Wednesday, 23 June 2004

Up, up and awayyyy! I have to link to this Boing Boing post about the annual Superman festival in Metropolis, Illinois, because… well, this is difficult to explain, so I'll just blurt it out: My father was Superman.

Back in the early Seventies, the city of Metropolis, IL (pop. 15,000) discovered that it was the only city in America actually named "Metropolis" — which meant, of course, that it had to be the home of Superman! The town paper promptly renamed itself the Metropolis Planet (it's not a daily paper, alas), and the city began holding an annual Superman festival, which they still have.

One of the events at the festival is a mock bank robbery, which of course is foiled by the Man of Steel. Finding actors to play the criminals is relatively easy, but the role of Superman is a bit more demanding — you have to to look the part, and you have to be willing to work for peanuts.

…which is where my dad comes in. At six feet six inches tall, with blue eyes, dark hair, and the build of a college shot-put athlete (which he was), Dad was ideal for the part — and so for several years the city of Metropolis hired Dad to foil the bank robbery and to stand around posing for pictures. He had a custom-made Superman costume hanging in his closet for decades (he sold it to a collector a few years ago), and somewhere in a photo album back home there's a picture of my sister and me, ages two and four, sitting on Dad's biceps as he does the classic Superman pose.

Oh, shut up. You only wish your dad had his own Superman costume.

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 8:43 am. comments.