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Goodbye, Man of Steel
Sean Dietrich
Aug 23

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First, a little about me.

I’ve been a Superman fan since I was old enough to fill up a diaper. I used to attend school wearing Superman pajamas beneath my civilian clothes, posing as a mild-mannered first-grader. My mother made me stop this in college.

So when opening credits to Superman began, I was actually excited. We in the theater audience applauded. I was wearing one of my Superman T-shirts. I own three.

I, like many other working stiffs my age, have been waiting to see the new Superman movie—the highest grossing box office hit of the year. Which was why most of us in the theater were middle-aged.

Of course, we all knew the movie would suck. That’s just Hollywood. But maybe the movie would have SOME redeeming qualities.

Um…

When the movie ended, nobody was applauding. Most of the people, young and old, were just sitting there, blinking.

I left the theater wondering what the

name of Christopher Reeve we had just watched. Not only because the movie was, perhaps, the worst movie in the history of human civilization. Not only because the film featured a beat-you-over-the-head political message involving fictitious Russian presidents, refugees, and—I’m serious—social-media spider monkeys whose sole job was to post false political information online.

It was because of what the movie says about the American Kid.

This is the world our kids live in. THIS is the bleak reality we’ve given them. It’s no longer a world where Superman stops bank robberies, or rescues fair maidens from the railroad tracks.

Neither is it a world with bicycles, baseball cards attached to the spokes, building forts, or playing in the woods until dark.

In short, the Superman movie was all about technology. The heroes all used smartphones. Heroes and villains alike used social media…

The little dog beside me is curled into a ball, huddled against me. We are smooshed as closely as we can be without being one person.

She is a petite dog. A black and tan coonhound. Floppy ears. Loose skin. She is blind. There is a scar where her eye used to be.

There are other scars on her body, too. On her face. Her chest. We don’t know for certain where those come from.

What probably happened, is that she was purchased from a breeder, by a hunter. Coonhounds aren’t cheap. They cost more than some people’s trucks.

The purchaser was a terrible dog owner. He likely kept her in a cage with other hunting dogs. Likely, none of these dogs saw daylight until it was time to hunt—once every couple weeks. This is just how dogkeeping is practiced in less-than-respectable circles.

So the dogs sat in a cage. In their own waste. They weren’t fed regularly, as is the custom of the abusive sportsman, who keeps his dogs hungry so they’ll be mean.

Dogs aren’t meant to live in confinement. A dog was meant to run 30 mph. Thus, dogs in pens can be vicious. They learn to gang up on each other. Fight until bloodshed. Establish dominance. It really is a dog-eat-dog world.

That’s where her body scars come from.

Her missing eyes are a different story altogether. The veterinary doc told us her face had undergone blunt trauma. Her muzzle was fractured.

It was probably the butt of a rifle, the vet said. Or maybe a piece of rebar. No way to know. Either way, she was struck so hard she lost her vision.

The hunter probably took the pack running. He fired his weapon and figured out that she was gunshy. A gunshy dog is a waste of $700.

So he took out his frustration on her face. He probably didn’t mean to make her…

We were sitting on a plane. Awaiting takeoff. I am convinced that if you live wrongly, if you treat your fellow man poorly, if you are selfish, if you are not a good person, you will die and wake up in Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

You will be condemned to find yourself in the TSA line on a major holiday weekend. Officials will compel you to remove your shoes, belt, jacket, eyeglasses, insulin pump, pacemaker, and you shall be frisked.

You will hold up your pants with one hand while a stranger who is exhibiting signs of severe occupational depression gropes your groin region. And everything will be going fine, until your wife trips the metal detector with her Swiss Army knife.

But, thankfully, we were all finished with TSA. I was bound for the Frozen North. I was sitting in my Barbie-sized airline seat, practicing good armrest etiquette.

Across the aisle was an elderly woman. She had a boy with her. He was maybe 15.

You could tell she was nervous because she looked pale. She was sort

of hyperventilating. Trembling. She looked like she was about to vomit, which worried me because I have a strong involuntary empathetic regurgitation reflex.

“Nervous?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“First time?” I said.

“No, I’ve been nervous lots of times.”

I liked this woman.

The boy held her hand tightly. He kept saying, “It’s okay.”

“I’m fine,” she kept saying. Which is what people who aren’t fine always say.

Then the boy started singing. It was only light humming at first. But then he sang slightly louder. His voice never grew loud enough to bother the passengers, but it was enough for her to hear.

She sang along. Her voice was low. They were squeezing hands. The woman’s eyes were shut tightly. She kissed the boy’s hand.

We underwent the launch sequence. It was a jarring takeoff. Lots of shaking. Lots of rattling. A…

Do this. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. And remember what it was like to be a kid. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Dive deep into your brain and locate your mental elementary-school yearbook. Flip through the pages. Find that cute black-and-white photo of yourself with that gap-toothed smile and enormous ears.

Now hold that yearbook picture in your mind.

Look how precious you are. Look how happy.

Remember how great it was? Remember how uncomplicated it was, being a kid? Remember how your only occupation in this world—your highest ambition, your ultimate purpose, was to seek out and locate refined white sugar?

Remember sitting in Mrs. Welch’s Sunday school class as she played an upright piano and everyone sang “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” as Charlie Waters picked his nose so aggressively he was literally touching his own brain matter? Remember how you actually believed the lyrics you were singing?

Recall how nothing bothered you. Even big stuff, serious stuff, it barely affected you. Sure, you had pain sometimes. But mostly, you didn’t

worry. Even critical injuries didn’t bother you.

You could fall off your bike, lose a tooth, or break your arm until a jagged piece of your humerus was poking through the skin. You’d cry. Then get back on your bike and start pedaling home to Mama.

She’d hold you. Kiss your head. And somehow, deep in your heart, you weren’t that worried. Because you knew it was all going to be okay.

If you’re having a hard time remembering how immune to fear you were, try remembering chicken pox. Chicken pox is a life threatening illness. But you never knew that back then.

Whenever you or your friends got chicken pox, you never thought “death.” Chicken pox simply meant you got to stay home from school and watch reruns of “I Love Lucy.”

But then you grew up. Then you got wise. You…

The little seagull built her nest beneath the train tracks. She was huddled over her squeaking chicks. Her nest was only inches from the steel rails.

Two railway track maintainers stood at a distance watching her. Their neon vests, reflecting in the early morning light. Their hard hats pushed upward on their heads. They weren’t sure what to do with the bird.

“What is a bird doing on the tracks?” said one employee.

“How in the world did she get there?”

The mama bird looked so snug. So content. And she made it clear, she wasn’t leaving.

“We should probably move her,” said one employee.

“You can’t move a bird nest. If you move the nest, the mama might abandon her chicks and they’ll die.”

“But we have to move it or the train will kill them. A bird’s nest can’t survive this close to the tracks.”

The railway employee removed his helmet and ran his hands through his hair. This was the last thing he needed this morning.

Just then, a train was coming. Oh, no. The horn blasted.

Two long. One short. Standard warning blast for a train approaching a crossing grade.

“Crap,” said one employee.

“What’ll we do?” said the other.

“I don’t know.”

The two railway employees just stared at each other. Unsure of what move to make next. They could either move the nest and probably kill the chicks, or leave it alone and watch them all die.

Nobody made any moves. Soon, it was too late. The booming CSX diesels were already roaring along the rails.

The two employees stood at a distance watching in mock disbelief as the monstrosity of iron and steel passed, with screams of metallic thunder.

It took a long time for the train to finally complete its crossing. The approximate length of a freight train in the US is 1.5 miles long. Sometimes it can be even longer, stretching…

“Dear Sean, yesterday’s column disappointed me. You cannot be a true believer and believe in ghosts at the same time. God simply doesn’t work that way.

“...I wonder if you know that ghosts are actually demons. …I’m shocked that you would entertain the subject of witchcraft in your writing. Please consider me a former follower. Thanks.”

Dear Former-Follower:

You won’t read any of this, since you no longer follow me. And, for the record, I don’t blame you for unfriending a witch. If I were you I wouldn’t follow me either. If for no other reason than because this witch uses way too many commas. So, believe, me, I, totally, get, it.

I guess I really demoralized the proverbial pooch with my last column about ghosts in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. I should have known better. You are right. Ghosts are evil. Ghosts are not holy. There can be no such thing as a holy ghost.

Well. Wait.

Let me start over.

I’ve been in Gettysburg for the last three days with my friend Bobby. We are lowly

musicians, playing a week’s worth of Civil War shows at the historic Majestic Theater.

We dress in Civil War attire. We sing and fiddle 160-year-old music for visitors who come to Gettysburg. We play two shows each day. And I’m honored to say we are receiving many standing ovations. True, these ovations are usually moving toward the exits. But still.

So anyway, getting back to ghosts. Ghosts are a huge topic here in Gettysburg. This town is home to the most reported paranormal activity claims in the world. Several companies offer ghost tours. Ghosts are a big business here.

Moreover, many tourists report seeing weird things. I am currently staying in a historic hotel, for example, that is supposedly haunted.

Throughout the years, staff members and guests have allegedly seen a Civil War nurse roaming these hallways. Her name is Rachel. Others claim to…

Gettysburg is a place of ghosts. That’s what they say. This town is known to historians and ghost hunters as the promised land for paranormal activity.

There’s the phantom regiment, sometimes heard marching through the streets.

There’s the specter of a little girl at the Tillie Pierce House, often heard playing in the other room, laughing and running around.

There are the cries of agony reported at Penn Hall. The historic college once served as a makeshift hospital during the war. Multiple claims have been made.

In the 1980s, for example, a few college administrators were working late. They took an elevator to the lower portion of Penn Hall. When the elevator doors opened, the administrators saw a room full of apparitions dressed in hospital attire, tending to fallen soldiers.

There are numerous reports of random figures walking battlefields. Noises heard, such as distant drumbeats, or feet marching, or faraway cannonfire. A lady in white, seen roaming streets, or standing in the killing fields.

Well, I don’t believe in ghosts. Never have.

But I have

to admit, there is a different vibe in this town. It’s in the air. I cannot describe it. It’s sort of a warm hunch you feel in your belly. A feeling that never leaves you.

“It’s always been this way,” says a woman who has lived in this town for 50-odd years. “When I first moved here, I felt kinda like there were angels all around me. All the time. Watching me. You get used to it.”

Tonight, Bobby and I perform at the historic Majestic Theater, built in 1925. It’s a nice theater. A big marquee, lit with candy-colored neon. Art deco interior. Exquisite popcorn.

But there is also a feeling in this place. A deep-in-your-gut feeling. Weird.

Then again, the land beneath this theater likely served as an impromptu embalming site for thousands of bodies after the battle. The amount of death this…

As our rental car eased into Gettysburg, past the brick-and-plank storefronts selling tourist trinkets, women’s fashion, artisan tacos, funnel cakes, and free CBD samples, my imagination was running amok.

It’s hard to imagine how many were killed in this battle. I don’t want to imagine. I don’t want to envision 160,000 men fighting on the soil of Adams County, Pennsylvania.

I don’t want to visualize the fields of matted down grass, sticky with blood. Nor do I want to think about how historians say this town had an ever-present odor for years after the battle.

What I want to think about instead, is a woman named Lydia Hamilton Smith.

You did not learn about Lydia in school. You’ll probably never hear her name.

But she was a local here. Lydia was born on Valentine's Day in a lowly tavern backroom, just up the road. Her mom was African American, her dad was Irish. You can just imagine how she was treated as a girl.

She married a free Black man named Jacob, and gave birth to

two sons. Her husband died in 1852 and she became a single mom.

She found a good job as housekeeper for a well-to-do guy in town. Things were going well for her.

But then came the 1860s.

Lydia’s oldest son died. Her other son, Isaac, a banjo player, enlisted in the 6th US Colored Troops in 1863. He marched off to Virginia.

War takes everything. It takes everything from every-ONE. It’s hard to imagine living through a war on our own soil. It’s hard to imagine enemy fire, shattering the windows of your schoolhouses, chewing up the clapboards of your local church.

Modern Americans are insulated from such horrors. But our own Civil War wasn’t that long ago. Six or seven generations.

Lydia was probably in the house on the day the battle took place. It was early July, 87 degrees. Sunny. The main…

Bobby and I played music before a theater of people at the Vista Retirement Community in Wyckoff, New Jersey. The Vista is a giant cruise ship on land, minus the lifeboats, slot machines, and go-go dancers.

The theater was dark except for randomized blinking medical alert bracelets, glowing like fireflies in the night. Parked next to the theater entrance was a corral of aluminum walkers tied to the hitching post.

I looked across a sea of white hair in the auditorium and realized I was the youngest in this room.

And here is no happier feeling than being a kid in the presence of one’s elders.

Americans are afraid of their elderly. Our culture is terrified of aging. Thus, our elders are often herded to the proverbial outskirts, and largely ignored.

If you don't believe me, look at our advertisements, commercials, and media. Young, young, young. You will not see white hair on television unless it is a commercial wherein Joe Namath heartily encourages you to apply for a reverse mortgage.

Prescription commercials show actors who are SUPPOSED to be elderly because they have grayish locks, except they are in their early 40s, with nasal piercings and sleeve tattoos.

We glorify youthful skin, physical beauty, muscular macho-ism, perpetually colored hair, ripped abdominals, and perfect butts that defy the cherished laws of physics.

You will not find a single ad featuring a lead role for someone over age 40. What you will find is youthful pop stars, dressed in dental-floss thong bikinis, taking the stage, earning billions for shaking their pelvis on camera.

Which is why Elvis deserves an apology. Elvis might have shaken his pelvis on camera, too. But at least he never took it out and showed it to anyone.

So anyway, it was a lovely theater at the retirement home. Bobby and I stood on a grand stage and did our best. Bobby played a banjo. I tortured…

We arrived in New Jersey at 5:18 p.m. The first actual New Jerseyan I met was the lady gas-station cashier.

“Will this be oh-WALL?” she asked, ringing up my coffee.

“Ma’am?” I said.

She gave me a no-nonsense glare. “I said ‘Will this be oh-WALL?’ Just the KWAH-fee?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She smiled. “Where you from?”

“Birmingham, ma’am.”

Another smile. She handed me a receipt and threw out a hip. “I ain’t your ‘ma’am,’ Alabama.”

We were officially welcomed into the Garden State by a celebratory traffic jam about the size of a rural voting district. After a few hours, we arrived at our destination. The Vista, a continuing care retirement community in Wyckoff.

I expected the Vista to be a nursing home. I expected three-pronged canes, and residents with walkers, all roving in tight social clots, like the Sharks and the Jets.

But the Vista is not a nursing home. At least not like any I’ve seen. This is a senior living community with first-class services and amenities, and over 160 finely detailed apartment homes offering stunning

views of the Ramapo Mountains. This is a permanent cruise ship.

The staff couldn’t have been friendlier. Residents were just as friendly. Everyone kept asking Bobby and me to “twalk” for them. Apparently people in Jersey like listening to us twalk.

We carried our luggage through the hallways. On our short journey we were suddenly accompanied by three kind older ladies who wanted to know all about us. Who we were. Where we were from. And how come we were so cute.

Three elderly women turned into five. Five turned into 7. Seven turned into 12. Soon, Bobby and I were the biggest thing to hit the Vista retirement community since the dawn of Velcro shoes.

I made instant friends with a woman named Mary Miller. Mary is slight, with perfectly coiffed hair, flawless makeup, T-strap pumps, and pristinely reapplied lipstick. She is…