Day 26 A Childhood Memory

When I was about five years old, the original "BATMAN" TV series, with Adam West and Burt Ward, was on television during the summer; I was a huge fan.

I always thought it was so cool, how they would slide down the Bat Poles and appear magically in their costumes in Bat Cave below.

Well my father was an instrumental music teacher and he had to take some instruments back to school after a performance, I went with him, and we took this old cargo elevator to the second floor of the school.  For some reason I stayed behind and stayed with the elevator, as my father took the instruments back to his classroom.

As I said this was an old cargo elevator, so there was no back, it was wide open, you could see the cables behind the elevator; well being a curious kid, and one who thought TV at times was reality, I didn't see the cables, I saw two Bat Poles.

I jumped into thin air and suddenly found myself falling like a brick.  The next thing I remember is that I had stopped falling and was on my back.  I was crying out to my father.

I was told, that they had to remove the doors in the basement of the school and that I was rushed to Children's Hospital.  I was in the emergency room for a few days, then moved to a regular room, where I got orange sherbet and my parents visited me.  According to my mom, my face looked like the rear end of a hyena for several days.

The accident, caused me to be a little slower in learning things and may have short wired me with my temperament at times.  However it didn't stop me from moving forward.

This lead to me being in special education classes from the time I was five until I was in my last two years of Junior High School, my father and mother had home schooled me in part, and my father knew I had the smarts to be in regular classes.

He worked to have me test out of the special education classes.  I was able to graduate in the top fifteen of my class in 1980.

So these are my memories.  This goes out to you dad, and mom.  Thanks.

Post Script.

In 1966, I joined the "BATMAN" Junior Crime Fighter club, and Adam West, in full costume, came to my classroom and in front of everyone, swore me in as a junior crime fighter.  It was one of the coolest moments of my life, and to this day, I am still a huge "BATMAN" fan, I have seen every movie and collected episodes of the animated series.  So my liking of this hero did not diminish, I just learned that such things aren't real.