It has been a trying winter at Carlsbad Caverns. We recently had a collective going away party for the last
five seasonal rangers to go off to their new parks and new
adventures. They asked us each to give an informal exit speech.
Reluctantly, after urging from my peers, I stepped to the “podium.”
A slightly-edited version of what I said:
“As you all know, my childhood hero
was Spider-Man. I wanted to be Spider-Man: to scale sheer walls, to
swing from webs, catapult myself from a web-slingshot, and kick-out
villains with both feet. It never quite happened.
But when I arrived for work at Carlsbad
Caverns for the first time in May 2013, I learned that my proving
ground would be Spider Cave. I was nervous. I had been on one wild
cave tour before, when I was twelve. That was long ago. Had I become
claustrophobic? There was only one way to find out.
I emerged from Spider Cave covered in
red dirt, having belly-crawled through the narrow passageways, with
the red crusts of corrosion residue all over the walls, the ghostly
calcite formations—the gnome and the Medusa room and the pirate ship. I
emerged victorious—I had survived Spider Cave. Therefore, I must be
a Spider-Man!
Later that summer, I delivered my first
bat flight program, at the amphitheater overlooking the natural
entrance to Carlsbad Cavern. I spoke of the Batman symbol and Native
American stories of bats as heroes, and the heroic feats that real
bats perform, such as keeping insect populations under control. And
the bats emerged, the counterclockwise spiral cloud, which has graced
our landscape in summer evenings for many millennia. The people
watched in awed silence as the bats filled the purple sky. They
flapped and whizzed around me, inches from my nose and 500 feet
overhead. And so I was Batman.
At what other job do you get to be BOTH
Spider-Man and Batman?
My favorite Spider-Man story was “If This Be My Destiny....!”, from the original 1960s run, by Steve
Ditko and Stan Lee. This tale remains a classic, an influence and
inspiration to generations of cartoonists and readers. After a
battle with Doctor Octopus, Spidey has recovered a rare
isotope needed to cure Aunt May from a deadly disease. But
unfortunately, Spidey is pinned to the ground by a block of fallen
machinery the size of a building. Cold water drips on his head and
soaks his body. At first, he remembers his failures and gives up, and
prepares to die alone under the crushing weight. Then he thinks of
his family and all the people who need him, especially Aunt May. He
musters the strength and will to lift the machine. You can feel the
force and the power, as trembling with agony, he rises to his feet, hoists the
titanic hunk of metal and casts it backward.
It reminds me of this winter season at
Carlsbad Caverns. We went through 'breaking bat' and 'sewergate' and
the rest. We faced broken water lines and broken sewers, and walked
on iced-over pathways through winter gusts to reach the
port-o-potties. We filled jugs with water in White City, and filled
buckets from the trickle off the rooftops. We took hell from the
powers that be over minutia and things not our fault. And, by
strength of this family, this community, we still lifted the machine.
We kept Carlsbad Caverns a world-class National Park. A pristine cave
and home for bats, and an unforgettable experience for the people who
visit. This victory is collective.
Whenever Tales of the Uncanny from
About Comics comes out, look for a parody of the lifting scene,
written and drawn by yours truly!
Batflight photo by NPS, public domain.
ASM #33 cover by Steve Ditko, copyrighted to Marvel, used here for educational purposes only.
