Hmm…. I think I can share this crazy little Bat-story now

If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, or grew up with me as a friend or member of my family…  you would know I once had a big thing for Batman.

Lots of kids did, and still do.  Boys & girls both.  There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.  Well… usually nothing.

Wayyy back in the mid-1960s, when we still lived in town, there was one year when I walked home alone from school.  When I was in 2nd grade at North Ward Elementary, my older brother went to South and our younger sister went to kindergarten at East Franklin. 

I would go thru Waynesburg College Park on my way home (to stare at the college girls and hippies) then down High Street, turn right at the police station on Morgan to head down towards Greene and our town’s volunteer fire station.

Once, a friend of my mom’s drove past and saw me skipping down Morgan past the “Wagon Wheel”, a pretty shady saloon.  When I got home, Mom had a fit.  She let me know in no uncertain terms she didn’t want me walking that way home again.  Okay, no problem.

(By the way, that was a pretty long walk from North Ward to our house on Cumberland; I can’t imagine second graders walking home alone from school that far now…  I don’t even think it’s legal!)

Anyway, one day in school some of us were told we’d won ribbons for our submissions at the annual Bowlby Library Art Show.  We were sent there to collect them and our artwork, and go straight home.  I can remember plain as day what mine was; a (pretty large) watercolor rendition of ‘The Marriage of Batman & Batgirl’. 

On my way home, carrying that painting in front of me like a tray, two college guys came over to see what I was walking with.  When I showed it to them, one of them joked he recently met a girl who looked just like the one in my painting at the Wagon Wheel. 

Wha wha wha….??  I remember this all too well, because I almost had a 7 year old heart attack.

Now you know kids at that age are crazier than they let on.  When the live action show ‘Batman’ first aired on tv, I asked my dad if he wondered if Batman & Robin were real, and he told me I knew better than to ask. 

Well, I couildn’t help but wonder myself; they certainly looked real enough on tv. 

So when I heard about this supposed Batgirl sighting at the Wagon Wheel, I knew I had to see for myself.  I began walking home past that rickety saloon again, but would linger in front for awhile, and pretend I dropped or lost something or had to tie my shoe. 

Now it’s called Waynesburg Hotel & Lounge, but 50 years ago this decrepit place was the Wagon Wheel.  Trust me, it looked even worse then

And then one night I had a dream that I was in front of the Wagon Wheel, and a black limousine pulled up and a woman in a skin-tight costume got out; at first I thought she was Batgirl but it was Catwoman. 

She saw me watching and yelled “Grab that kid!”  

I woke up petrified with fright that one day I’d be punished for not listening to my mom and get kidnapped by some lady who thought she was Catwoman.  I never walked past the Wagon Wheel saloon again. 

(And the following year, my sister Shawn went to North Ward Elementary with me so I knew my Batgirl spotting days were over.)

I thought I’d share this cuckoo memory, because I was just watching yet another news story about those Qanon believers in disarray.  They really thought that once Joe Biden stood to take his oath as President, he and Kamala would be rushed, possibly executed, and their glorious leader Donald Trump would come out of the shadows to reclaim his rightful place as President again.  

They are FINALLY accepting the fact they might’ve been duped.

I know just how those Qanon feel, because I never saw Batgirl (in her costume or regular street clothes) come out of the Wagon Wheel Saloon either.

Of course, I was seven years old when that crazy logic was rolling around in my head.  What’s their excuse?