Welcome to Thursday, good people! Thanks for starting it off in style by joining us here at The County Line.
If you know anything about our near-daily morning posts here, you know we’re all about celebrating the most obscure causes. These are the little-known, questionably named, usually recently created, generally unnecessary, and universally ignored holidays that we lovingly refer to as faux holidays.
The universally ignored tagline doesn’t quite fit anymore though, because even if the rest of the universe doesn’t care, we do, and in that spirit — a proud announcement: It’s National Superhero Day. Though the necessity for such a day is admittedly questionable, the arguments against it could quickly make one sound like, well, a supervillain.
The common understanding of a superhero is generally one of the fictional variety and one who possesses superhuman powers and abilities. It should be noted though, that there’s nothing that says superheroes can’t be real, walking among us as we speak. In fact, most information on the subject that’s available online includes a paragraph or two about these “real-life” superheroes, who are pretty much who you’d expect them to be: soldiers, public servants, doctors — basically anyone who makes a great sacrifice, saves lives, risks their life for others, or takes great personal risks for the greater good.
Most of us grow to recognize these real people as superheroes as we get older and can properly grasp the value of their efforts and sacrifices, but let’s be real – as youngsters, we wanted to be the “other” kind of superhero, the kind who defeated his city’s worst criminals with zingy one-liners and abilities that us regular humans could hardly fathom.
This writer wasn’t a Batman, Superman, or Spiderman kid back in the day. My generation’s superheroes ran in packs: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men, the Chicago Bulls, the Wu-Tang Clan.
No matter when you grew up or who happened to be your favorite, however, the experience of watching or reading superhero stories as a child, and fantasizing about the possibility that we might one day have those powers, is a collective memory almost all of us share. Getting older and recognizing that there are people in the real world who make just as big of an impact — even if it’s less showy than flying around in tights and a cape — can provide that same jolt of inspiration as an adult that the fictional version provided as a youngster.
Now that we have the validity of a national day for superheroes firmly established, the next question is: How to observe this holiday? It’s a fair question, and one only suited for Google. Here are the top tips, courtesy of the good folks at daysoftheyear.com, along with notes from this author, in parentheses and italics.
- Take your favorite superhero to lunch and say thank you for all they do. Let them know that you appreciate them. (This refers to the “real-life” versions we mentioned above — don’t try to take Batman to lunch.)
- Share what you think makes a hero. (Share with whom?)
- Take a picture with your favorite hero and post it on social media. (Again, we should assume this refers to the “real-life” variety.)
- Draw your version of a superhero. (Sure. Send it to us — we’ll post it to our Facebook page)
- If you could have one superpower, what would it be? (Now we’re getting somewhere!)
There you have it. The way to celebrate National Superhero Day is to contact us at The County Line and share what your superpower of choice would be, and a reason for your pick. Get to us via email at countyline@adair-russell.com or shoot us a Facebook message. We’ll share our favorite suggestions in a subsequent post. Responses can be as long or as short as the writer desires, the only suggestion from us: Be creative!
That’s all for now, so we’ll end our chat this morning with the intern’s weather report:
Just a few minutes after 6 a.m., it’s 45 degrees at the County Line’s headquarters in Russell Springs. Intern correspondents in Jamestown and Columbia report current thermometer readings of 45 and 44 degrees, respectively. Those numbers will increase rapidly throughout the morning, however, and The County Line coverage area should expect a high in the mid-70s, peaking around 3-4 p.m.
Thanks for joining us and check back later for plenty of new content throughout the day!
