, gears and metal bones inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWow, neat\u201d, he said, continuing to draw<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what an android is?\u201d I asked him. He rolled his eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf COURSE I do\u201d, he said, sounding mad I had asked him, \u201cIt\u2019s a robot that looks like a regular human, like Amazo or Robotman.\u201d I was surprised that he knew that.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you know all this stuff?\u201d I asked, feeling like he knew more about all this comic book stuff than I did.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look at a lot more comics than you do\u201d, he said, \u201cAnd I\u2019m always talking to Zeke and Gordon about comics. They read way more than I do and they know EVERYTHING.\u201d Zeke and Gordon were mom\u2019s friend Maryjane\u2019s older kids. Zeke was my age and Gordon was a year younger. I was friends with them too but they spent a lot more time with David than me because they all liked to draw comic book stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone else?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cA guy called \u2018Anciano\u2019\u201d, I said, \u201cWho can make things appear from the past, like a hundred ancient Egyptian soldiers on chariots, or a bunch of Tyrannosaurus Rexes, to fight for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo he would probably wear a long robe, instead of trunks and tights\u201d, he said, thinking and then drawing, \u201cMaybe have one of those helmets like the Roman soldiers wore with that metal part that went down their nose.\u201d I nodded. David knew way more about all that stuff than I did when I was his age. But he read a lot more comics than I did when I was eight, including those Classics comics with stories from regular books about the past. Those Classics comics were really neat because you could find out a whole story from a book without having to take all that time to read the whole book.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then \u2018Green Death\u2019\u201d, I said, \u201cWho can shrink down to microscopic size, kind of like Atom, but can control germs and viruses and also has her own little microscopic ship that she can fly into someone\u2019s body like in that \u2018Fantastic Voyage\u2019 movie that I\u2019ve seen commercials for on TV.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah\u201d, he said, \u201cI want to see that. Eddie and I talked about going when we get home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo does she have like a green skintight jumpsuit?\u201d he asked. Most of the women characters have that kind of costume, to show off\u2026\u201d He wasn\u2019t sure what to say next.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir figures?\u201d I asked. He nodded, but didn\u2019t say anything more about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho else?\u201d he asked, not wanting to talk about her and her figure anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen there\u2019s this really weird alien thing\u201d, I said, \u201cThat can manipulate dimensions, called \u2018Dimo\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDimo\u2019s not even like a person\u201d, I said, \u201cIt\u2019s just a bunch of lines in the air in the shape of a cube. And it doesn\u2019t talk with sound but only through your mind, like telepathy, or like you see the words like those movies in other languages with subtitles.\u201d David nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust a cube?\u201d He asked like that wasn\u2019t enough, \u201cIt should have something that makes it look like some sort of being. Like maybe a pair of eyes in one corner of the cube.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, okay, that\u2019s good\u201d, I said, though it was hard to admit that David had some really good ideas sometimes.<\/p>\n

\u201cEasy to draw\u201d, David said, his eyes twinkling, \u201cEven you could draw it.\u201d He was starting to tease me sometimes like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cHa ha\u201d, I said, \u201cWatch yourself, kid.\u201d He nodded, and we looked at each other and smiled, and I suddenly felt really good that he was my little brother, even proud of him somehow, though I wouldn\u2019t tell him that.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what kind of powers does Dimo have?\u201d he asked. I hadn\u2019t really worked that out yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure\u201d, I said, \u201cHe\u2026 I mean IT can like warp space, or at least the part of space that\u2019s within an invisible box it creates. Maybe make it so if you are inside the box and try to go out one side you just come back in the opposite side so you\u2019re kind of trapped. Or it can make everything inside the box two-dimensional instead of three-dimensional, at least for a moment. I don\u2019t know\u2026 something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA \u2018Dimo Box\u2019\u201d, he said, \u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd finally\u201d, I said, raising my finger in the air, \u201cMy most favorite one besides Ratman.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWow\u201d, he said, \u201cThese are all pretty neat, so\u2026\u201d and he looked at me waiting for me to say.<\/p>\n

\u201cPurplet\u201d, I said. Just that, nothing more.<\/p>\n

\u201cPurplet?\u201d he asked back, wrinkling his nose as he looked at me. I nodded and did one of those really big smiles like mom.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was a very powerful medieval witch\u201d, I said, but didn\u2019t say more, to keep him in suspense.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, okay\u201d, he said, like he needed to hear more.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was burned at the stake\u201d, I said, \u201cBut she was such a powerful witch that she was able to finally conjure a spell to escape into the future with just her head and the upper part of her body not burned up, though no arms. Now she has a levitation device attached to the bottom of what\u2019s left of her body, so she can move around and hover in the air at the same height as regular people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOr maybe Chronoman went back in time to help her escape to the future\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell maybe\u201d, I said, \u201cBut then wouldn\u2019t he have gone back to a time before she was half burned up at the stake?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTrue\u201d, he said again, but I didn\u2019t feel he was impressed enough, so I tried to make her REALLY scary.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah\u201d, I said, \u201cHer hair is all burned up and the skin on her face is half burned off and all purple and rotting. She wears what\u2019s left of an old burned up black coat over what\u2019s left of the top part of her body.\u201d And then to really scare him, \u201cAnd her eyes are all burned out and you can see the eye sockets of her skull with like bugs crawling in and out of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He shivered and said, \u201cBleh. I don\u2019t even want to draw that! She\u2019s DISGUSTING!\u201d My friends and I used that word a lot, but I had never heard David or other kids his age say it before.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is\u201d, I said nodding, \u201cAnd her plan is to get revenge against all the people that wanted her burned at the stake and all their descendents.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are descendents?\u201d he asked. At least he didn\u2019t know THAT yet!<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like all the people in your family that are born way after you\u201d, I said, \u201cLike you and I are our grandparents, and our great grandparents, and our great great great great grandparents descendents. Like that.\u201d He nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get it\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah\u201d, I said, \u201cAnd Ratman asked her to join the Crime Society before he realized how evil and nasty she really was, and how she wants to wreck everything and just kill everybody. And even after he figures that out, he doesn\u2019t dare ask her to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah\u201d, David said, laughing through his nose, \u201cThat\u2019s good! Badguys usually don\u2019t work together as well as goodguys. That\u2019s why they\u2019re badguys.\u201d It was neat that David liked thinking up stories as much as I did. He continued to draw for a few minutes and didn\u2019t say anything. I was happy just to sit there and be quiet with him, me thinking about all these characters I\u2019d created while he drew.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what are her powers?\u201d he asked, \u201cLike regular witch powers? Black magic?\u201d I guess he knew about all this witch stuff from reading comics or maybe talking to Zeke and Gordon. He drew quietly for a few more minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAllright\u201d, he said, smiling and looking like he was really proud of himself, \u201cHere they are, the \u2018Crime Society\u2019\u201d, and he showed me a picture where they were all standing in a line, well except for Purplet who was hovering. And he drew a cube around all the others with two eyes and eyebrows in the corner of the cube that was Dimo.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean\u201d, he said, \u201cIt\u2019s my first try. Just a rough sketch. I\u2019ll do \u2018em better next time.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was pretty amazing how good he could draw all sorts of comic book characters, the real ones but even the ones I had made up and told him about. I mean I could draw people too, but they didn\u2019t look like real people like his did. He was SO much better at being an artist than I was. I had to remind myself that I was better at doing a bunch of other things than he was.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

So for the next few days, we talked about the Justice League and the Crime Society, at the beach, in our bedroom or in the yard, whenever we got bored with whatever else we were doing. We specially liked hanging out in the yard because the owner lady’s cats would come around and want to play with us, and David REALLY liked that, though I liked playing with them too.<\/p>\n

We talked about how the Crime Society was formed and which of the DC pretend cities they should be in. There was Metropolis where Superman was, Gotham City where Batman was, Central City where Flash was and Coast City where Green Lantern was. I said I figured they should be in Central City, because that was where Flash was and two of the Crime Society members were Flash villains. David thought that made sense too.<\/p>\n

I thought Ratman should be in charge of it because he was really smart and had lived in Central City all his life, hanging out in the sewers below all the streets and buildings. David thought maybe Purplet should be in charge, because she was such a nasty scary witch and she wanted revenge against the world so much because she got burned at the stake. I suggested that even though Ratman was in charge, Purplet was always plotting to take over. David liked that, saying that made for a good story.<\/p>\n

So when the Crime Society robbed a big bank in Central City of millions of dollars and also took over a TV station and Ratman went on TV to tell all the people in the city that he was in charge, that\u2019s when the Justice League was called in to deal with them. And as we continued to think up the story, and the battle between the two groups, it wasn\u2019t like David just played the Justice League and I just did the Crime Society.<\/p>\n

Like with my friend Jake, when we played the Avalon Hill Battle of the Bulge game together, we both played both sides. Just like with Jake, it was more fun that way with David, because even though our two groups were fighting against each other, David and I weren\u2019t fighting against each other, we were working together to think up the story. And we both knew, that like a good comic book story, the badguys got to win sometimes, but the goodguys would win in the end, though the badguys would never be destroyed, so they could come back the next time in the next story and try something else.<\/p>\n

David and I did a lot of our story making sitting on the fence on the edge of our backyard. It was one of those fences like on farms or in those Western shows on TV, with those posts and the long pieces of wood in between. It was kind of a stupid fence really, since it only ran along the side of the yard by the driveway, but didn\u2019t fence anything in. Mom said it was \u201ccosmetic\u201d, but that didn\u2019t make any sense, because that\u2019s what she called the lipstick and other makeup stuff she put on her face. But it was fun to sit on, lean against, or even jump over.<\/p>\n

And the lady\u2019s cats seemed to like our stories, because when we sat on the fence thinking them up, they would come around and sit near us, watching us and looking like they were listening too. But sometimes they\u2019d come right up to us and even walk under us and touch our hanging down feet with their pointing up tails. And if we wiggled our toes they might even try to attack them.<\/p>\n

David and I made a joke that whenever our story was interesting enough for the cats, they would just sit and listen. But if it got boring for them, then they would walk under us and attack our toes so they could have more fun and not be so bored.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Mom reminded us that Molly and her mom should be arriving the next evening to stay for the last week at the lady\u2019s other cottage on the other side of her big house in between. I was both excited and worried to see Molly, because I hadn\u2019t seen her in a long time and I didn\u2019t know if she would even like me anymore. I felt like I was so different now than back when she and I were best friends. The last time I saw her was at my tenth birthday party and she seemed kind of different too, and that was over a year ago, so she might be even more different now.<\/p>\n

I guess we all changed as we got older, though that was pretty scary to think about. I mean, I didn\u2019t want to change TOO much, because then I wouldn\u2019t even be myself anymore and my friends that used to like the old me might not like the new me. And what if I didn\u2019t like the new me? Would that even be possible? What would I do then?<\/p>\n

Neither Molly or I were the same as when we were little kids together before we went to school and she moved away. Back then we wanted to be the same. Back then we just did what we wanted, what was fun and interesting, and we tried to figure everything out for ourselves. Back then we knew what each other was thinking, so we could just sit together without even talking. And back then we didn\u2019t have grownups telling us what we were supposed to learn, and telling us if we were doing a good job learning it.<\/p>\n

I mean yeah, I liked being a good student, liked having my mom and dad, my teacher, and my friends thinking I was a good student. But learning wasn\u2019t always fun, though once you learned something that could be fun. Figuring stuff out by yourself or with your friends, that is what you wanted to figure out, was always fun.<\/p>\n

That was the exciting part about seeing Molly. Maybe she and I could talk about when we were little, when we were the same or at least wanted to be the same. Then maybe talk about what happened to make us different. Maybe we weren\u2019t as different now as it seemed. And if we WERE different now, maybe we could figure out what made us different.<\/p>\n

If all us kids were going to take over being in charge of the world from all these grownups, which had always been what I wanted to happen, we had to figure some things out first. Girls and boys had to figure out how to be on the SAME team and not DIFFERENT teams all the time. At my school, girls and boys had been TOTALLY on different teams, and from what the older boys said in the park, and some of my school friends\u2019 older brothers and sisters said too, it was pretty much the same for the junior high kids at Tappan.<\/p>\n

That didn\u2019t sound very good. I was already worried about school starting after we got home from here in Cape Cod, like I had been every year since I started first grade. Now I was extra worried that it was going to be a very different kind of school than elementary school, with lots more classes and teachers, and lots more kids. Plus me and my classmates would go from being the oldest kids at our old Burns Park school to being the youngest at our new Tappan school. It made my stomach hurt to think about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David REALLY liked the Justice League, which was Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and the Martian Manhunter. He was really into DC comics. I mean I still liked Batman and Flash, mostly because they had some really neat villains, specially Flash. Two of Flash\u2019s villains, Mirror Master and Doctor Alchemy, were my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1777,13,1774,1799,1800,1775],"class_list":["post-7953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","tag-1960s","tag-ann-arbor","tag-autobiography","tag-free-range-kid","tag-growing-up","tag-memoir"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7953"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7955,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7953\/revisions\/7955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}