Pipe Dream

            Most of the things I liked when I was younger have faded with my youth. I don’t play with GI Joes and they don’t even make Big Jim anymore. The hundreds of action figures I collected as a boy disappeared over time, gone to the garbage or thrift stores throughout Southern Ontario. I don’t enjoy puzzles either. I used to sit up at night, night after night, on the floor of my room putting together box after box. While insomnia is a condition for many bipolars, I did not know this at the time. I rarely create poetry anymore. It used to be my main source when writing. Although I have, on occasion, produced a few poems for my blog, I just don’t enjoy the process the way I used to. I have burnt out on religious stuff, the childlike innocence I saw the world through is long gone. The God of my youth has died a long, cold death. I no longer think I know everything, that insatiable urge to understand started when the pubes set in. I don’t play baseball at all, a contradiction to the years I spent in right field. My favourite meal is no longer bologna sandwiches with tomato soup.  My long blond beautiful hair has fallen from me, my shiny head is all that remains. My puerility, it left me. For the longest time, I held very little from my childhood in high esteem. I simply believed that, with age, one automatically stops all those childish things. There is a time and a place for almost everything, at least that is what they tell me.

            I started collecting comic books when I was five years old. The first one I  owned/purchased was The Uncanny X-men #66. It was the flagship of my entire collection. For more than 25 years, I ferociously collected many titles. By the time I was 30, I had well over 3000 comics, each one stored in its place, sealed in its bag with an acid free cardboard backing. I hoarded the lot. There was something addictive about adding to my accumulation. I spent my entire childhood chasing one superhero after another. Sometimes the acquisition, the hunt, was a powerful and driving force. With the financial limitations a boy knows, aggregation was a complicated matter. I delivered newspapers and flyers to get comic book money. I cut grass and did garden work, all to get me some more. Amassing glass pop bottles for their deposit was my speciality. Each dabble in commerce brought me closer to another title and another book to savour. I started to lose the wonder in my late teens. I still collected but that powerful force was a little more dim. In my twenties, I continued to gather but it was more from habit than any joy I received. Slowly but surely, the pure simplicity of collecting turned into a financial weight and somewhat tiring duty. Every year, comic books got shorter and shorter but continually gained in price. The first comic I owned cost me 25 cents and is now valued around $250.00. Today, a regular monthly magazine can cost from $3.99 to $9.99. This does not include graphic novels or speciality items. When I lost my collection to divorce (so to speak), I learned to live without them. The urge I had throughout my childhood left me. I abandoned the cause out of futility. There was no way I could recollect all of the very expensive issues I had acquired. I could not afford to go back and start all over, not that it even occurred to me to do so. Circumstances added to that futility and the inutility of the hobby set in. I suppose, I finally put my childhood ways behind me.
            Sometimes I miss being a kid. I would give anything to have my original collection of comics back where they belong. This is a pipe dream on my part. They have long ago been resold or destroyed at the hands of the asshole who stole them. I resigned myself long ago to the fact that not even one of them will ever return. A few years ago, I found myself driving past a “Comic Book Warehouse” every time I was in Kitchener, Ontario. I wasn’t tempted at all, not really. As Christmas approached, I decided to secure a few comics for the two children next door. When I walked in the place, I almost crapped my pants. Both levels of the enormous storehouse were ceiling to floor with boxes and boxes and boxes of comics. I had never seen such majesty. I was humbled at the sight of it all. Despite the limitations of the owner and staff, something moved within. I’m not sure but I believe it was at this point that those old feelings churned up inside of me. After more than 15 years without touching a comic, not collecting did little to faze me. I would see racks of comic books and walk right past them. I had no notion, no idea that I would ever again show an interest in the hobby. One stop for Christmas presents and I was back, my Wonder Twin powers reactivated. Slowly but surely, one comic after another, and soon I was hooked once again. The visitations increased and so did my spending. In the last few years, I have collected hundreds of comic books that I once owned. I am not unrealistic. There is no way I could afford to replace the X-men books I once collected. Some of the other titles run into the high 100s, a daunting challenge to say the least. I chose to stick with what I knew. I started collecting more finite titles, obscure and easier to complete. Comic books like The Champions, The Invaders and A Man Called Nova had all been part of my original collection. Now I hold them in my hands once again. Not one of them, I am sure, is my original copy but I have to admit it feels good to gather my childhood around me. I thrive in a comic book store, even if the experience puts me face to face with comic book men and their nerdy ways.
            My partner Ben is a DC Comics man. He loves Wonder Woman and the Justice League. He had informally collected these titles when he was a boy so when I introduced him to Haganland, he caught the fever in spite of the rub. I have always been a Marvel Comics kind of guy. From the Avengers, the Fantastic Four and the Uncanny X-men, the Marvel Universe never failed to garner my attention. In the heyday of collecting, I would occasionally purchase two copies of each comic. One was sealed away, never touched, never read. The other was a reading copy. It’s just too much money to do that with my current hobby. I purchase a single copy, seal it up and place it among my hoard. In less than 2 years, I have managed a rather healthy collection of several hundred editions. While each and every original copy was lost to circumstance, I have rallied myself around each new one just the same. Each is like a touchstone that I rediscovered. There is a joy I cannot explain when it comes to acquiring titles I once coveted as a boy. Each one took me to my Otherland even though I didn’t know it at the time. I do now. There is escape in finding something you love and holding it to you. People get so worked up about materialism but sometimes things with some value can be more heirloom than just investment. Things with meaning hold more than just worth.

            Call me silly but collecting comic books, once again, has brought something within me back to life. Recently, I came across the second comic book that I once owned. Avengers King Size Special issue 2 (1968) was a visual favourite of mine back in the day. I came across the copy at Haganland and rather than paying $120.00 for a mint copy, the owner granted me access to lesser condition comics. I paid $5.00 and was absolutely thrilled with my accomplishment. I didn’t need to  have it for value, just the nostalgia, the conquest from the hunt. It is framed and hanging on my office wall. I anticipate my next purchase with bated breath. I almost obsess over each and every want. I find the pursuit, the hunt, quite thrilling. Somehow each turn makes me feel like I did when I acquired each comic as a boy. It’s not just the condition of each edition, it’s the content, the direct relationship each book has with my childhood. I only accumulate those titles that I once owned in the past. I collect nothing else. What used to be came naturally for me. I moved on into adulthood thinking I could not maintain any semblance of my youthful days. I no longer play with action figures. I no longer dip my sandwich into my soup. I no longer believe that God is involved and will take care of everything. My infancy is gone for good. I am fortunate, I have rediscovered a joy that relates directly back to my past. In this Otherland, I am once again enamoured, enchanted and enthralled. Each time I hold one, I remember. I remember each and every one. I am transported to a kinder time, a place when the simplest pleasure was more than enough to see me through. It’s not the same as it was back then but it’s close enough. How often do we get to feel like we did when we were children? How often do we get the chance? I cannot imagine a more pleasant experience for a full grown man.