My Dad is Batman

My dad is Batman and for that I am profoundly thankful. During my 8^th or 9^th grade years (’67 or ’68, can’t remember which it was) at Clark Junior High (yes kids, back then we had two 3-year junior highs in the Crescenta Valley) I went to a weekend winter camp with forty or fifty kids. Gary Baker was the LCPC Youth Pastor, my mom and dad were youth advisors, and Batman the TV series was in full swing staring Adam West as Batman, Burt Ward as Dick Grayson, Alan Napier as Alfred and dozens of comedic actors as villains and villainesses such as Catwoman (Julie Newmar & Eartha Kitt – wouldn’t that make it Catwomen?), The Penguin (Burgess Meredith), The Joker (Cesar Romero), and The Riddler (Frank Gorshin). The point here is that some good actors loved being bad guys in a cheesy TV show taken straight from the 40’s comic books. People love parody.

Saturday night at Camp Owongo we gathered for fellowship after dinner and a full day of snow activities - that’s right, back then we had snow in the local mountains during winter. Camp songs had been sung, a lesson given, and a table set up in front of the crowd when out from a side door came Pastor Gary Baker dressed in full-on chef’s regalia or chef’s whites, complete with white double-breasted jacket, white pants, and his head topped by a puffy toque (chef’s hat). He came out carrying a mixer, a bag of flower, and few other odd kitchen implements, set them up and introduced himself as ‘The Mad Baker’ and began telling us of his evil plot to enslave us and began mixing the potent compound he’d use to do it all the while flicking bits of flower at the front row. His performance was consummate and we were rolling in the aisles laughing. The humor was a bit tempered for me because as an advisor’s kid I knew who was a likely ‘volunteer’ for clean-up.

The Mad Baker quieted and, if possible, grew more sinister. He threw out malevolent looks to the crowd until we settled down, if only for a moment because that’s when Batman burst from the kitchen door, complete with a spandex costume straight from the TV screen - grey tights, black silky cape and head gear with matching silky shorts and gloves, and plastic boots and belt completed the scene. My dad’s voice bellowed from below the mask, and he could bellow with the best, “Not so fast Mad Baker!” The place fell apart and the fight scene ensued, worthy of the TV screen, flower puffed in every direction, POW! BAM! and WHAM! - until the foe was vanquished. Legend. For that three-year generation of Junior High kids, my dad was Batman and he was frequently greeted as such.

  

I didn’t mind the cleanup. After all, that was my dad who had saved us. It’s funny in so many ways but still, I find it emblematic of my dad’s heart. He is an Elder in the Presbyterian Church. He looks after the people, guides them, teaches and directs them. And he protects them. I tell you that my dad is a shepherd after God’s own heart.

From time to time I’m asked why I’m in youth ministry or why I’m still doing youth work. Most times I give inquisitor a simple math equation. Genetics plus God’s call. I’m happy with that. It is no wonder that I got involved with youth work early on, informally as a senior high student with junior high kids and then as a Sunday School teacher of third graders while a freshman at Glendale Community College. I hold my folks in high esteem and look up to them and how they conducted themselves as parents with faith. People who know us from those days and are peers of my parents don’t ask, they know why we serve as we do. Some folks shake their heads and wonder if I should be working with youth but until I’m led elsewhere, this is where I’ll be.

I'm not great with PhotoShop but
you get the idea

I don’t have a specific memory of this, but I have a photo of me standing up in the palm of my dad’s hand and looking around as if it were the most normal thing for me to be doing as a one-year old. The photo is emblematic of the way I’ve come to think of dad, holding me up, letting me look things over. ‘He’s got my back’ is the say it would be said these days. I frequently sign off on letters and such for Christian communications, ‘In His Grip’. It’s a phrase I picked up from my friend Darren Bottino shortly after my family first came back to LCPC and I got involved with the junior highs there again. That’s how I think of things, ‘In His Grip’ or in the palm of His hand. From time to time over the years I’ve imagined that photo with my dad in his Batman costume.

We all have choices to make in how we remember the people in our lives and the events that have shaped us. Choose the ones that give you peace and make you smile. Laugh a little, it’s okay.

Dad, thanks for having me in the palm of your hand and teaching me early on that putting on tights and a cape in front a bunch of junior high kids is natural.

In His Grip,

jerry white